Peacock Fatality Accident Analysis

[BabyDuck]

the rules are important. all dives i've been on that included jumps put in a line. i'm not advocating blowing off the rules or saying they don't matter.

BUT - a panicking intro diver at 800ft in peanut is possible without rule breaking. don't get hung up on the broken rules being the cause of this problem. let's think of things to do if our buddies act irrationally, or what we would do if our buddy takes off & we can't catch them, or how to convince a buddy that they are going the wrong way instead of following the red herrings of either the rules or unproven medical issues.

 

[Cave Diver]

Count me in the camp of always placing a jump/gap line, even on those "easy" 10' visual jumps. My buddy and I are also among the only team I've seen that routinely places cookies on the exit side of our reel, forcing us to individually acknowledge the direction of exit on the way out.

Superlyte - My condolences on the loss of your friend. Regardless of the circumstances that's never an easy thing to go through.

 

[Cave Diver]

let's think of things to do if our buddies act irrationally, or what we would do if our buddy takes off & we can't catch them, or how to convince a buddy that they are going the wrong way instead of following the red herrings of either the rules or unproven medical issues.

Good comment. Regardless of the rules, since this team seems to have been experienced diving Peacock I have to wonder what would "spook" her into going the wrong way.

Does anyone have experience in convincing a spooked diver that they're going the wrong way if they're hell bent on going deeper into the cave?

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I always use jump lines at Peacock. It's a low/no flow cave that can get quite silty. It's insane not to run a jump reel in those situations. If they dive it weekly, they can pick up the reel very easily next week. There is no excuse for not running a jump reel at Peacock, and while it didn't directly cause their death, it probably contributed.

If the woman had returned to their jump reel, that would have given her a second chance to correct her navigational error. Who knows, she might have made a better decision and lived?

My thoughts and prayers go out to the surviving buddy.

 

[LiteHedded]

the rules are important. all dives i've been on that included jumps put in a line. i'm not advocating blowing off the rules or saying they don't matter.

BUT - a panicking intro diver at 800ft in peanut is possible without rule breaking. don't get hung up on the broken rules being the cause of this problem. let's think of things to do if our buddies act irrationally, or what we would do if our buddy takes off & we can't catch them, or how to convince a buddy that they are going the wrong way instead of following the red herrings of either the rules or unproven medical issues.

a panicked intro diver following the rules would have WAY more time to sort this out

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

BUT - a panicking intro diver at 800ft in peanut is possible without rule breaking. don't get hung up on the broken rules being the cause of this problem. let's think of things to do if our buddies act irrationally, or what we would do if our buddy takes off & we can't catch them, or how to convince a buddy that they are going the wrong way instead of following the red herrings of either the rules or unproven medical issues.

There was a panicking diver something like 1700' into her verified exit... 800' from an entrance, but thats not the way she came. Familiar or not, she obviously didn't know where she was and which way she should have been going. To me, it sounds like she tried to backtrack her steps the way she came, missed her visual jump with nothing to stop her but the peanut restriction, turned again to head out but didn't have enough gas to make it...


This ISN'T a case where an Intro diver enters the peanut tunnel, gets 800' in and can't figure out which way she came from...




This is a case where an Intro diver went 1700'ish, took several visual jumps, relying on familiarity, had a brain fart, and had ZERO infrastructure to help exit the way she came in on the dive. HUGE DIFFERENCE



I run jumps and cookie "T"s.

 

[netmage]

Pasting James' comment from a different thread here...

Full cave divers do this dive the EXACT same way all year long at Peacock. Let's ignore the training level for a few minutes here and realize that the visual jumps had to of played a major role in this. Bruce died about a year ago for the EXACT same thing at Ginnie, and he was full cave.

I don't... and I certainly wouldn't suggest people do so...

Further pondering of the situation as I read it... the problem didn't appear to happen in the crossover. It happened on a gold line. If there was a problem, the trained response, is to follow arrows out - any exit will do...

If they had been diving Peacock weekly for years as suggested - they should have instinctual knowledge of where they are in the system.

Perhaps this is more aligned to the awareness multiple fatality in Mexico a few years back - of just being on autopilot for years - then suddenly not understanding where you are...

Is this a situation of strong buddy\weak buddy....?

 

[LiteHedded]

if the circuit had been set up properly the entire dive would've reinforced that she was going the correct way.

 

[Cave Diver]

Is this a situation of strong buddy\weak buddy....?

I've had this same thought in the past. On several occasions I've seen teams where there seems to be a dominant leader with a buddy that just kind of follows. When I see that type of a team it makes me wonder what would happen in a SHTF situation.

 

[BabyDuck]

hmm, good thought, tim.