Four dead in Italian cave

[tstormdiver]

The use of a guideline in this incident would likely have saved these people's lives ... it would certainly, even in a complete silt-out, have increased the odds for a better outcome.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I am going to respectfully disagree. A guideline may or may not have saved them. Yes, it would certainly increase the odds, but then,... how many Open Water divers automatically know how to use a guideline? Most of the time you'll see them pulling themselves along it, not just "OK'ing" it with thumb & index finger & following it under their own power. Now imagine some freaked out divers in 0 vis,.. do you think they'll just follow the line out? Not likely, they're not thinking clearly. They would likely pull even harder to get themselves out quicker. In that pulling, the guideline would likely come unraveled, becoming an entangling web floating in the cave or even worse, the guideline is pulled on so hard that a sharp rock severs the line,... now no clear path out. Speculating?... yes. Possible? Certainly. I was reading a news article about this incident. It was amazing on the board there, how many people think that just a guideline is the only answer. In cave diving aguideline is certainly important, but it is only a small part of the skills & equipment used.

 

[t4e]

The first poor decision was made by the dive shop running a trip to a dive to a site called blood cave and then signing on divers with valid OW cards. From there things were always likely to spiral out of control one day.

Using an open water DM or Instructor to guide the dive was not smart either.

Pity that four had to die to learn the lesson. There are any number of recognised cave agencies around that provide training for the hazards of this envirnment.

afaic the first poor decision was made by the divers themselves, choosing to sign up for a dive that was clearly beyond their training and capabilities

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I am going to respectfully disagree. A guideline may or may not have saved them. Yes, it would certainly increase the odds, but then,... how many Open Water divers automatically know how to use a guideline? Most of the time you'll see them pulling themselves along it, not just "OK'ing" it with thumb & index finger & following it under their own power. Now imagine some freaked out divers in 0 vis,.. do you think they'll just follow the line out? Not likely, they're not thinking clearly. They would likely pull even harder to get themselves out quicker. In that pulling, the guideline would likely come unraveled, becoming an entangling web floating in the cave or even worse, the guideline is pulled on so hard that a sharp rock severs the line,... now no clear path out. Speculating?... yes. Possible? Certainly. I was reading a news article about this incident. It was amazing on the board there, how many people think that just a guideline is the only answer. In cave diving aguideline is certainly important, but it is only a small part of the skills & equipment used.

We can sit here and think of "what if" all day, Tammy ... but it's all speculation, which is why I used qualifiers such as "likely" and "increased the odds". You don't know how they would've reacted ... neither do I. But the fact is that a guideline would've at least given them a clue which way to go to get out. We don't know that vis was completely blown out. We don't know a lot of things about this accident. But one thing we do know is that guidelines in an overhead save lives. They should have had one, and its use would have greatly increased the odds of a better ending.

Granted, they didn't belong there. Fact is, there were many factors leading up to this accident ... untrained divers, a guide unfamiliar with the site ... and probably himself untrained for overhead diving, lack of skill at preventing a silt-out, insufficient gas and gas plan for overhead, and probably a few more we don't know about. All of these factors contributed to the chain of events that led to this accident. Quite likely mitigating any one of them could have led to a different outcome. We really don't know.

What we do know is that they got lost and went down a wrong passage ... and subsequently ran out of air. A guideline would have provided an important clue where the passage out was ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Dive Bug Bit Me]

afaic the first poor decision was made by the divers themselves, choosing to sign up for a dive that was clearly beyond their training and capabilities

Hi sempliciotto,
There are several commercials of local divecenters offering this dive on youtube. Take a look at those, for example this one: Immersione Grotta degli Occhi e del Sangue - Palinuro 06.07.2008 - YouTube . Diving the way they do in those videos will cause you trouble at the slightest trace of silt or mud, whether you are in a cave or not, whether you have a lot of local knowledge or not.

As long as you have several commercials of local divecenters advertising to take OW divers on cave dives you will find willing idiots that go along because the dive instructor knows more than the OW diver. The fact that it sounds like there are many centers offering this dive means "it must be safe because its not just one renegade shop". The dive shop is probably even saying don't worry, we do this dive all the time.

It was said earlier that people are predisposed to follow those that are in authority or are better trained (even if as in this case, the training was irrelevant to the dive at hand). If these dives are advertised and happening all the time, then this is where the issue lies.

I can't bring myself to believe that it is ok for the shops to advertise and run these dives (with inadequately trained guides) just because OW divers should know better.

 

[heavierthanlead]

Hi sempliciotto,

There are several commercials of local divecenters offering this dive on youtube. Take a look at those, for example this one: Immersione Grotta degli Occhi e del Sangue - Palinuro 06.07.2008 - YouTube . Diving the way they do in those videos will cause you trouble at the slightest trace of silt or mud, whether you are in a cave or not, whether you have a lot of local knowledge or not.

Was anyone thinking what I was, as you watched this? At around 6:26 the guide appears to point out an opening, and then all swim past. Could this be the "small tunnel" or "dangerous muddy branch" mentioned previously? Has anyone dove this, and know, definitively?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Was anyone thinking what I was, as you watched this?

I dunno what you were thinking, but as I'm watching a bunch of hand-scullers with dangling octos, consoles and lights swimming into a cave I'm wondering if any of them gave even a single thought to what they'd do if someone had a problem in there. Inline safe seconds in an overhead? Really?

What I was thinking is that's it's amazing people don't die in there more often ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Lemna]

Could this be the "small tunnel" or "dangerous muddy branch" mentioned previously? Has anyone dove this, and know, definitively?

On an Italian forum somebody posted a picture of the entrance of that branch: Forum di subacquea - ScubaPortal - Immersioni / Diving / Fotosub . As far as I understand Italian, the sign was not there at the time of the incident. This branch is indicated as 'ramo infangato' in the map of the cave. Looking at the picture and the map it's hard to comprehend this incident.

 

[MarkHerm]

If this is really the picture of the tunnel in which this accident happened, I am truely puzzled that the guide and the customers tried to squeeze in there. I know I am personally a very cautious diver but a tunnel that small and dark should really set of the alarm glocks of any open water diver out there.
The extremely sad moral of this story is that open water divers that are neither equiped nor trained for overhead have to stay out of the caves.

 

[WimW]

This recent thread: Chandelier Cave - safe for AOW diver? may be instructive in light of this incident. It certainly raises some salient points on both sides of the coin.


All the best, James

James,

can you clarify what point you're trying to make? I agree with all posters here saying you should never enter an overhead environment just trusting a guide, and without appropriate equipment etc etc. I was doing my due diligence before the dive - btw, the dive went very well and was indeed by no means a cave, it was an easy cavern dive.

If I was in a situation where I was following a guide and he tried to lead me into an overhead environment, I would not follow. If I was getting a briefing saying we would be going into some kind of overhead environment I was not aware of and I had not investigated beforehand, I would refuse to do the dive. So it would be important to know here if the people that died had investigated as well as I did and decided for themselves to do the dive, or if they were just blindly following.

 

[TSandM]

If this is really the picture of the tunnel in which this accident happened, I am truely puzzled that the guide and the customers tried to squeeze in there.​

I think, if you are unable to see and you're frantically feeling for an opening, you'll do things that don't make any sense to someone who is not in that situation. I'm sure, if they could have SEEN the opening, they would have known they didn't come in that way. But the reports suggest that low or zero viz played a significant role in this accident.