Diving incident at Eagles Nest Sink

[oya]

It is my belief that, like with Dave Shaw, there are some dives where surface support is just a friendly face to bring some bits and bobs to you, or let the recovery teams know its time. In these scenarios then any emergency the primary team cant handle becomes fatal regardless of how many support divers you have.

Should read Verna Von Shaick's book Fatally Flawed. This talks a little about what is involved in support (specifically her firsthand recount of what goes into being the site captain... and specifically for the Dave Shaw dive!) for a major dive. Surface support does not just stand around with their snorkel in their hands waiting for something to happen.

I still object to parallels between the Dave Shaw dive and this one, but that the two divers had even planned to have ANY surface support on their dive, I think, speaks volumes to their level of attempted preparedness.

 

[oya]

This thread continues and that is good. It is not argumentative any more. Just informative.

I dunno about that. Looks like a lot of people who don't know what the hell they're talking about telling a person who routinely does dives at this site and was there on this day that he's wrong.

But... you say tomato, I say pizza.

 

[mdb]

I dunno about that. Looks like a lot of people who don't know what the hell they're talking about telling a person who routinely does dives at this site and was there on this day that he's wrong.

But... you say tomato, I say pizza.

I am just trying to learn from the posts and, it seems, the posts are becoming more informative than argumentative.

I'll take a Brooklyn style pizza any day over some internet argument.

 

[RainPilot]

Should read Verna Von Shaick's book Fatally Flawed. This talks a little about what is involved in support (specifically her firsthand recount of what goes into being the site captain... and specifically for the Dave Shaw dive!) for a major dive. Surface support does not just stand around with their snorkels in their hands waiting for something to happen.

I still object to parallels between the Dave Shaw dive and this one, but that the two divers had even planned to have ANY surface support on their dive, I think, speaks volumes to their level of attempted preparedness.

Hey oya. I dont believe there are parallels between the actual dives other than CCR was used and they were in a cave. Where the references came from is statements that "you dont do dives this extreme so why are you asking about information?" with the implication that it must be from some ghoulish online rubbernecking.

I will never ever do dives even remotely close to Dave's dive or those of the EN team in this thread, but I have already gained some valuable info that has modified the way I approach my (tame) diving from these. The same way I modified my procedures flying single-seat fast movers based on the results of helicopter accident reports.

There is also a HUGE difference between the support system for Daves dive and the one from this thread. I agree totally that even having a support diver is indeed an indication of how well they planned.

What really piques my interest is when very professional, well-trained, prepared divers have an accident that seems odd on the face of it. Im really trying to wrap my head around why the CCR was removed purely so that if I am faced with a similar situation ever I might be able to make more informed choices.

My field is littered with the bodies of those who made the right choice and still didn't make it. in many of those cases, we have re-evaluated what was "right" and often some pretty big "conventional wisdom" has been shown to be in error. Were these pilots "wrong"? Not when they made the calls. Hindsight is always 20/20

 

[CptTightPants21]

I would not agree that they had a support diver.

They had a friend who didn't match their certification level and rather than stay home, he accompanied them and dove up to his certification level.

This case really highlights two important rules.

1. Do not allow your OC experience to dictate your CCR diving. From what I have heard, even though they were full cave, trimix, etc, they were still very new to CCR. New CCR divers need to treat their first CC certification like an OW cert and proceed gradually.

2. NEVER DITCH a fully operational rebreather. CC cave divers love to point out that they have plenty of time to correct errors or find their way out of a cave if they get lost because they are on CC. No matter how much deco may be added on because of the delay, a diver is safer on the RB. The second that the diver took off his unit, he put the entire team on the clock, and the buzzer sounded before they reached the surface.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Recap:

Charlie Roberson's report.

Dsix36's Incident at Eagle's Nest 07Feb2015

I think this is the best scenario of what possibly happened there. . . .View attachment 384093
. . . .

Luke Alcorn's video showing some of underwater topography place names listed above:

1:11 "Into the Pit"
3:53 "Entrance to Revelation Space (and adjacent crevice opening?)
4:05 "Through the First Restriction Into the Halocline . . .303 feet Deep"
4:44 "Up to the Second Restriction. . ."
5:40 "Revelation Space"

Overview Map:
EAGLE'S NEST - Association of Underwater Explorers

 

[kensuf]

Hey oya. I dont believe there are parallels between the actual dives other than CCR was used and they were in a cave. Where the references came from is statements that "you dont do dives this extreme so why are you asking about information?" with the implication that it must be from some ghoulish online rubbernecking.

I don't think that's what AJ and Liteheaded had in mind when they made their statements. I think what they were trying to say is there's no way for someone whose experience is limited to a maximum four hour total run-time to understand and appreciate what is involved in dives that breach 7-10 hours.

Having done a half-dozen dives in the 6-7 hour range, I would agree with them that there is a difference in going from 4 to 6 hours. I can comfortably do a 4 hour dive any day of the week with very little extra preparation and little extra than I would take on just about any run of the mill cave dive, but on the 6 hour dives there are more things to consider. You have to consider things like nutrition (marathoners call it "bonking"), fluid intake (you need to re-hydrate on the dive), thermal stress (you're going to get cold on a 6 hour dive even in a perfectly functioning drysuit), and even just the mental aspect of knowing you have 5+ hours of mandatory decompression before you can surface.

It's easy to speak in hypotheticals and say "well I could do this" if you've got no frame of reference to know what it really takes to do that.

 

[kensuf]

I could be the best violinist in the world if I knew how to read music.

 

[Centrals]

It is my belief that, like with Dave Shaw, there are some dives where surface support is just a friendly face to bring some bits and bobs to you, or let the recovery teams know its time. In these scenarios then any emergency the primary team cant handle becomes fatal regardless of how many support divers you have. Its like the death zone in mountaineering. Base camp is not there to save you they are there to let people know what happened to you.

A wee bit out of topic but
I can't see any similarity between this dive and the fateful Dave Shaw's last dive. Dave had a big support team in and above water. And his close buddy Don Shirley was going to risk his own life and went down to 270m on a Inspiration when he noticed that something was not right.

 

[RainPilot]

Hey @kensuf . Tone is notoriously hard to discern in text and with the (understandably) high tension factor its made for some unpleasant posts which I think are really down to miscommunication.

@Centrals These are both dives that are only attempted by a handful of people, with extreme levels of training, planning and skill required to successfully execute. Agreed that Dave's dive was a whole different animal but both of them are so far out of my league they may as well be the same thing. I was defending the person who brought up the Boesman's dive as an example of learning from dives that you may not be doing, rather than trying to compare them to each other directly. I will not mention that dive again.