Acccident Waiting To Happen

[mavjax]

I don't know if this is appropriate under this topic but I thought I would share it as it has bothered me since yesterday.

We were diving a well known an popular spring in North Florida yesterday. The main, easily diveable part of the spring ends at about 50 ft after which there is a cave system that drops to 157 feet and a lateral distance of over 1500 feet (if I remember correctly).

Yesterday morning we were down the main shaft, hovering just above the bottom at around 45 feet watching the snails and little mite things do whatever they were doing (I know, some would say I need to get a life but such things might be appreciated here ).

All of a sudden my legs were bumped.

I turned to see a rather large gentleman with a DPV who had just bumped into me (coming down from above). I then watched him as he tried to manouver and eventually plunked the DPV on the bottom, and swam around a bit. This gent had a flashing stobe on the top of his tank, decent cave light and started looking down into the darkness. All I could think about was that if he took is DPV into that cave, I could see him not coming back.

I guess what bothers me about this is that we have more than our share of dive incidents here in Florida and it has an real impact on the public's perception of diving. However, the real issue in the majority of these cases is that people don't seem to understand that YOU CAN DIE UNDERWATER. For the life of me I can't understand what is so difficult about the concept. and that fact that you need to dive within your own personal limits (and equally important understand what those limits realistically are).

Just my thoughts on a Monday morning as I sit at my desk wishing I had a tank on my back.

[roturner]

Did he go in the cave?

R..

[OE2X]

Sorry you got bumped. It sounds as if he did stop though and didn't go any further into the cave? As long as he stayed within his training limits, then was he really an accident waiting to happen? Maybe the guy has the DPV because he is out of shape, but still wants to checkout the site without getting a workout.

[Padipro]

I see the same kind of thing all the time. People that wouldn't think of messing with a wild animal while on a camping trip somewhere don't seem to have any trouble poking at some marine creature they've never seen before, have no idea what it is or what it's capable of doing, and then being dumbfounded when the thing attacks them. I've seem them stand there on the boat gasping for breath after nearly drowning saying something like "I can't understand why it latched onto me like that, all I was trying to do was get it out of the hole so I could take a picture of it". DUH!!!

I think the line from the movie Animal House says it best, "Fat and stupid is no way to go through life son".

[OneBrightGator]

A quick mental review of springs that are actually open and one that fits your description does not come to mind.

[mavjax]

I was at the end of my dive and had to pack up for the 4+ hour trip back to Jax on I-10 with Sunday traffic so I'm not sure if he went in, but he certainly looked like his intent was to go in.

Also...to clarify, when I said he was a large gentleman I should have said very tall, big (as in I'm not going to mess with him)..... Physical fitness did not appear to be an issue with this dude.

[GDI]

Your discription is very vague. What did he have for equipment such as cylinders, was he cave certified, DPV certified, where was his buddy?What springs are you talking about?

[mavjax]

Your discription is very vague. What did he have for equipment such as cylinders, was he cave certified, DPV certified, where was his buddy?What springs are you talking about?

Vortex Springs
Tank appeared to be 100cf
Pony bottle strapped to the side of the primary tank and had it's own regulator.
Primary dive light looked like a Shockwave or similar
No buddy in the water when I saw him.
No idea about the certs.

[OneBrightGator]

Did you mention anything to the management? I'm sure they would have appreciated hearing about this.

[roturner]

Did you mention anything to the management? I'm sure they would have appreciated hearing about this.

Well.....I don't know if they have any rules at these places but what on earth are you going to say to them..... "hey man, you'd better watch out, I saw a diver down there and it freaked me out.....".

Was it a restricted zone? Do they have rules against solo diving? Are stobe lights a world shaking problem?...... What could the management have possibly acted upon? Man you don't even know anything about the diver in question. It could have been the world's most famous cave explorer for all we know.

R..