How often do you run a line?

[LiteHedded]

Copernicus???

Sorry, I am confusing "What's My Line?"
with "Where's Your Line?"

[phillip1]

sg, i promise i'm not saying change *anything*, just restating what i think is andrew's central point. continue to dive and break eggs as you desire!

and phillip, please show where anyone said the current rules are silly or too strict. *nobody* is saying to ditch them, just rethink them & make sure they make sense for today.

Quoted from Andrews post a few pages earlier
"If one makes overly strict rules, they tend to get broken because they just seem so silly. There are a lot of jumps in Ginnie that just don't seem necessary, particularly on/off the Gold Line. And circuits is a great example of why people often break this rule"

I think that the "5" safety rules of cave diving are by no means too strict and even less appear "silly"
Correct me if I misunderstood, but there might be some additional rules that should be included in the 5 basic ones, but none are silly and adhering to all of them is why there are few cave accidents deaths today.
Not adhering to them is almost always why there still are a few cave diving deaths today.

Also what is different today apart from better dive gear? the cave hazards are the same maybe even worse because people think that the "better" gear won't fail and they become "immune" and go way beyond were they should be going.
I may be wrong but apart from scooters which I assume have a completely different set of rules, I don't see any difference in the potential hazards, gear failure, caves, gas mixes etc.

[FW]

Short of a collapse, or medical problem, I don't know of any accident that occured when the divers were following the rules. All this discussion in nice, but if you follow all the rules, your chances of survival are greatly increased.

There was some comparison to speeding, and it may be more accurate than it seems. A lot of people do drive over the speed limit, but eventually they will get a ticket, or even die as a result.

Phillip, don't let anyone convince you are wrong. Like Oister said, they *will* use a line to recover those that died for lack of using one.

I was looking at all the accident reportss on the IUCRR website, and I noticed one in Thunderhole (late '90s). The line ended in open water, but with very low visibility, the person managed to come up under an overhang, and was stuck for 5 hours, before she was rescued. When the rules first came out, the rule said "continious guideline to the surface" I still do this in low visibility.

[LiteHedded]

Short of a collapse, or medical problem, I don't know of any accident that occured when the divers were following the rules. All this discussion in nice, but if you follow all the rules, your chances of survival are greatly increased.

There was some comparison to speeding, and it may be more accurate than it seems. A lot of people do drive over the speed limit, but eventually they will get a ticket, or even die as a result.

Phillip, don't let anyone convince you are wrong. Like Oister said, they *will* use a line to recover those that died for lack of using one.

I was looking at all the accident reportss on the IUCRR website, and I noticed one in Thunderhole (late '90s). The line ended in open water, but with very low visibility, the person managed to come up under an overhang, and was stuck for 5 hours, before she was rescued. When the rules first came out, the rule said "continious guideline to the surface" I still do this in low visibility.

incident free isn't the same as safe

[Ken Hill]

Most OOA situations are unlikely some even more unlikely, yet everyone plans and trains for them. I think that since it is possible to loose all your air at any point, why not plan for the worst case scenario and reserve more than thirds in case it does happen
I would rather have as many angles covered as possible especially since the solution is so simple, reserve a bit more than thirds, the cost? maybe 10 mins less of dive time.

Phillip,

To answer your very sensible post and tidy up some other points made. Every death has been the result of an out of gas scenario barring those attributed by medical authority to a health issue beyond drowning/embolism.

Divers run out of air because of poor gas management. 1/3rd consumption is the minimum starting point for a plan and that depends on the systems outflow, team configuration(s) and always based on the smallest cylinder volume of the team. Siphons the minimum rule is 1/6 of the smallest cylinders starting pressure. Failure to run a line, whether within a series of simple or complex jumps and reliance on an exit reserve of 2/3rds of your starting gas is absurd.

Those found within the systems reveal that their exit was delayed because they were lost or may have encountered a time consuming dilemma. Some because there was not a continuous line to assure a safe exit. This delay may have been caused by poor visibility, confusion, carelessness, misjudgment or something as simple as indigestion let alone diving malady. We'll never know so we stress redundancy and adherence to the rules.

The autopsy table ALWAYS reveal embolism as that occurs because the deceased does not off gas on recovery.

Running a reel needs to be second nature even in zero viability and ample reels need to accompany every dive team.


/Ken

PS : Maybe the next poll should be:

( ) Would I want to die because I was lazy?
( ) Would I want to die because you were careless?
( ) Would I want to die because I planned my dive by the latest poll?
( ) Would I want to die telling my grandchildren I had one hell of a ride?

[icestac]

When the rules first came out, the rule said "continious guideline to the surface" I still do this in low visibility.

No truer words have been spoken. I recall one dive in Orange Grove when the basin was blown out. A team of three descended to go into the cavern... we all ended up surfacing in different corners of the basin (as I recall it, I was at least above the entrance of the cavern ). We ended up making a tie off in open air above the cavern. I felt good knowing that on the way out.

On another note, the look from the cavern to the basin when you have the wall of clear water up against the dark murky water was a really cool sight.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Tanked Monkey]

we can plan ourselves right out of a dive if we plan for every conceivable failure. where is the line drawn?
i'm just thinking out loud here...

I once heard someone say "you can plan for 2 major failures, but 3 will kill you"

Safe diving,
Mike

[phillip1]

I agree with you.
I always run a line no matter what or how many jumps there are. If the mainline was not properly thought out of in the first place and too many jumps exist, bring more spools and and plan your dive accordingly.
Those Neptuno mini spools are really cool for short jumps and you can bring many as they are so small.
We used them in Mex a lot.

[Burke]

If one wants to make an analogy to the above water world, I would equate running lines as the equivalent of wearing a seat belt in a car. Unless one is involved in some sort of accident/collision, the seat belt really doesn't do much; i.e. one can get away with not wearing a seat belt much of the time. But it only requires one incident to make the difference between coming out of an accident unscathed versus a severe injury or worse. That's why not wearing a seat belt is illegal.

Marius

Actually, seatbelts are required because we have a strong Insurance lobby, not because anyone really cares about our safety. If that were not the case, it would be mandatory to install seatbelts in school buses and make the kids wear them. So somewhere, someone is making consious decisions about the dollar value of a life. If they make you wear your seatbelt, it doesn't cost them anything; and ultimately, they may save some money. On the other hand, if we make kids on school buses wear them, well, who is going to pay to install seatbelts in millions of buses nationwide?

As far as landowners reading comments on the forum... Let's find out who they are and close their accounts...

[Sludge]

Does anybody find it ironic that in Florida, if you're riding a motorcycle you don't have to wear a helmet, but if you're riding in a car you have to wear a seat belt?