Vortex 3-18-2012

[Doppler]

This statement needs some clarification. While there are classes available beyond full cave that would better prepare someone for a dive like this, few cave divers bother to take them. Some because they don't know about them, others because they read comments on the internet by people who claim those specialty classes are a waste of money. Whatever the reason, it's just not that common. With that said, there really is no class that prepares you for a dive like that. Vortex is a unique cave. It's definitely not pristine as evidenced by the large pipe that runs through the passage. It's not very stable. Sand is constantly shifting around, the reason for the pipe. I know experienced cave divers who have gotten stuck in sand slides in there and when they tried to dig out the sand just kept coming. Nothing prepares anyone for something like this. I can't really think of a reason to dive this cave. I've had students ask me if we could do trimix training dives there because it's closer than Peacock and I've refused every time. I can't maintain full control over students in that cave, not with all the variables. I don't know why Larry was in that cave or if he had the experience or skills to be where he was. I'm not sure if anyone knows that because there is no card that will show that.

Best post in this whole thread.


For what it's worth, I had around 100 cave dives and some deep cave experience before I went to Vortex with a buddy to check it out. We did one dive and I did not go back until earlier this year, and even then, it was not to dive the cave proper. There is little appeal to this cave unless one counts its notoriety.

 

[Grace67]

I see some of you were there.... Here is an article we found this morning. It makes it sound like he had enough air and they could have gotten to him in time, but waited. My sister and I don't understand enough to know though. Could yall please look and see what you think?

Mississippi diver dies at Vortex Spring | vortex, dies, diver - ChipleyPaper.com

[h=1]UPDATE: Mississippi diver dies at Vortex Spring[/h]
March 20, 2012 11:08 AM
ShareThis| Print Story | E-Mail Story




CECILIA SPEARS / Florida Freedom Newspapers
Twitter: @WCN_HCT
PONCE DE LEON — A Mississippi man died in Vortex Spring on Saturday, almost a year-and-half after a Tennessee diver disappeared in the same underwater caves.

Larry Higginbotham, 43, of Biloxi, Miss., had gone to the spring to dive Saturday at 10:45 a.m., said Chief Deputy Harry Hamilton and Sgt. Michael Raley with the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office.

“When he didn’t return, his girlfriend contacted the Vortex Spring management, who in turn contacted the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office,” Hamilton said.

According to the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office report Jeff Spectre at Vortex Springs stated that Higginbotham had came into the dive shop at 9:40 a.m. on Saturday, March 18 and got his key to the cave lock.

Spectre told authorities that Higginbotham was the only diver for that day. Spectre said with only four hours of air he hadn’t surfaced and after they went looking for him they found a tank at the cave gate.

Higginbotham was at the springs with his girlfriend, Louise O’Brien and according to the report and O’Brien told authorities that Higginbotham asked her to contact Vortex Springs Underwater Maintenance Eduardo Taran if he didn’t surface in an hour and a half.

She said that after two hours she went to Taran and told her that Higginbotham had plenty of air and not to worry. After another hour of not surfacing O’Brien told Taran that Higginbotham still hadn’t surfaced and said that Taran told her that he had at least five hours left.

After 30 minutes she said she went to look for Taran and was told Taran was looking for Higginbotham. Sunday evening Eduardo found Higginbotham deceased at 1,200 feet into the cave.

Hamilton said Higginbotham’s body was recovered Sunday evening with the aide of volunteer cave divers.

The death comes as an Investigation Discovery documentary was set to air on the disappearance of Ben McDaniel, 30, of Collierville, Tenn., who was reported missing at Vortex Spring in August 2010. His body was never recovered.

Vortex Spring produces 28 million gallons of crystal-clear water daily at year-round temperature of 68 degrees. Vortex waters flow out of the 225-foot-diameter spring that flows into Blue Creek, which empties into the Choctawhatchee River, according to the website.

Hamilton, when coordinating the search for McDaniel in 2010, said the cave at Vortex Spring is very challenging and extremely dangerous. The bottom of the spring bowl is sandy, with limestone near the vent. So far, divers have penetrated the cave 1,500 feet at a depth of 150 feet.

Dive training is offered at the park and the underwater cave is accessible to 310 feet, at which point further entry is blocked by a steel gate; only certified divers are allowed beyond that point.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Which goes with my point. Larry had Full Cave less than a year as I was told. This cave is at best dangerous. You need to be doing advanced dives a long time before making that dive into small and unstable stuff. Its just like full cave doesnt qualify you to dive to the end of the line at JB right off the bat. You have to gain experience. Problems 2000ft in the cave is not the same as at 5000ft. You need time to work through isome problems and gain the experience. In Vortex, if you are going to dive super tight back of the cave stuff, you better know how to do it in shallow stuff befre you bail off in a small tiny passage at 160ft plus deep. Time is a lot more critical at that depth. Unfortunately we will never know why Lary went there. What I can tell you is when the call come to Stacy, she rushed to the water where Edd and I just surfaced with a few others. We both had the same reaction to people looking for him. That was disbelief that Larry would be killed at Vortex. That any good cave diver would be killed there actually, because we dont go there.

But didn't you recently post that you did go there for a class?

 

[jwp8363]

we are all so sorry to hear of your loss Grace. Our hearts go out to you in this sad time. Know that we are ALL grieving your loss

 

[Dive-aholic]

I see some of you were there.... Here is an article we found this morning. It makes it sound like he had enough air and they could have gotten to him in time, but waited. My sister and I don't understand enough to know though. Could yall please look and see what you think?

Mississippi diver dies at Vortex Spring | vortex, dies, diver - ChipleyPaper.com

[h=1]UPDATE: Mississippi diver dies at Vortex Spring[/h]
March 20, 2012 11:08 AM
ShareThis| Print Story | E-Mail Story





CECILIA SPEARS / Florida Freedom Newspapers
Twitter: @WCN_HCT
PONCE DE LEON — A Mississippi man died in Vortex Spring on Saturday, almost a year-and-half after a Tennessee diver disappeared in the same underwater caves.

Larry Higginbotham, 43, of Biloxi, Miss., had gone to the spring to dive Saturday at 10:45 a.m., said Chief Deputy Harry Hamilton and Sgt. Michael Raley with the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office.

“When he didn’t return, his girlfriend contacted the Vortex Spring management, who in turn contacted the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office,” Hamilton said.

According to the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office report Jeff Spectre at Vortex Springs stated that Higginbotham had came into the dive shop at 9:40 a.m. on Saturday, March 18 and got his key to the cave lock.

Spectre told authorities that Higginbotham was the only diver for that day. Spectre said with only four hours of air he hadn’t surfaced and after they went looking for him they found a tank at the cave gate.

Higginbotham was at the springs with his girlfriend, Louise O’Brien and according to the report and O’Brien told authorities that Higginbotham asked her to contact Vortex Springs Underwater Maintenance Eduardo Taran if he didn’t surface in an hour and a half.

She said that after two hours she went to Taran and told her that Higginbotham had plenty of air and not to worry. After another hour of not surfacing O’Brien told Taran that Higginbotham still hadn’t surfaced and said that Taran told her that he had at least five hours left.

After 30 minutes she said she went to look for Taran and was told Taran was looking for Higginbotham. Sunday evening Eduardo found Higginbotham deceased at 1,200 feet into the cave.

Hamilton said Higginbotham’s body was recovered Sunday evening with the aide of volunteer cave divers.

The death comes as an Investigation Discovery documentary was set to air on the disappearance of Ben McDaniel, 30, of Collierville, Tenn., who was reported missing at Vortex Spring in August 2010. His body was never recovered.

Vortex Spring produces 28 million gallons of crystal-clear water daily at year-round temperature of 68 degrees. Vortex waters flow out of the 225-foot-diameter spring that flows into Blue Creek, which empties into the Choctawhatchee River, according to the website.

Hamilton, when coordinating the search for McDaniel in 2010, said the cave at Vortex Spring is very challenging and extremely dangerous. The bottom of the spring bowl is sandy, with limestone near the vent. So far, divers have penetrated the cave 1,500 feet at a depth of 150 feet.

Dive training is offered at the park and the underwater cave is accessible to 310 feet, at which point further entry is blocked by a steel gate; only certified divers are allowed beyond that point.

Grace, those numbers are wrong. Lsrry would have had to have many more cylinders to stay at those depths for that many hours. My guess is the reporter got the information mixed up.

 

[bleeb]

Could some of the certified cave divers maybe clarify something for us non-cave divers: If you set a cut-off time with people back on the surface, is there on the part of most of the cave diving community that there's any realistic expectation that someone might luck out and be able to rescue you, or what degree is this an an implicit unvoiced assumption that this is a call for a recovery team? And outside of this particular accident, do you ever think there's a faint chance of a rescue cave diver outside the immediate dive team you're diving with, or is there an explicit assumption that if you do this, you're on your own?

 

[waterpirate]

Stuff like this:


Only warning system needed is time. If diver not back after X minutes. He needs help.

Guess you would have to ask Larry why no buddy. Maybe he made an educated decision the dive was safer solo due to being very tight and no viz.
Or maybe he just screwed up.[/QUOT

I really enjoyed the footage and turned the sound off!
Eric

 

[manni-yunk]

Grace, et al;

Radio waves do not travel well under water. They are reflected off of solid objects (walls, floor) and are dissipated in a very short time.

Submarines communicate with very low frequency waves. The antennas that pick up these signals are miles long.

So, the warning system won't work. That is why the buddy is so important, so if you do get stuck, they can help.


Wish I could give you more hope. Please remember that we are all given Free Will by our Maker.

Are these caves, mostly, already mapped and marked with "lines". Why not an antenna imbedded into the lines for an alert system - then a proximity could also be calculated.

 

[mike_s]

I see some of you were there.... Here is an article we found this morning. It makes it sound like he had enough air and they could have gotten to him in time, but waited. My sister and I don't understand enough to know though. Could yall please look and see what you think?


UPDATE: Mississippi diver dies at Vortex Spring

Spectre said with only four hours of air he hadn’t surfaced and after they went looking for him they found a tank at the cave gate

Grace, those numbers are wrong. Lsrry would have had to have many more cylinders to stay at those depths for that many hours. My guess is the reporter got the information mixed up.

I agree. No way he could have stayed at that depth for 4 hours unless he had many more cylinders.


Grace... one more thing to add, that when ANY diver is "in a panic", they will use more air/breathing-gas. Easily doubling their air/gas consumption. So he would have burned through his cylinder breathing gas MUCH quicker.

Also per the above, he left some of his decompression tanks at the gate to the cave (which is about 300 ft back into the cave). This is pretty typical of divers going through tight restrictions to leave a tank and "pick it up" on the way back.

You might ask next "would he have lived if he just carried those tanks back with him" ? The answer is probably not. I DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS IN THE TANKS, but it was prob a "decompression gas" that was LIKELY higher in oxygen content. (40% oxygen, or higher perhaps.) Higher oxygen concentration gases are toxic at deeper depths. (which is why all cylinders with Oxygen concentrations other than air are typically labeled with a "M.O.D" on them. (Max Operating Depth. )

if he used a high cylinder full of a high oxygen concentration, he would have encountered "oxygen toxicity" which has it's own dangers. (seizures, drowning, etc).

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Could some of the certified cave divers maybe clarify something for us non-cave divers: If you set a cut-off time with people back on the surface, is there on the part of most of the cave diving community that there's any realistic expectation that someone might luck out and be able to rescue you, or what degree is this an an implicit unvoiced assumption that this is a call for a recovery team? And outside of this particular accident, do you ever think there's a faint chance of a rescue cave diver outside the immediate dive team you're diving with, or is there an explicit assumption that if you do this, you're on your own?

Any rescue outside of your in water team is unrealistic. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it simply means that it is improbable.