Unqualified Divers in Caves--especially ones like Eagles Nest

[Diving Dubai]

Or as well... I really like Lamar's version far, far better.

Content and media production is something I do have knowledge about. I'm not a true expert but I know enough. Liek I said It was a good well intentioned video, but it doesn't cut the mustard now.

How you'd fund another one is a whole different kettle of fish.

If it were me, I'd be aiming for a content creator like Casey Neistat Someone you is a specialist in producing well filmed content, - who has over 5M channel subscribers and contents to get the message out to a wider audience.

Just like pictures of smokers lungs on cigarette packets, or true images of road fatalities to shock, I'd be aiming to use pictures of actual fatalities in caves. Not for a ghoulish nature but for impact. Cinematic images of caves with crystal clear waters are one ting. A video of true crappy vis when you can barely see the gold line may help to nail home the message. You get the idea. Something watchable, that is hard hitting and memorable for all the right reasons. Something people want to share on social media.

While forums like this are commendable, they only reach a tiny percentage of your target audience, most of which are converts to the message.

Once the message gets traction then the agencies will either have to get on board or be seen to out of step and out of touch?​

​

 

[barth]

@tbone1004

Perhaps I didn't express myself in the best way.

I totally get the close community of cave divers, and you have every right to be angry and hurt every time there is a serious indecent.

But you the cave divers are in a unique position. You are the face of the "sport" not some faceless individuals in an office sending out edicts.

You all have the training and knowledge, often hard earned. Whether you like it or not, you are the ambassadors and role models for cave diving.

You are in the unique position that you interact with non cave divers. Now you can be aloof and just say "you don't have the training and shouldn't be here, or you can be more open and give better explanations and advice, not only to those aspiring to become cave divers but those diving in the same spring.

You guys have the most power to educate to balance out the reality against the BS and romantic notions people have much more than legislation or rules (that the normal diver may take as protectionism)

It doesn't matter what politics are behind the scenes what is important (I feel) is that you all have a united open and accessible public face.

If by doing this you dissuade just one person from jumping in that cave and staying alive, it's got to be worth it?

I think that cavedivers will answer questions of non cavedivers and will dive with them (in openwater).

I think the problem is that non cavedivers talk with the wrong people about cave diving. They trust openwater instructors or divemasters.

I think openwater instructors should be clear about deep air and cavediving. Openwater agency's should do the same. It seems that openwater agency's or openwater instructors don't care when somebody is dying. There are no lessons learned. It is just happen again and again.

 

[karstdvr]

As I think about this more. There seems to be some kind of phenomenon happening here too. What gets me is the attention a cave fatality gets over any other scuba fatality.

I've read a bunch of nonsense in the past few months about closing EN.

I don't have the figures, but let's say that it's 100:1 open water diver fatalities to cave diver fatalities every year. How many people have died at EN in it's entire history? 10? How many people will die this year alone off the coast off Tampa Bay? 5? 10? Is the cave diver's life more important than an open water diver?

What gives? It's my understanding the residents of Hernando County started a petition after the October incident, yet how many people die off the coast of Hernando County and you hear crickets? No one petitioning to close the Gulf of Mexico.

What gives?

People judge things differently. Scuba diving in the ocean and seeing pretty reef fish is how most people look at scuba diving. Having accidents are considered part of the activity, and is accepted more readily by society. Cave diving for the local public perception is people with a death wish that are lunatics, and preventing us from doing it is like taking the keys away from a drunk person. We know differently,but the people who control our access are composed of the local community, and they have seen negative cave diving headlines all their life. EN over the last couple years has gotten very negative press in the county, especially when at Christmas time a couple years ago a father and son died, this made the AP and CNN. So, as much as we want to be judged as our OW compatriots, it won't happen, and we have to remember every site we access, we earned the priviledge, and defend the priviledge. Do I want this to sound like it is about access? No I don't,but bottom line is if we aren't proactive in protecting our sites, we will lose them.

 

[tbone1004]

and that's where the individual questions that come out to us and conversations that happen in person are VERY different than when we are doing accident analysis. If people come to us and ask, we are most always more than welcome to help, answer hundreds of questions, and most of us will dive with them very readily in OW. Those of us that survived the 3 year average tenure of a technical diver appreciate the mentor system as we all have had our own and know that that is the best way to encourage people that want to do this the right way to do it safely and enjoy a long tenure in the sport.

 

[Storker]

Content and media production is something I do have knowledge about. I'm not a true expert but I know enough. Liek I said It was a good well intentioned video, but it doesn't cut the mustard now.

How you'd fund another one is a whole different kettle of fish.

If it were me, I'd be aiming for a content creator like Casey Neistat Someone you is a specialist in producing well filmed content, - who has over 5M channel subscribers and contents to get the message out to a wider audience.

Just like pictures of smokers lungs on cigarette packets, or true images of road fatalities to shock, I'd be aiming to use pictures of actual fatalities in caves. Not for a ghoulish nature but for impact. Cinematic images of caves with crystal clear waters are one ting. A video of true crappy vis when you can barely see the gold line may help to nail home the message. You get the idea. Something watchable, that is hard hitting and memorable for all the right reasons. Something people want to share on social media.

While forums like this are commendable, they only reach a tiny percentage of your target audience, most of which are converts to the message.

Once the message gets traction then the agencies will either have to get on board or be seen to out of step and out of touch?
​

I don't have any answers at all (I'm not competent to have them), but I like your questions.

 

[boulderjohn]

Ok, sell it to the general public then. The point is to make it available to people. I have no problem with someone earning income from their labor.

Creating the course was a lot of work. The hardest part was getting pre-approval to try. I first wrote to PADI and described what I anted to do to see if it had a snowball's chance in Hell. The person with whom I discussed the issue was a cave diver, so he knew what he was talking about, and he told me why it would not be approved. I responded effectively to all his points, he went back to the group, and came back with approval with limitations. The course had to state clearly that it did not teach people how to dive in overheads or certify them to do that in any way, which was fine with me because that was never my intention. It could not have an open water component, which was also fine with me. It could have an optional confined water portion to teach non-silting kicks, buoyancy, etc., which was again fine, because my intention was informational. I finally got approval to write the course, and after I did, it was eventually approved.

Making the course was a problem as well. I sought out assistance from the community, mostly through CDF, where I was greeting mostly by open hostility. There were exceptions. For example, one section of the PowerPoint shows a surface photo of the Devil's system in Ginnie Springs, and shows how easy it would be to assume that going from the eye to the ear would be about like doing a swim-through, and my graphics then show how the assumed path of that swim-through (just go down and look for an opening to your left) would lead to an unfortunate tour of the Catacombs. My photo of that came with the generous and supportive permission of Walter Pickle.

After I wrote the course, got it approved, and paid my fees to be able to teach it, I offered the outline for free to any instructor who wanted to teach it as well. There were a few takers. I recently shared the PowerPoint with someone. Of course, most of the course is the way I teach it and the way I interact with the students during the presentation. I would need to create that if I were to post it somewhere, or else you would be looking at some photos without the necessary explanation. That would be a lot of work. In order to make that work worthwhile, I would have to be sure it would be well used.

 

[karstdvr]

In order to make that work worthwhile, I would have to be sure it would be well used.

No one could guarantee that it would be well used,but it is worthwhile. Think of all the non-PADI shops that don't have a resource like that, especially around the EN area where there seems to be a problem. Deceptively Easy Way To Die is a great resource to get the message out,but obviously you felt more was needed, and did just that. PADI has been a great partner in the past with providing copyrighted/trademarked material for the sake of safety- have you ever noticed the NSSCDS grim reaper signs are partially PADI at the bottom corner? You did the work, and paid the money,but with your involvement with accidents, any additional resource would be helpful-maybe put a dollar amount on something and perhaps we could raise the money to give to the area shops.

 

[Bobby]

As I think about this more. There seems to be some kind of phenomenon happening here too. What gets me is the attention a cave fatality gets over any other scuba fatality.

I've read a bunch of nonsense in the past few months about closing EN.

I don't have the figures, but let's say that it's 100:1 open water diver fatalities to cave diver fatalities every year. How many people have died at EN in it's entire history? 10? How many people will die this year alone off the coast off Tampa Bay? 5? 10? Is the cave diver's life more important than an open water diver?

What gives? It's my understanding the residents of Hernando County started a petition after the October incident, yet how many people die off the coast of Hernando County and you hear crickets? No one petitioning to close the Gulf of Mexico.

What gives?

Without being contentious ( and from someone 7500 miles away with no cave interest) . Perhaps this is a small part of the problem. Rather than the cave community being seemingly elitist and standoffish to non cave divers, perhaps they should make themselves more accessible to the masses. If the community is more approachable then perhaps people would more willing to chat to them and the message can get delivered in a better way.

If the community is isolationist and engage in a the and us, people will not seek them out and not be given salient advice.

Rather than saying - you can't join our club until you've got this and that cert, and proved yourself etc etc, a better way might be to say. If you want to join our club, you'd be most welcome, but these are the steps you need to take?

The video "A deceptively easy way to die", while obviously put together with all the best intentions, isn't a great video. It's not compelling watching - the delivery by Mr Lamar Hires isn't great (while he may be a very knowledgeable diver sitting in front of a camera isn't his expertise) and it's 20 years old. Perhaps time for an update and something harder hitting with a profession narrator. If you lose people's attention in the 1st minute, you'll never get it back and the video has lost it's purpose.

Just an observation and not meant to be a criticism

Both of the above statements/questions are tied into my response.

There is a difference in cave incidents compared to OW or even technical boat incidents. Cave incidents are accessible by the media and often can take a longer time to facilitate a recovery. Boat or shore incidents are almost always over before the media even knows about them. It is much easier to create a story and get people wanting action when it is local and it drags out long enough. This, IMHO, is why cave incidents are more commonly blown up by the media.

In addition we do have a tight cave community that considers incident analysis more important that advertising our sport as fun and easy to draw in more people to participate. The lessons from incidents have guided cave, and other types of diving's training and rules. OW gear and training has been influenced by cave incident analysis. With today's social media we can have more participation with instant analysis. In some ways that makes the problem worse and in some ways it is an improvement, there is always give and take with change.

Communication between cave and/or technical divers and OW divers also has two sides of the coin. My experience is that when people are not judgmental and approach the topic of cave or technical diving with an open mind, most of the time the cave/technical diver is open and communicative. Non divers at many of the popular cave sites are also very inquisitive and ask a lot of questions. The vast majority of cave divers are patient and answer questions the best they can. Keep in mind this end of the sport is gear and training intensive making it more difficult and complex to explain.

Often times though OW water divers don't understand all the gear and complexity, so they tend to form their own opinions about something they don't understand. As is often the case, that opinion is negative which is clear in their communication. Today it is rather common to have mixed groups on boats, technical diving is more mainstream, and education is more common. Back when it wasn't so much OW water divers would often call me crazy, stupid, etc.. When that happens, more often than not, the technical diver just shuts down and now we are labeled as elitist, snobs, etc.. You also have the "technical wannabe" whom is working hard to look the part without actually having the training, experience, and/or having done real technical dives. They are portraying something they are not and can't actually speak to it so they tend to have an attitude to put people off. No way for an OW diver to really know the difference so we are lumped all into one group of isolationists & elitists.

Cave diving on the other hand tends to have fewer sites where OW & cave divers can interact. Many cave sites are not suitable for OW diving. OW divers breaking the rules know they are doing so and often cave divers looking out for their well being are in an adversarial position. I have personally found OW divers far enough into caves that their lives were at risk. How to handle a situation like that is always tough, there simply is no absolute correct answer.

Now consider more advanced systems like EN. Mentoring and slow progression today is no longer the norm in comparison to what it was 5, 10, or 15 years ago. Recently it has become popular to talk more about advanced systems even to the point of making it sound as if people are not "real" divers if they aren't doing these types of dives. This trend is very disturbing, IMHO. Diving has ego, technical/cave diving has even more ego, once trimix, CCR, etc. is involved there is a considerable amount of ego involved. Not to mention time & money. Someone hearing that they need more time and experience before going to an advanced site can be tough. Hearing innuendo that they aren't a "real" diver unless they are diving ABC site may be irresistible.

I also feel strongly that taking any diver to an advanced site without training that would qualify them to dive the site after that specific training is wrong as well. In the past this was fairly common in training however we learned that doing training in this way lead's to incidents and it has been accepted for a long time not to do so. My hope is that the training agencies recognize that this is an issue that needs to be addressed, along with standards violations, etc. and that they take quicker and harsher action towards those that violate.

 

[RyanT]

@Bobby, thanks for the insightful view. I see an entire Ph.D. thesis here in sociology. Quite fascinating.

 

[PfcAJ]

As I think about this more. There seems to be some kind of phenomenon happening here too. What gets me is the attention a cave fatality gets over any other scuba fatality.

I've read a bunch of nonsense in the past few months about closing EN.

I don't have the figures, but let's say that it's 100:1 open water diver fatalities to cave diver fatalities every year. How many people have died at EN in it's entire history? 10? How many people will die this year alone off the coast off Tampa Bay? 5? 10? Is the cave diver's life more important than an open water diver?

What gives? It's my understanding the residents of Hernando County started a petition after the October incident, yet how many people die off the coast of Hernando County and you hear crickets? No one petitioning to close the Gulf of Mexico.

What gives?

5 have died at EN in the past 2 years.

The ocean is a big place. Even the gulf off Tampa bay is really big.

When "one place" sees a bunch of accidents it's not unreasonable for people to want something to change. If a certain intersection had 5 fatalities in 2 years people would be looking for a solution too.