Posted by MHK on June 25, 2001 at 09:51:41:
A few weeks ago you may remember there was a fatality in Florida where a OW instructor took some of his buddies into one of the caves *to check it out*.. Long story short not all of them made it out and the guys from the WKPP had to go recover the bodies.. These were college kids and the facts were so obvious as to make the analysis largely rhetorical.. The accident was roundly studied on the cave list, tech list and Quest...
I was in Wakulla this weekend and there was a new guy at the dive site and Chris Elmore introduced me to him and as it turns out he was the *guy* that lead them into the cave. I was somewhat surprised to see him at the site given the above and we got to talking and he was very open about his account and basically knew he totally screwed up, and was swallowing a big hunck of humble pie and said that he wanted to learn how it should really be done, but the most telling thing that he told me was that he was well aware of all the interenet arguements about training etc. etc. etc. and that his biggest regret is that it took the death of his best friend for him to learn the lessons..
We have a numonic that we use in cave diving training that goes as follows:
Thank God All Diver's Live
T raining - Never exceed your training
G uideline - Guidleline, always use a continuous guideline
A ir - Air supply, always use rule of 1/3's
D epth - Never exceed your comfort level with respect to depth
L ights - Always use primary plus 2 back ups..
Many of these basic and fundamnetal principles apply to the recreational environment and I hope no one needs to loose their best friend to underscore these lessons..
Stay safe...
Later