Innovation in diving

[TONY CHANEY]

As I posted on CDF:

I truly believe that we, as a very concerned community, are approaching these deaths in the wrong manner. Why are we trying to remove ourselves from these two deaths and not embracing them? This is the best time to promote training and not discussing if it was a cave diving accident or open water accident. It happened while diving in a cave so it is a cave diving accident. Nothing more nothing less. I equally feel that we can take these deaths and use then to show what can go wrong without proper training. For example: 1) You need to be trained to scuba dive and the son was not trained. 2) It was a deep dive requiring decompression of which neither had training for. 3) It was a very deep dive and the use of trimix needed of which neither had training for. 4) It was a cave dive and neither had training for.

At this time, more than ever we have the media on our side and the world listening. This is the time to reach as many people as possible and we are losing that chance each and every day. I, personally, have never had as many friends, love ones, coworkers etc. asking me questions pertaining to the sport I love.​

---------- Post added January 5th, 2014 at 02:29 PM ----------

...One of the contentions that has come up involves whether we should 'let' people retain such personal liberty that they can (despite signs & other public education efforts) continue to make their own (adult) decisions to do foolish, dangerous things that may get them killed...

...or whether there should be more regulation, some sort of licensing system, and people could even check for some kind of permit displayed on the vehicle and 'call the authorities/police' if it were absent.

It's my subjective impression that gianaameri tended to have the latter view, whereas a number of us have had the former.

So now gianaameri posts about having chosen to make a cave dive. Granted, cave certified and far more knowledgeable and experienced about the matter at hand, but still a cave dive that...

...some other people consider ill-advised and that should not have been done! Why, there are probably some people in this world that would have put a stop to that if they could have.

And so, once again, do you want liberty, or do you want Big Brother telling you what to do, even if under the latter system your statistical likelihood of longer life expectancy is higher?

Richard.

I see your very valid point. I dislike nanny government but there are times when rules and regulations need to enforced. I feel that everyone has certain liberties. Ever wonder why the father and son chose to dive Little River and Eagles Nest? My guess is because these two sites are the easiest to gain access to with few people around and no one to enforce who dives there and who doesn't.

If somebody wants to play a round of golf in lighting storm then I am OK with that. Their decision has nothing to do with me. But, if somebody wants to do a cave dive, deep dive wreck, ice dive without the proper equipment ot training then I have a problem with that. Golfer dies and it really has very little impact on the sport. But a dive in the enviroments above require other divers risking their life performing the resuce. If you think that a remote dive site, in a cave and very deep is hard try doing it while bringing out a body! Also the regulations increase and the chance that the dive site will be closed. The Grandfather already wants EN closed and it was off limits for a few years before due to deaths. That is just my take on the situation.

 

[flots am]

If everyone thought in such a manner, Einstein never would have left the patent office. A continuing trend I'm starting to see in this industry, and specifically among technical divers, is a blind obsession with "the way things are" and an almost complete shutout of "the way things could be". Why is it that so many of us are willing to endanger our lives for something we love, yet we go off the deep end when someone else endangers theirs in a way deemed inappropriate?

There are plenty of ways to do things better. The difference is that these two did a dive with an amount of gas that could be mathematically proven to be insufficient and therefore fatal, if they had had even the most minimal training in any sort of technical diving. or even applied what would have been taught in a good OW class.

When the penalty for a mistake is death, you don't want to start "doing things your way," you want to build on known-good practices and make them better.

---------- Post added January 5th, 2014 at 02:51 PM ----------

If you don't think that your mind is less acurate, asked anyone with a few hundred dives about the times that they thought the right direction was this way but the compass said differently.

It goes both ways. Near metal wrecks, debris fields and various mineral deposits that are common all over the world, a compass is nearly worthless. However "sense of direction" is also pretty much worthless.

My personal choice is to follow a line.

 

[pocky21]

There are plenty of ways to do things better. The difference is that these two did a dive with an amount of gas that could be mathematically proven to be insufficient and therefore fatal, if they had had even the most minimal training in any sort of technical diving. or even applied what would have been taught in a good OW class.

I should have clarified that my post was a contribution to the argument centering on gianaa's post. The father/son ordeal has long since left my concerns.

First, innovation is a good thing- but not when unjustified by the risk-reward ratio.

Omission, any sane man would agree with you. However, the subjectivity of this statement leaves much to interpretation and leads to multiple black hole arguments such as the "calculated risk" one. The point of my statement wasn't so much to say "we're doing it wrong", but that we need to keep an open mind that looks to include, rather than exclude. If this means a reversal of fundamental principles, then so be it. The goal is to make things safer, not cling to standards because that's how it's always been.

Having said that, there have been many "insane" people throughout the course of history who have inspired countless innovations by challenging conventional wisdom. Those who fail to make such a contribution are branded fools and idiots, those who succeed are champions of men. I myself applaud anyone who tries in the first place.

 

[gianaameri]

I am so tempted not to stir the pot on this long-running thread, but the irony is just too delicious for me.

One of the contentions that has come up involves whether we should 'let' people retain such personal liberty that they can (despite signs & other public education efforts) continue to make their own (adult) decisions to do foolish, dangerous things that may get them killed...

...or whether there should be more regulation, some sort of licensing system, and people could even check for some kind of permit displayed on the vehicle and 'call the authorities/police' if it were absent.

It's my subjective impression that gianaameri tended to have the latter view, whereas a number of us have had the former.

So now gianaameri posts about having chosen to make a cave dive. Granted, cave certified and far more knowledgeable and experienced about the matter at hand, but still a cave dive that...

...some other people consider ill-advised and that should not have been done! Why, there are probably some people in this world that would have put a stop to that if they could have.

And so, once again, do you want liberty, or do you want Big Brother telling you what to do, even if under the latter system your statistical likelihood of longer life expectancy is higher?

Richard.

Where one's action can endanger others, then there should be some protocol/regulations.

EN should be regulated and CLOSED to all cave untrained divers.

Same for any caves where untrained divers die.

Nothing can prepare a person for cave diving other than prior and proper cave training.

With proper cave training then the individual can make a risk assessment and chose when, where, how, and with whom to dive - that is his/her acceptable level of risk.

 

[HIGHwing]

I think the contrast of your recent cave dive and your thoughts about rebreather safety previously presented all over the boards months ago are fascinating. On one hand you're willing to use equipment you know does not meet functional testing/design standards, you're willing to break your own standard process to complete a dive, but when someone else does and loses you call for regulation.

I'm trying to evaluate all your various postings and positions and determine if you're simply a contrarian or whether you desire everyone else to live by standards you don't personally subscribe. You can't save everyone from themselves with your arguments about CCRs or caves. In fact, you can't say the next death at a fenced Eagle's Nest would result from the cave or someone hanging themselves on the new fence post.

Unless you're going to fence and post guards at every cave entrance in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama - forget it. Florida sits above a Swiss cheese of limestone; the surface is littered with swimming pools, and the entire state is bordered by water with a gigantic lake in the center.

Regulating single dive site in Florida over the deaths of two incompetent individuals?! I think if you really want something to reevaluate focus your energy on "Mini-Season" instead.

 

[Jack Hammer]

In my experience the resistance to many these "new" and "revolutionary" changes to the way things are done are that many proposed "improvements" that seem like great ideas are shot down because they have been proven to not work in the past or more often than not open unwanted exposure to more issues than they cure. Most tech divers I know will eagerly jump on well thought out better ways to do things that actually improve overall safety.

 

[drrich2]

Nothing can prepare a person for cave diving other than prior and proper cave training.

For practical purposes, I agree.

With proper cave training then the individual can make a risk assessment and chose when, where, how, and with whom to dive - that is his/her acceptable level of risk.

On the other the other hand, you don't have to be cave certified, or under the thumb of a nanny state, to recognize that cave diving is too dangerous for a non-cave certified person to reasonably engage in.

I'm not cave or cavern certified. I have the same access to online and other publicly posted resources available Spivey would've in terms to learning about cave diving without formal course work. And even I, very limited as my knowledge on the subject is, know that cave diving would be ridiculously dangerous for me, and that I need to get formal training and certification for it before I engage in it.

Sometimes making an effective risk assessment amounts to understanding something is too dangerous for you to be wise, and declining to do it.

So if I decide to cave dive without getting proper training and certification, it's not someone else's moral duty to tackle and restrain me on the way to the dive site, or call the police on me. (Granted, if I were taking a minor, that would be a different scenario).

Richard.

P.S: The one compelling issue for potentially coercive intervention I've seen raised is that deaths might lead to cave access being barred. Due to the assumption that the rights-disrespecting over-controlling nanny state big government often controlled by ignorant busy bodies modern day U.S. government will infringe the right of the freedom of pursuit of happiness of many to inappropriately save fools from self-destructing.

The same government likely to be handling regulation, I fear. Efforts to regulate access without government involvement would be hard to piece together, require land owner cooperation, and when someone was charged with trespassing for being out of compliance, wouldn't the landowner have to press charges & go to court? How many are willing to engage in the hassle?

 

[gianaameri]

For practical purposes, I agree.



On the other the other hand, you don't have to be cave certified, or under the thumb of a nanny state, to recognize that cave diving is too dangerous for a non-cave certified person to reasonably engage in.

I'm not cave or cavern certified. I have the same access to online and other publicly posted resources available Spivey would've in terms to learning about cave diving without formal course work. And even I, very limited as my knowledge on the subject is, know that cave diving would be ridiculously dangerous for me, and that I need to get formal training and certification for it before I engage in it.

Sometimes making an effective risk assessment amounts to understanding something is too dangerous for you to be wise, and declining to do it.

So if I decide to cave dive without getting proper training and certification, it's not someone else's moral duty to tackle and restrain me on the way to the dive site, or call the police on me. (Granted, if I were taking a minor, that would be a different scenario).

Richard.

P.S: The one compelling issue for potentially coercive intervention I've seen raised is that deaths might lead to cave access being barred. Due to the assumption that the rights-disrespecting over-controlling nanny state big government often controlled by ignorant busy bodies modern day U.S. government will infringe the right of the freedom of pursuit of happiness of many to inappropriately save fools from self-destructing.

The same government likely to be handling regulation, I fear. Efforts to regulate access without government involvement would be hard to piece together, require land owner cooperation, and when someone was charged with trespassing for being out of compliance, wouldn't the landowner have to press charges & go to court? How many are willing to engage in the hassle?

These caves are not just caves which Spivey discovered on his own going into the wilderness and decided to enter/explore.

They are on public land exploited for commercial gain by groups and individuals.

There is a saying where I cave dive, "When an instructor sees a cave, he sees money."

So, when there is commercial exploitation of the caves, and people die in them, some effective self-regulation would seem the sensible option.

---------- Post added January 5th, 2014 at 08:09 PM ----------

I think the contrast of your recent cave dive and your thoughts about rebreather safety previously presented all over the boards months ago are fascinating. On one hand you're willing to use equipment you know does not meet functional testing/design standards, you're willing to break your own standard process to complete a dive, but when someone else does and loses you call for regulation.

I'm trying to evaluate all your various postings and positions and determine if you're simply a contrarian or whether you desire everyone else to live by standards you don't personally subscribe. You can't save everyone from themselves with your arguments about CCRs or caves. In fact, you can't say the next death at a fenced Eagle's Nest would result from the cave or someone hanging themselves on the new fence post.

Unless you're going to fence and post guards at every cave entrance in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama - forget it. Florida sits above a Swiss cheese of limestone; the surface is littered with swimming pools, and the entire state is bordered by water with a gigantic lake in the center.

Regulating single dive site in Florida over the deaths of two incompetent individuals?! I think if you really want something to reevaluate focus your energy on "Mini-Season" instead.

It is not the first two who die in caves... the story keeps on repeating itself and cannot be dismissed as easily as you try to dismiss it (i.e. "Regulating single dive site in Florida over the deaths of two incompetent individuals?").

As to your other comments, you know I did not use a rebreather for the dive in question precisely because it would have not been safe to do so and it did not meet my standards, and I drastically downsized the dive plan to one which was manageable and to my standards/level/limits/abilities (separate topic maybe?).

 

[drrich2]

I did not judge your dive at all (or mean to come across that way), much less to be a badly planned one. My point was that others apparently did, and in a regulated environment, an outside agency might have acted to bar you from making your own choice.

You're an adult. You, having access to the means to prepare yourself properly, planned the dive, made some modifications to that plan to account for the situation, and chose to do the dive. I have no issue with that.

Richard.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

As to your other comments, you know I did not use a rebreather for the dive in question precisely because it would have not been safe to do so and it did not meet my standards, and I drastically downsized the dive plan to one which was manageable and to my standards/level/limits/abilities (separate topic maybe?).

I cannot believe that you are still trying to downplay / justify your decision to dive without a bottom timer, depth guage or computer. You have no way of knowing about nitrogen, oxygen, depth or time. You also failed to tell me what cave you were diving that has depth markings on the line. You act like you knew the cave but also talked about being into a new section that before you have not entered due to the size of the RB. You also stress about putting other lives at risk during rescues but I guess the rules don't apply to you. Care to explain why you don't post your dive on CDF?