Diving incident at Eagles Nest Sink

[rjack321]

Anybody know whether the deceased were cave diver certified?

Yes and both had been cave and trimix for awhile.

 

[Phil_C]

****MOD Post**** related threads merged

 

[PfcAJ]

Anybody know whether the deceased were cave diver certified?

They were.

 

[Wayne at DiveSeekers]

The fact is that the majority of all rebreather fatalities are diver error. Can't get into details of this event a this time, but before the speculations start spinning even more out of control, one thing I will say is that this event had nothing at all to do with the rebreathers the two divers were using.

 

[scagrotto]

You assume that they were even alive at the bottom

If you were the guy who was supposed to meet them at 3PM would you assume they were "at the bottom" and already dead when they didn't show up on time? More importantly, should the guy who waited have made that assumption? Maybe the layout of the cave is such that failure to return guaranteed that they had to be at a depth that made successful rescue an impossibility, but the 3rd diver would have to know that or where the divers were eventually found is irrelevant to what he should have done.

(which might not be the case if their gas was contaminated).

Speaking of assumptions, why do you mention that (for the 2nd time) right before an explanation of how their location pretty much ensured their death if they were unable to exit for any reason?

 

[KevinNM]

I know nothing about the incident other than what has been posted here, but Eagles Nest is a very deep, very serious cave, it has no shallow parts. You drop vertically into the cave and the top of the debris cone is at something like 150 feet deep.
See profile here: http://www.floridacaves.com/eaglesprofile.JPG

 

[hargikas]

Another news source about the accident.

 

[kensuf]

Please be advised, this is still an active investigation. The Hernando County Sheriff's Office has asked the IUCRR to get involved and assist with figuring out what happened. A formal statement was posted on the NSS-CDS forum, which I'll append here below.

I have been advised that a formal accident analysis on this incident will be completed and released.

A couple of quick facts to quell speculation.

1. The divers were CCR, Cave, and Trimix trained.
2. The divers were NOT technical instructors (not cave, not CCR, not trimix). One was an Openwater and Nitrox instructor, the other was a DM.
3. One diver was recovered with a CCR on. The other CCR was recovered the following day. The unit that was recovered was functional.
4. They had "ample" bailout based on normal gas planning rules. Their gas planning did not involve "team bailout" strategies. A quick example, there were 4 70' decompression bottles for the two divers.

Finally, before I append the IUCRR statement, I would like to say that there were a lot of people that worked very hard through Saturday night and all day Sunday to locate and recover the divers. A separate team worked very hard on Monday to recover the equipment. There were teams that were finishing and starting dives at 3 and 4AM on Sunday, and had stayed up and worked well over 30 hours straight. Some of these individuals were friends of the deceased and they are grieving. There is a lot of media attention on this, and really the recovery team just would like some space and time to grieve for their lost friends.

Speculation based on gossip means nothing! Simply we don't have all the answers in 72 hours after a fatality. To date we don't know if this event was a result of a medical occurrence or the result of a deep dive into a silty restriction where gear removal was attempted.

The known facts !

1. Two divers lost their life in Eagle's Nest. Three attempts were needed to locate the bodies.

2. The divers were using rebreathers

3. The divers had 3 DPV's in the cave with them

4. The divers had multiple bottles for bailout and decompression

What we don't know yet because the Sheriff's Department has custody of the gear.

1. What mixes were they using? - labeled verses analysis

2. The download from the dive computers to see what their dive plan verses profile was

The Sheriff's Department has requested us to put the pieces together for them and are going to let us download the computers and check all the cylinder contents. Examination for contaminates will be at the Sheriff Department discretion.

We have some ideas , but it's too early to speculate until we get the downloads from the computers.

 

[Doppler]

The fact is that the majority of all rebreather fatalities are diver error...

Hey Wayne... hope all is well.

Terrible incident and thoughts are with family and friends at this time.

I believe Wayne's comment is slightly inaccurate in that the vast majority of all rebreather fatalities are associated with FAILURES BY HUMAN OPERATORS better categorized as:

EXECUTION FAILURES

• SLIPS: attention, perception, wrong order, etc.

• LAPSES: recall, memory, complacency, etc.

PLANNING FAILURE

• RULE-BASED MISTAKES: not applying a rule, applying wrong or bad rule

• KNOWLEDGE-BASED MISTAKES: not knowing what you do not know, confirmation bias

SYSTEM FAILURE

• ‘CULTURAL’ (NORMALIZATION OF DEVIANCE, ET AL.)

• INSTITUTIONAL – AGENCY, INSTRUCTOR, PEER-GROUP

However, I do agree that the machine itself is rarely shown to be at fault in these cases...

AGAIN... condolences. A sad state of affairs.

 

[RyanT]

Thank you for the information Ken, and much agreed that there is no need for speculation at this time.