Three divers lose their lives at Chac Mool in Riviera Maya. 2 Brazillian, 1 Spaniard

[Saturation]

Its rare to post explicit photos like that in the western press, but its common in many other parts of the world. Alas, I was requested to pull the link, so others may have to use their search skills to find it.

FWIW, that link is one of the few newspaper related reports, others are blogs or online reports, so its a better source to archive.

:worship:
Thanks for yet another excellent post.

 

[t4e]

Diving accidents are too sanitized when reported, if the diving public knew what they really appeared to be and what terror it is to drown, they would not take any type of diving for granted.

hmmm maybe the person that recently posted in a thread that drowning is a peaceful way to go, comes and reads this

 

[Qnape]

In regards to seeing light as another poster mentioned I have been on guided cenote dives where there was no visible light I'm pretty sure. Even the route back from the second eye to the first eye on the barbie route dive has a few minutes where there is no visible light I believe. A couple of the Hidden Worlds cenote dives definately do although I don't think we were ever too far from access.

I am cavern certified and spent a week diving in the cenotes last year including 2 dives at Chac Mool. Bear in mind that you are diving with a light; I asked the same question of my guide and he took me to one of the darker portions of the cavern and told me to kill my lamp. At first it seemed black. After allowing a lttle time for your eyes to acclimate, you could see the glow from the entrance. It was still cavern.

 

[lamont]

I am cavern certified and spent a week diving in the cenotes last year including 2 dives at Chac Mool. Bear in mind that you are diving with a light; I asked the same question of my guide and he took me to one of the darker portions of the cavern and told me to kill my lamp. At first it seemed black. After allowing a lttle time for your eyes to acclimate, you could see the glow from the entrance. It was still cavern.

A lot of that is really pushing the definition of cavern to its limits, however. I think you're supposed to be no further than 130 feet or something like that from the open water lip of the cave, and I'm fairly certain that the caverns down in MX violate that. Cavern divers are also supposed to get some training, significantly more than the orientation that the guides give.

And in this case the divers were on the cave line, so beyond the daylight zone, violating the distance limit, without a continuous guideline.

I also have a hard time with the "someone bolted into the cave" theory of how this accident occurred, since they just accidentally wound up on the cave line and not some crevice in the cavern, and that would mean that the guide significantly lost control of his charges. Could happen, but I can chase down OW divers pretty quickly and grab their tanks and physically yank them around before anything escalates too far. So, you've got a diver that bolts, directly into the cave, and the guide doesn't notice until very long afterwards, and then happens to be able to deduce where they went and find them, but without having enough time left to save them and everyone dies...

Far more plausible that they went into the cave, knowingly violating limits, and then had a minor incident there which spiralled into the triple fatality.

 

[MMM]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

There have been a few posts about the pros and cons of posting graphic photos of an accident. While they are an interesting side-discussion, they are not on-topic with the discussion at hand given the rules of this forum about staying on topic. Should they persist, I will create a new thread somewhere and move them to wherever that ends up being. Please stay on topic. Thank you.

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[vancouverdiver]

I'm not so sure seeing graphic pictures are going to save any lives. The issues I see are open water divers going on "trust me" dives. They have no idea of the potential problems that can arise nor how to effectively remedy them. Their perception is that if they follow the guide it is a safe dive. There is also posts that suggest that guides have taken open water divers beyond cavern dives and do "little" cave dives. They are betting that the cavern guide will properly guide them and get them back to the surface. On this point, what are the cert requirements to lead a cavern dive? What was Ismael's certification and more importantly experience with Chac Mool? I understand he was from Spain. We will never know how they got so far from the cavern into the cave, but ultimately, it would suggest that the guide was not able to deal with whatever issues arose, resolve the issues and get them out. Perhaps they got disoriented and went further in thinking they were heading out. I'm sure in the last few minutes, he realized that they were all going to die and there was nothing he could do at that point. I can not imagine the terror that those 3 faced. So to save lives, are guides sticking to the cavern lines or are they intentionally taking OW divers past the cavern? The guides need to get together and ensure all guides are on the same page so that cavern dives can safely continue. I don't intend to critisize the guide, but I'm having trouble understanding this tragedy.
Going back to the photos, I know they are all over the net. My condolences to the families to have to see their loved ones on display. Their pain must be insufferable.
Just wanted to add, that I have done a few cavern dives and enjoyed them immensely. My guide did an excellent job, the permanent line was always in sight, and yes, we did see the skull/danger sign, took some pics, and did not go past it. So, despite being a trust me dive, cavern dives can and have been safely conducted.

---------- Post added April 25th, 2012 at 10:34 PM ----------

oops. just saw the mods post.

 

[divinglife]

First off,I would like to thank all the people mentioning how safe they felt in the Cenotes. The truth is that the safety record of the MUCH DIVED cenotes was pretty impeccable before this accident and people SHOULD feel safe (I would risk saying they are statistically safer than a lot of open water diving). Guides here have to be a minimum of Divemaster AND Full-Cave certified. Guides do "tattle" on each other as well (honestly if you have shelled out all the money to follow all the guidelines and keep this sport safe and joe-shmoe comes along and wings it, I would "tattle" too).
As for the details of the accident, it appears the male diver was found first pointed towards the exit, with 500 psi in his tank, and only about 8 minutes from surface. (The depth to which this saddens me is indescribable). The guide and female diver (assumed to have been sharing air) were found deeper inside the cave. The general feeling amongst the local divers is that the guide did indeed head to the cave line to show a little something extra and somehow got disoriented and kept heading deeper in. There were no cut lines discovered. And regarding the questions about the condition of the bodies, I've been told by a recovery diver that since they had been in the water quite some time, the local cave marine life had that affect (sorry, that's the most subtle I can be). I don't think it was due to any air expansion as mentioned before.
The cenotes have quite strict set standards. The rules are clear, are written on boards at many cenotes and are in all the books I've seen about the cenotes. The permanent lines in place do follow "Cavern" guidelines. And yes, sometimes the daylight is a bit harder to see but it IS there. In the few instances where guides may go off-line for a brief moment (i.e. to show the halocline at Dos Ojos) it is for less than 15 seconds and no, it is NOT common to take regular OW divers to cave lines! As is mentioned several times, showing the "Danger" sign is part of many dives AND usually part of the briefing.
There has been a general meeting of local cave guides and talks have begun to see what kind of changes can be made to make this sport even safer. I think people should just keep in mind that this was an abnormality and not a fault in the system. In the end, most people are coming to the conclusion that a series of very poor decisions led to this tragic outcome.
Sorry for blabbering.... was keeping it all in while reading through everything and no one else from around here seemed to be online!!

 

[Belmont]

the questions about the condition of the bodies, I've been told by a recovery diver that since they had been in the water quite some time, the local cave marine life had that affect (sorry, that's the most subtle I can be). I don't think it was due to any air expansion as mentioned before.

The rest of your comments are generally spot on, apart from the fact you seem to condone straying from the line. I need to contradict you on what you wrote above. There is no local marine life that can have any effect on human cadavers present in the water for 6 to eight hours.

By the way what does "quite some time " mean, it's as precise as "How many apples are in a big bag?"

 

[DandyDon]

Here's an article with one of the pics: Mexico and Gulf Region Reporter: Divers drown at Playa del Carmen cenote Such photos are pretty common in Mexican newspapers.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Its rare to post explicit photos like that in the western press, but its common in many other parts of the world. Alas, I was requested to pull the link, so others may have to use their search skills to find it.

FWIW, that link is one of the few newspaper related reports, others are blogs or online reports, so its a better source to archive.

Who requested you pull the link? The mod explained after your post that the discussion of those photos being a useful deterrent was off topic to this discussion. I would think a link to a story that gives info about this is on topic and if it happens to have some bad photos then add a warning as such. The links with photos throughout this thread still remain so I doubt they are in violation of the TOS as the pictures themselves are not posted merely the links. BTW that story was in no way one of "few" news articles......there were many.