Accident at Vortex Springs 8-20-10
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I think it is becoming more and more obvious that training is coming dangerously close to "too abbreviated." Divers being turned out are given a very brief overview of many things, and have less and less deep discussions or understandings. They might be told not to go into overhead, but you would simply not believe how many divers I meet who tell me all about their dives that go way past the limits of their open water training. That is anecdotal evidence, true, but I firmly believe that divers are not nearly as well educated now as they were even 5 years ago.
I agree that open water instructors pose high risk, as they feel they know everything about diving. Another high risk category are those open water divers who dive in caves without training. They venture in slowly at first then gain experience. Their experience makes them feel like cave diving is easy. maybe they go with a buddy who is cavern or intro certified, maybe they read up on cave diving on the internet. They begin to feel as if they know everything they could learn in a cave course, and like they are invincible. They feel like the open water divers who die in caves are less skilled than them.
They begin to perceive a very low cost of cave diving, as they never experience any downside. Then, they make a mistake, and they pay with their life. Then, we see that the average cost per dive was huge, if you "amortized" or "depreciated" the expense. For example, if they died on the 6th cave dive, then you could assume that the average cost per dive was a limb. However, because you don't pay limb by limb, they feel as if there is no cost to cave diving until they die.
So lets say Ben dives caves a lot. Perhaps he's done 100 dives inf ront of the grate. Then he's done 20 within 100 feet of the grate on the other side. He gets a deco bottle, he feels he knows what he is doing. He goes in further this time, an something happens. Most likely, something easy that we are trained to deal with in a cave class. He is too bouyant or negative. A light fails. A fin falls off, his mask floods, he loses the main line, the line breaks, a freeflow, a siltout, an entanglement, something happens. There are hundreds of little things that could happen to a diver, that we practice in cave training, that you don't practice with the "gradually easing into cave diving" method. Especially if you dive alone, no one is there to critique you or push you. Things snowball. It's easy to claw your way into a tight spot when you are literally out of your mind.
I don't think you can imagine a siltout if you haven't experienced one. The water is cold. The silt feels slightly warm against your face and hands. You can't tell which way isup. Your light, bright enough to cause eye damage normally, cannot be seen. Not even a glow, until it is within an inch of your mask. It is darkness like you cannot possibly imagine. You get more than 2 feet from the line, and suddenly it is worlds away. You have to know what to do at that point, or else all is likely lost. You must pull out your safety spool or reel, tie off on a rock, and feel your way back to the mainline. If he didn't have the safety, or if he dropped it, or if it jammed, or if he forgot about it in a panic because he'd never practiced, then he's in the dark. With the broken line, I tend to think there might have been an entanglement. either that, or in a siltout, perhaps he pulled on the line, and it snapped, leaving him lost again. Either way, he would have literally been out of his mind, I would imagine. Having been in a siltout like I just described, my heart almost stopped for the 2 seconds it tok to reach out and grab the line. It seemed like an eternity. Then, there was a line trap, a place where the line went that I couldn't fit, I had to extend my arm all the way and squeeze through, in that silt so dark I would describe it as negative visibility. Without training, I would likely have died in the cave that day. With training, having gone through that exercise before, I was still extremely scared for a few seconds. It was a "come to jesus" dive where I had to evaluate whether I wanted to keep diving.
Basically what I am trying to say is, the people most at risk are the Ben's, who gradually enter caves and find it safe. Without training, little things can kill you. I do not know what happened down there, what i wrote above was just my attempt to describe how a person could panic. I don't want anyone to ever go through that, which is why I am so...busily? trying to point out how bad it is that people enter caves routinely without training.
All of you friends and family reading this, I really am sorry for your loss. Having two friends who died, and having read the accident reports and talked to the recovery divers, I never want anyone to die in a panic in a cave. I am incredibly anxious to prevent there from being more Ben's, and I hope that sentiment comes through in my posts. I don't mean to seem rude. I am praying just as you are that Ben's remains are found quickly so he can be given a proper, respectful burial, and I will join you in a moment of silence out of respect for the deceased at that time.
PLEASE do not think any of this information comes close to teaching you how to cave dive! I described some actions taken by a cave diver, but it in no way comes close to teaching you the proper way to act in these circumstances. Anything I post is no substitute to training!
I agree that open water instructors pose high risk, as they feel they know everything about diving. Another high risk category are those open water divers who dive in caves without training. They venture in slowly at first then gain experience. Their experience makes them feel like cave diving is easy. maybe they go with a buddy who is cavern or intro certified, maybe they read up on cave diving on the internet. They begin to feel as if they know everything they could learn in a cave course, and like they are invincible. They feel like the open water divers who die in caves are less skilled than them.
They begin to perceive a very low cost of cave diving, as they never experience any downside. Then, they make a mistake, and they pay with their life. Then, we see that the average cost per dive was huge, if you "amortized" or "depreciated" the expense. For example, if they died on the 6th cave dive, then you could assume that the average cost per dive was a limb. However, because you don't pay limb by limb, they feel as if there is no cost to cave diving until they die.
So lets say Ben dives caves a lot. Perhaps he's done 100 dives inf ront of the grate. Then he's done 20 within 100 feet of the grate on the other side. He gets a deco bottle, he feels he knows what he is doing. He goes in further this time, an something happens. Most likely, something easy that we are trained to deal with in a cave class. He is too bouyant or negative. A light fails. A fin falls off, his mask floods, he loses the main line, the line breaks, a freeflow, a siltout, an entanglement, something happens. There are hundreds of little things that could happen to a diver, that we practice in cave training, that you don't practice with the "gradually easing into cave diving" method. Especially if you dive alone, no one is there to critique you or push you. Things snowball. It's easy to claw your way into a tight spot when you are literally out of your mind.
I don't think you can imagine a siltout if you haven't experienced one. The water is cold. The silt feels slightly warm against your face and hands. You can't tell which way isup. Your light, bright enough to cause eye damage normally, cannot be seen. Not even a glow, until it is within an inch of your mask. It is darkness like you cannot possibly imagine. You get more than 2 feet from the line, and suddenly it is worlds away. You have to know what to do at that point, or else all is likely lost. You must pull out your safety spool or reel, tie off on a rock, and feel your way back to the mainline. If he didn't have the safety, or if he dropped it, or if it jammed, or if he forgot about it in a panic because he'd never practiced, then he's in the dark. With the broken line, I tend to think there might have been an entanglement. either that, or in a siltout, perhaps he pulled on the line, and it snapped, leaving him lost again. Either way, he would have literally been out of his mind, I would imagine. Having been in a siltout like I just described, my heart almost stopped for the 2 seconds it tok to reach out and grab the line. It seemed like an eternity. Then, there was a line trap, a place where the line went that I couldn't fit, I had to extend my arm all the way and squeeze through, in that silt so dark I would describe it as negative visibility. Without training, I would likely have died in the cave that day. With training, having gone through that exercise before, I was still extremely scared for a few seconds. It was a "come to jesus" dive where I had to evaluate whether I wanted to keep diving.
Basically what I am trying to say is, the people most at risk are the Ben's, who gradually enter caves and find it safe. Without training, little things can kill you. I do not know what happened down there, what i wrote above was just my attempt to describe how a person could panic. I don't want anyone to ever go through that, which is why I am so...busily? trying to point out how bad it is that people enter caves routinely without training.
All of you friends and family reading this, I really am sorry for your loss. Having two friends who died, and having read the accident reports and talked to the recovery divers, I never want anyone to die in a panic in a cave. I am incredibly anxious to prevent there from being more Ben's, and I hope that sentiment comes through in my posts. I don't mean to seem rude. I am praying just as you are that Ben's remains are found quickly so he can be given a proper, respectful burial, and I will join you in a moment of silence out of respect for the deceased at that time.
PLEASE do not think any of this information comes close to teaching you how to cave dive! I described some actions taken by a cave diver, but it in no way comes close to teaching you the proper way to act in these circumstances. Anything I post is no substitute to training!
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JahJahWarrior, I was going to post something about the particular challenges that caves can pose, but you did a better job than I ever could.
Somebody once described the job of an airline pilot as hours of tedium punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and I think cave diving can be like that. All of my cave dives have been relaxing and pleasant, or at worst have required a little extra focus. But my training made me acutely aware that life isn't always like that, and little mistakes in that environment can very rapidly snowball into really bad situations. My training was intense and critical, learning how to cope with many possible problems quickly and deftly, to prevent them from compounding. My instructors rather mercilessly pointed out every place where I fell short of the ideal. And I still won't know if I can cope with being lost, or silted out, or stuck, until it happens to me. But I think the statistics say that, having been trained, I am far more likely to cope with those situations than someone who has not.
Diving is easy, until it isn't. I'm very afraid that here we have a diver who learned that the hard way.
Somebody once described the job of an airline pilot as hours of tedium punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and I think cave diving can be like that. All of my cave dives have been relaxing and pleasant, or at worst have required a little extra focus. But my training made me acutely aware that life isn't always like that, and little mistakes in that environment can very rapidly snowball into really bad situations. My training was intense and critical, learning how to cope with many possible problems quickly and deftly, to prevent them from compounding. My instructors rather mercilessly pointed out every place where I fell short of the ideal. And I still won't know if I can cope with being lost, or silted out, or stuck, until it happens to me. But I think the statistics say that, having been trained, I am far more likely to cope with those situations than someone who has not.
Diving is easy, until it isn't. I'm very afraid that here we have a diver who learned that the hard way.
ElleDrewinTN
Registered
To my knowledge they have not.
I don't believe they continued the search today and will be resuming tomorrow.
There is a diver who has flown in to search the areas in which no one else wants to venture.
My and my husband's old roommate and close friend is Ben's best friend. He is currently down there with the family and keeping us updated pretty frequently via phone and text.
As for speculation about a possible suicide/faking his death, please stop. I don't think that kind of discussion is going to help any other divers from making similar mistakes and imo is just disrespectful when you don't know the missing the individual.
An ROV is made for Open Water situations, the high flow associated with this system would overcome the propulsion system and the cable would get snagged constantly.
Solo diving is a personal preference. I only dive solo when conditions or the lack of a qualified partner dictate that I do so. Vortex in March was an instance I chose to go solo. The system is a bit more than most of my regular buddies want to deal with. The most dangerous thing I did that day was drive to the site.
The Jackson blue incident was an instructor as well, but that was a case of big boys making big boy decisions and someone didn't make it out. This is different.
I'm not sure a non cave diver truly understands exactly how far out of his element he was when he swam into this system. Cave training has several levels that dictate how far into a system a diver can go. This system of training can be done slowly or fast, but IMO no amount of experience can replace the classes that teach you how to cave dive properly.
Here is a list of the classes in the NACD format:
Cavern-
Teaches basic cave skills and you are limited to the "Light Zone" or anywhere within the cavern that you can cover your light and still see natural light from outside the cave. There are gas rules as well.
Intro to cave-
Stay on the main line and penetration is severely limited by the amount of gas you can use. You can go beyond the cavern zone.
Apprentice cave diver-
You are still limited by the number of directional placements you can make but you are given the full 1/3 gas rule to allow further penetration.
Cave Diver- You are no longer limited in the number of directional placements you can use, you can still dive to 1/3 of you gas supply. You are limited to a max depth of 130 feet as in the previous classes.
There are several classes past this but these are accepted as the base skill set to dive caves safely. What I want to point out is that even with these certifications, this system is beyond the training level of a full cave diver. A diver diving this cave would need several more (Advanced Cave) classes to learn all the skills necessary to be prepared to dive to where he ended up.
So by my count he is missing AT LEAST 6 classes to be qualified to make this dive. There are classes and training involved he didn't even know he was missing!
As far as my earlier comment, I stand by it. Once all the info comes out you will be very surprised by what this young man has done to get his adventure fix. I don't think he's a bad person. Every one of us had made mistakes and done things we regret, but his actions condemned him and have endangered the lives of countless rescue personnel. The picture that will be painted is going to be of a person you're not familiar with.
I implore you to stop reading this and stick to the other thread, there will not be any answers here that will help you sleep at night, quite the opposite may be the case.
Sludge
Registered
Here's my last experience with Vortex:
A friend and his then-13-year-old son had just been certified open water and wanted me to go diving with them. The gulf was too cold so we went to Vortex. As we signed in, the Vortex employee showed us a map of the complex and explained everything, including the location of all the sights.
This is what made me shudder: "As you drop down to the bottom and go into the cavern, you'll see the Grim Reaper sign. If you choose to ignore it, turn right and you'll be able to follow the tunnel to a depth of 110' where you will encounter a gate..."
Excuse me? You're encouraging two BRAND NEW divers, one of them a child, to enter the overhead?
"I'm not encouraging them - it's their decision to make."
I've never encouraged anyone to go to Vortex since.
A friend and his then-13-year-old son had just been certified open water and wanted me to go diving with them. The gulf was too cold so we went to Vortex. As we signed in, the Vortex employee showed us a map of the complex and explained everything, including the location of all the sights.
This is what made me shudder: "As you drop down to the bottom and go into the cavern, you'll see the Grim Reaper sign. If you choose to ignore it, turn right and you'll be able to follow the tunnel to a depth of 110' where you will encounter a gate..."
Excuse me? You're encouraging two BRAND NEW divers, one of them a child, to enter the overhead?
"I'm not encouraging them - it's their decision to make."
I've never encouraged anyone to go to Vortex since.
sabbath999
Contributor
There is another issue that I think bears discussion, my wife brought it up in a thread on ScubaBoard last week that you all may or may not have seen...
We were in cave country for a week and dived some of the best known caverns. We are cavern certified, but not cave, and we know EXACTLY what the limits of our cavern cert is and we stayed within those limits at all times.
However, at just about every place we dived during surface intervals there were cave divers who we were chatting with who were basically telling us to go beyond our limits, equipment and training. We were talking to a guy at Vortex, an obviously skilled diver (we saw him in the water), who was trying to convince us to ignore our training and go all the way to the grate... "it's no big deal, I know you guys are just cavern, but really you can't get lost and there's nothing to it". Another diver was telling us that to really make our trip to Morrison worth going on, we had to go on into the second room and go down to the bottom. In both cases, this would have put us far beyond our penetration and depth limits, out of the light zone with only two functioning lights per diver, etc. "I've seen you two in the water, you guys can dive, for you it is no problem," he said to me.
We didn't do it.
As much as the cave community needs to continue to educate OW divers to stay out of overhead environments, I think members of the cave community need to stop encouraging people to dive beyond their training and equipment at the dive sites. Happened four separate times at three separate springs.
We did have a different experience at Ginnie... We dove Little Devil with lights, and as we were getting out of the waters a cave diver came over to us with a total mad-on and jumped is HARD about using lights in the cavern. Couldn't get a word in edgewise, he REALLY was going off on me until he saw the cavern certification stuff they make you wear... then he basically backed off. I had no problem whatever with this guy tho, he was just looking out for us.
I have limited cavern experience (12 cavern dives now plus a fairly intensive cert course), but if what I do have is any indication of how many cavers act (advising people to dive beyond their training & equipment) then that needs to be addressed in the community at large.
As far as the OW training goes, we took our OW class where our instructor and his DM's were all full cave divers, and there was NO doubt in anybody's mind that we were NOT to enter an overhead environment without proper training... It was brought up many times, and examples of what can happen (including accident reports and body recovery stories) were given in our OW classes. We live in Missouri where there are some caves (which are very advanced caves to dive due to vis and cold water) and he didn't want us to have any doubts that we should stay away from any cave or cavern or out of any wreck without further training and appropriate equipment.
We were in cave country for a week and dived some of the best known caverns. We are cavern certified, but not cave, and we know EXACTLY what the limits of our cavern cert is and we stayed within those limits at all times.
However, at just about every place we dived during surface intervals there were cave divers who we were chatting with who were basically telling us to go beyond our limits, equipment and training. We were talking to a guy at Vortex, an obviously skilled diver (we saw him in the water), who was trying to convince us to ignore our training and go all the way to the grate... "it's no big deal, I know you guys are just cavern, but really you can't get lost and there's nothing to it". Another diver was telling us that to really make our trip to Morrison worth going on, we had to go on into the second room and go down to the bottom. In both cases, this would have put us far beyond our penetration and depth limits, out of the light zone with only two functioning lights per diver, etc. "I've seen you two in the water, you guys can dive, for you it is no problem," he said to me.
We didn't do it.
As much as the cave community needs to continue to educate OW divers to stay out of overhead environments, I think members of the cave community need to stop encouraging people to dive beyond their training and equipment at the dive sites. Happened four separate times at three separate springs.
We did have a different experience at Ginnie... We dove Little Devil with lights, and as we were getting out of the waters a cave diver came over to us with a total mad-on and jumped is HARD about using lights in the cavern. Couldn't get a word in edgewise, he REALLY was going off on me until he saw the cavern certification stuff they make you wear... then he basically backed off. I had no problem whatever with this guy tho, he was just looking out for us.
I have limited cavern experience (12 cavern dives now plus a fairly intensive cert course), but if what I do have is any indication of how many cavers act (advising people to dive beyond their training & equipment) then that needs to be addressed in the community at large.
As far as the OW training goes, we took our OW class where our instructor and his DM's were all full cave divers, and there was NO doubt in anybody's mind that we were NOT to enter an overhead environment without proper training... It was brought up many times, and examples of what can happen (including accident reports and body recovery stories) were given in our OW classes. We live in Missouri where there are some caves (which are very advanced caves to dive due to vis and cold water) and he didn't want us to have any doubts that we should stay away from any cave or cavern or out of any wreck without further training and appropriate equipment.
Blow.Fish
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I asked a question earlier but didn't get a response. In addition to the proper cave/overhead training, would one ALSO require training in mixed gas decompression techniques in order to safely conduct this dive ? What are the gases that would typically be used for this profile ?
cmufieldhockey8
Contributor
Most definitely, that's three more classes I can think of. Plus a trimix class for trimix if you're planning on going below 130 in a cave. Your planned depth among other things will dictate the mix you want to prevent oxygen toxicity, excessive narcosis etc. I'll let a trimix trained diver chime in...
Experience is just as important as classes as well. You may have the training to do a dive but that doesn't necessarily mean you have the experience.
Kevin Carlisle
Contributor
That info does not need to be given out. Just know trimix, nitrox and oxygen.
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