Cave diving on CC is safer than on OC?

[L13]

He was replying to AJ not to me in the post I quoted, Sherlock.

Case in point. The last phrase of that was gratuitous. As a style, it is more likely to get the poster muted, even it it wasn't addressed to them.

And please put me on your ignore list and stop tagging me with your nonsense.

But then I would have to deal with those funny threads where I only hear half the conversation.

If you mute me, you won't see my comments, if you don't want to.

 

[lostsheep]

I've notice that some people who love to ask others their qualifications hate it when they get asked the same kinds questions.

The truth is, when asked just for information, it is valuable. When asked as an argument for or against an idea, it is ad hominem.

A good argument stands on its own regardless of who says it, but some times the context of the expertise of the speaker does help judge the likelihood that the statement is good before expending the energy to evaluate the statement itself.

I have not stated my opinion one way or another for the topic of this thread thus my experience or lack thereof is irrelevant.

 

[L13]

I have not stated my opinion one way or another for the topic of this thread.

Nor have I.

More qualified people than myself are making all the arguments I would. It will be taken more seriously from them than me. I was just commenting on the defensiveness you encountered from your question.

The person you questioned asks the same kind of questions all the time, usually as a way of discounting an argument he doesn't like. Your question lacked the context to think it was an argument in itself, rather than a request for information.

 

[rjack321]

The use of a rebreather is inherently more dangerous than OC because of its complexity and possible failures. People should stop twisting the facts when giving advice to others.

Mutiple people have died because they got disoriented and swam back and forth along the Paso de Lagarto line in the Grand Cenote system (outside of Tulum MX) until they ran out of gas and drowned. It's very much a tourist cave. So many folks have died in that section the cave is now closed to divers. Would they have drowned on CCR? Probably not. Does that make CCR "safer" than OC? Also probably not. But that's the kind of answer you get to an oversimplified and inherently flawed question.

 

[Celt]

Mutiple people have died because they got disoriented and swam back and forth along the Paso de Lagarto line in the Grand Cenote system (outside of Tulum MX) until they ran out of gas and drowned. It's very much a tourist cave. So many folks have died in that section the cave is now closed to divers. Would they have drowned on CCR? Probably not. Does that make CCR "safer" than OC? Also probably not. But that's the kind of answer you get to an oversimplified and inherently flawed question.

I think the question was designed to cause a row, or just plain silly. You can’t prove or disprove anything with dead divers if they’re the only witnesses. A rebreather by its very nature is more dangerous than OC. irrespective of human error.

 

[tomfcrist]

Do you even read posts before you write an answer?

Was I talking to you?

 

[rddvet]

Mutiple people have died because they got disoriented and swam back and forth along the Paso de Lagarto line in the Grand Cenote system (outside of Tulum MX) until they ran out of gas and drowned. It's very much a tourist cave. So many folks have died in that section the cave is now closed to divers. Would they have drowned on CCR? Probably not. Does that make CCR "safer" than OC? Also probably not. But that's the kind of answer you get to an oversimplified and inherently flawed question.

Damnit. You're reminding me one of my favorite cave sections in mexico is much harder to get to nowadays. Do it from the other end every once in a while, but I miss grand cenote. IMO one of the most underrated mexican caves along with Taj Maha because people think they're training or tourist caves

 

[BoltSnap]

The discussion was very informative until folks started attacking each other.

Why don't you all have a break and get some ice cream and cool off please? I enjoyed reading everyone's posts until the the last few posts.

 

[rddvet]

Do you dive CCR @berndo ?

Berndo is also known as Bent on CDF (I'm 99.9999% postive). His MO is to try to annoy people with his point rather than trying to see both sides of the coin. (He'll now chime in saying basically the same thing about me)

Intuitively I think a lot of people would agree, but then, does it really matter how far are you in the cave?

Yes, IMO it does. While yes, you should be carrying the same % of emergency gas in the first 1000 feet vs the back 5000 (Note I'm not saying total amount of gas, amount you calculate based on distance being traveled), a dive to the back of Ginnie is very different than a dive in the front of Ginnie. If I'm way back in the new section, any emergency will be amplified by distance. Again IMO. I am not the holy graill of all answers, just sharing my thoughts.

The use of a rebreather is inherently more dangerous than OC because of its complexity and possible failures. People should stop twisting the facts when giving advice to others.

I don't think anyone is denying the fact that the complexity and failures modes of a ccr are are significantly more. But I think the thing we have to consider is how on a dive by dive basis the risk to reward ratio changes. As I've said, if I'm going further back in a cave, I prefer CCR because it gives me more options.

Sidenote: I didn't realize until after I had posted my other comments that the OP was talking about "tourist" dives. But I think that muddies the water, because everybody disagrees with what a "tourist' dive looks like. There are dudes (and dudettes) regularly coming down to Florida once or twice a year doing dives that I consider very advanced dives that I would work my way up to, but they think its just an easy cake dive. Mind you some of these people are also the ones that don't calculate gas needs and wing it, and one of which died in a cave. So I think this discussion should not be generalized to what people deem to be "easy" dives.

 

[Pavao]

You're misunderstanding what I said and you wrong about 'just one Canadian guy'.

How many people run out of gas compared to how many rebreather accidents?
If the 'fix' (using a ccr) causes more accidents that the issue (people running out of gas), it's not a great fix.

I answered your question as it was asked.

Tomfcrist suggested that CCR divers have more time to solve problems compared to OC divers due to “unlimited” gas supply.

You countered that asking how many accidents we see which were a result of a delayed exit, thus running out of gas, and comparing that to number of CCR accidents.

And I’m answering that virtually ALL OC deaths were due to running out of gas, something else may have been the root cause of the accident, but eventually what made the difference between them coming out alive or not was not having enough gas to reach the nearest gas source, a rebreather would have been one way to change that outcome. This is not the same as saying CCR is a fix for this particular issue, it’s simply an acknowledgement that rebreather offers more time to solve issues, where OC would suffer greatly from time pressure, stress lvls would likely be elevating just as fast as that clock is ticking.

Of course CCR is more complex than OC and it comes with a lot more risks, there are a lot more potential for something to go wrong than OC, this on its own suggests OC is safer than CCR, not sure many people dispute that, the key is finding where the advantages of CCR outweighs its risks as compared to OC.


I want to further clarify, this isn’t an argument for the CCR is safer than OC debate, I personally think its more complex than a simple statement, and I think it was already answered earlier on.

I haven’t done an OC cave dive in a while, not because it really “needed” to be done on CCR, when I go to cave country I pack my CCR because I want to do dives where I feel it’s the safer option, but while there I may do dives where OC would be more than adequate, but bringing OC gear on the trip would be a pita logistically, if I lived in cave country I would be doing a lot of my dives in OC, can’t beat that simplicity!