First, I don't read here about that the victem did a zero to hero. The person was trained, only had an accident and had maybe not a lot of experience in ccr cave diving. It sounds more to me as just wrong time, wrong place. There happen also car accidents with new drivers, and with more experienced drivers as well. Did the diver had planned that restriction? Did the diver know it is so narrow? Then we know more details. Maybe it was not planned at all, they only came on that line and thought you can go through it as there is a line into it. Then you try and get stucked.
Most times if you get stucked, you are able to get back and then nothing happened. I read this as just bad luck. And yes, maybe that restriction could be done with more experience, but we don't know. Maybe the same would have been happen if the diver came there 1 year later, so with more experience. Maybe he would have survived, we don't know.
You can say divers must make a plan before the dive, but if you know depth and time, you can do a dive and jump, without knowing where a line goes. Just know the return time/pressure/depth is a plan a lot of divers follow. Then the restriction was maybe not planned. But you are allowed to do restrictions after finishing a cave course. So then the restriction was smaller than thought and with bad luck you was not able to get out again.
We don't know reasons why they did it, we can only do speculations. We can discuss the speculations as safe or unsafe, but we cannot link it with the victums.
And if we talk about cave courses, everybody knows that the things outside a certification limit are the most interesting ones by a lot of divers. That is normal human behaviour. Here in Europe you see intro to cave divers taking a stage, also cave1 divers. They also do jumps, circuits, etc. Why? They are human.
So why not take a look at the courses and how you tell about the forbidden things?
The intro to cave, a lot of agencies say 1/6 rule, gue a little bit different, only a few say 1/3, but if people pay for a full fill, they want to use more than only 2/6, they most times want to use the full perspective of the 'officiall' cave rules, so 1/3. Intro to cave divers can officially not do a recalculation of gas, so they finish their dive with a lot of gas in it. If they follow the certification limits. I talk about a non flowing cave, with outflow more gas is left. Save, yes. But they also know that others dive with the same amount of gas on 1/3 (and I also believe a lot of divers never change the idea of 1/3, even if there can be reasons to be more conservative, 1/3 is the max in cave diving, so they use it). So what do you see with intro to cave certs that limit the amount of gas to less than 1/3? Yes, the human beings start diving on 1/3. Then they see a nice sidetunnel. Why not take a look in there? And the next broken rule is born. All human behaviour.
So tell me, have you never dived outside any rule? Most people have. I also have according to some, but I don't know for sure. Or was doing dpv cave dives without a dpv cert also outside a limit (I never knew when I did a full cave course, as this was told to me as the course that you have no limits anymore after finishing, combined with a full trimix, you can do all you want)? Or doing ccr cave dives with just an full cave cert? (I already did in a time there was no ccr cave instructor in Europe, I was the first one in my country years later).
Now wreck penetrations courses are also 'invented', does this mean the cave cert is not enough anymore to penetrate a wreck where it was for years? A downgrade of a card you already have and where you have done successfull wreckpenetrations with? No of course not, you can do wreck penetrations with your full cave cert as you always did. Is the course useless? no. Please take it if you feel the need to do it. But don't make in mandatory for every wreckdiver. The Ginnie springs discussion about the ccr cave card. Divers were doing ccr cave courses for many years and then needed to have a card. Does the card make the diving safer? No. A lot just bought a card.
So remember, we are all human and the more people complaign about divers not following rules, the more some divers are attracted to the 'forbidden' part. As instructor you can warn, you refuse a cert or refuse teaching, then you have done what you must do. But you cannot stop a diver that really want to do. We also see skiers in winter outside officiall slopes without any knowledge. Are they refused somewhere? Or just stubborn? Or adventurous humans?
I think we must warn, we must talk about limits, we still must refuse some students, refuse to give some certs to certain divers, but at the end, there will be still accidents. Only a few will be stopped or braked by refusing, but that can be enough to make cave diving safer. But please never have the idea that you can stop divers from doing stupid things. That is impossible. We cannot stop human from doing stupid things. We are human. And remember, warning will also attrack sometimes others. A thing we also cannot change. There is no scuba police (and even then, with police on streets you still see exceeding speed limits, etc).
And what about the autodidactical way? In diving there is no place for it. Are that bad divers at all? Can you stop them? No. Will a sort of exam they can do without a course maybe help to get a cert and improve safety? Maybe yes. Dry caving is most times teached by more experienced friends. This is not hidden. The autodidactical divers try to hide their activities most times. Would a dialog help? I think such discussions will also help to make diving safer.
Talking negative about zero to hero (what is it exactly?) will not help. Be more open about it, start a dialog, not complaigning only.
A dialog about lines in a cave can also be helpfull I think. If a lot of divers have a problem in such a restriction, maybe make the jump more invisible so people won't go too easy to it? And will hold a line in the restriction make it safer as the hands are free to wiggle you through the restriction? Or is it better that only divers go in that lay their own line? I think such discussions can be usefull, on internet and face to face.[/Mod]
