Ginnie Springs diver missing - Florida

[GLightcap]

The group of about ~10-12 IUCRR divers who end up doing the recoveries in FL. Let's face it this is almost a uniquely FL issue. The Mexican cave diving fatality rate is a fraction of the FL rate. The cave diving fatality rate for rest of the world is even lower still. Instead of blaming the recovery divers for not publishing "reports", perhaps the energy would be better directed at asking why FL has so many cave diving fatalities in the first place.

Do you have the numbers on that? Not challenging the statement but I'm curious of data like deaths per number of cave dives, and breakdown of data on contributing factors.

 

[GLightcap]

the point that I think we need to stay on in this thread is what @PfcAJ said and @rddvet and I have alluded to. The head of the IUCRR does not allow the recovery divers to talk and forbids them from publishing anything about certain recoveries if it doesn't fit the narrative. One of the Ginnie deaths a few years ago was a guy that was in my intro to cave course with me. The IUCRR recovered his body, but there is no report on their website, nothing that says Craig died, heaven forbid where or why because the recovery team was muzzled. Same with a slew of others. That's the point I'd like to understand, why does Ken not want anyone talking about these things so we can actually learn from them?

When firefighters or police officers are involved in incidents or rescues/recoveries, nobody is permitted to discuss the details of the incident. The reason is that these incidents usually end up in courtrooms and only a single representative from that organization will usually testify or be deposed. Prior to testifying or being deposed, we spend a lot of time with council preparing for answering questions in a way that completely eliminates opinion and feelings and only represents known, verified facts. Because we are not attorneys and rarely experienced in giving testimony, there is always a risk that the organization could unintentionally make inaccurate or opinion based statements and cause problems for a party to the lawsuit. That's why it's important that an independent organization do a thorough incident analysis and make that analysis with lessons learned public. We do this in the Fire Department for every firefighter death and those reports are open for all to learn from. I would think DAN would be the appropriate entity to do the investigation, no?

 

[The Chairman]

I would think DAN would be the appropriate entity to do the investigation, no?

Probably Duke University.

 

[tbone1004]

When firefighters or police officers are involved in incidents or rescues/recoveries, nobody is permitted to discuss the details of the incident. The reason is that these incidents usually end up in courtrooms and only a single representative from that organization will usually testify or be deposed. Prior to testifying or being deposed, we spend a lot of time with council preparing for answering questions in a way that completely eliminates opinion and feelings and only represents known, verified facts. Because we are not attorneys and rarely experienced in giving testimony, there is always a risk that the organization could unintentionally make inaccurate or opinion based statements and cause problems for a party to the lawsuit. That's why it's important that an independent organization do a thorough incident analysis and make that analysis with lessons learned public. We do this in the Fire Department for every firefighter death and those reports are open for all to learn from. I would think DAN would be the appropriate entity to do the investigation, no?

how are they going to do an investigation if the IUCRR does not release the information which is the subject of the argument? More importantly, as soon as the incident is deemed an accident, the case is closed and the information can be released. That's why I said a brief statement from the IUCRR would be no different than what the news reports when the incident is occurring. IUCRR divers are NOT affiliated with anyone but the IUCRR and that is not an "agency" so drawing the lines to first responders who actually have a spokesperson is not really a fair comparison.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Because we are not attorneys and rarely experienced in giving testimony, there is always a risk that the organization could unintentionally make inaccurate or opinion based statements and cause problems for a party to the lawsuit. That's why it's important that an independent organization do a thorough incident analysis and make that analysis with lessons learned public. We do this in the Fire Department for every firefighter death and those reports are open for all to learn from. I would think DAN would be the appropriate entity to do the investigation, no?

What people are asking for isn't opinion, but the list of deaths and the basic facts as gathered by the IUCRR. Even if there is no report, just a list of deaths would be helpful for basic analysis. On CDF someone posted a basic Freedom of Information letter, that letter does little good if someone has to spend weeks just trying to find out who died where.

Opinion and/or analysis can and should come from someone else, heck multiple someone else so they can argue about it. Even if someone wanted to do an incident analysis, how would they know ALL the cave diving deaths in cave country? IUCRR doesn't seem to want to list all of them.

Also I think that any reasoning that comes out of the IUCRR should be taken with a huge grain of salt. As I doubt that much of it has been vetted by a lawyer. Ken, on his now deleted CDF post, cited HIPPA as a reason to not report some deaths. There is no way that the information collected by the IUCRR would be covered by HIPPA privacy rules, as the IUCRR isn't covered entity by any remote stretch of the law.

 

[rjack321]

What people are asking for isn't opinion, but the list of deaths and the basic facts as gathered by the IUCRR. Even if there is no report, just a list of deaths would be helpful for basic analysis. On CDF someone posted a basic Freedom of Information letter, that letter does little good if someone has to spend weeks just trying to find out who died where.

Depending on how eager they are to help, requesting the Sheriff's records of all diving accidents in Gilchrist County in the past 15 years would not be considered overly broad or unattainable as a public record request. I see (non-diving) requests of a similar magnitude all the time. If the sheriff doesn't want to deal with you, you may need to file in court to enforce it but you'll win.

Also I think that any reasoning that comes out of the IUCRR should be taken with a huge grain of salt. As I doubt that much of it has been vetted by a lawyer. Ken, on his now deleted CDF post, cited HIPPA as a reason to not report some deaths. There is no way that the information collected by the IUCRR would be covered by HIPPA privacy rules, as the IUCRR isn't covered entity by any remote stretch of the law.

In FL no, in other jurisdictions you might be surprised. Coronor's reports are not public records in Washington State and not subject to public disclosure requests. They can only be released to law enforcement and next of kin. They are classified as medical records here under state law.

 

[rjack321]

Probably Duke University.

What would be their qualifications? a death investigator? lawyer? a doctor with a specialty in forensics?

Then who would pay them?

 

[The Chairman]

What would be their qualifications? a death investigator? lawyer? a doctor with a specialty in forensics?

Then who would pay them?

They were Dan's number crunchers until just recently. They do a lot with DCS research, so they know us divers.
Dan might be the right choice: I certainly don't know.

 

[Manatee Diver]

In FL no, in other jurisdictions you might be surprised. Coronor's reports are not public records in Washington State and not subject to public disclosure requests. They can only be released to law enforcement and next of kin. They are classified as medical records here under state law.

Coronor's Reports aren't subject to public record laws in Florida, you can thank the Dale Earnhardt for that. You need either next of kin permission or a court order. There are no research exceptions either.

But we aren't requesting that, nor does the IUCRR collect that.

 

[wgw04024]

In a broader picture, wouldn't the state have this in some form? For example, I can't imagine a cave recovery team dropping a body off to a coroner (or wherever it goes), without saying something to the affect of 'they died during a scuba dive' if that's what happened. On the receiving end of the body, I can't imagine there's a list of reasons why someone is there, and that reason is 'they died'.... Is there something I'm missing?

Edit: Hadn't read the few previous posts before writing this. They do shed some light on what I was getting at.