Sad Day at Ginnie Yesterday
Yesterday, at about 12:30 PM, John and I surfaced after a 92-minute dive to the Hillier Tunnel in the Devil's Ear system, next to a guy who had just exited as well. We were standing in the shallow water of the run next to the stairs across from the Eye. I asked him how his dive was. He replied "not too good; problem." I was thinking a light failure or reel entanglement, something like that. I said, "hope it was a small problem." He said, "no." I then asked him what the problem was. He said "my partner is still in there." I asked him if his partner was OK. He said "no." I asked him if his partner was dead or alive. He said "dead." I asked him where his partner was. He said he had clipped his buddy off to the mainline at the distal Roller Coaster jump off the mainline. I asked him what happened. He said his partner just suddenly "bolted toward the mainline, and then died." He was obviously in shock: he could barely get his words out, and seemed to be frozen in place and couldn't move. I told him I would get help, got out of the water and called Larry Green, and sent a passer-by up to the Ginnie lodge to call the police/fire, etc. The fire/rescue and Sheriff's vehicles' lights, gawkers, questions and speculation, all ensued.
I drove home very sadly, wondering how much I could get for all of my cave diving gear. Later, I talked about my concerns with my dive buddy John, and we're planning to dive again there next week.
No use speculating: we'll wait for Larry's and the ME's reports.
