Roberta Swicegood

[ynot]

All of the facts was very interesting and one thing really caught my attention and that was the line. It was mention of using knots to determine distance and direction. We use this system on our search ropes becuase visibilty in a fire is zero. While my future lures me to become a cave diver and I read posts to learn facts and real world experiences of new and experienced cave divers. One thing I have wondered and wondered again after reading this and I know it could ignite a firestorm, no pun intended. I know it would be a small entanglement hazard but in my mind should be easy to recitify. If a diver used a short piece of line that was attached with a caribiner to a d ring and another caribiner attached to a permanent guide would help prevent a diver from loosing the line. It could be moved from section to section at tie off points and if it got entanged the last resort would be to just take it off at the d ring. Just an idea and not meant in any way to question traning methods!!! we use a similiar system when searching large structures to prevent using the line and in a building there exists many entanglement hazards and we train to deal with it. We do this by training in a safe environment and having no visibilty simulated with mask blanks in our scba. We take several layers of window tinting together and they are cut to fit our scba masks. This makes it very easy to have no visibilty and can be changed to simulate various degrees based on the amount of layers installed. It works for fire however not for sure in a cave, just wondering. One thing I have pushed and trust me it was a battle to get people to look at their air in thirds. People look at from the perspective of staying in a building until the low air alarm went off and it is dangerous. If it takes three fourths of your air to get in then one fourth will not get a person out. More are looking it to be a safer way to do fire atacks and searches. Hope I dont offend anyone as it is not intended to. Any feedback would be appreciated!!!!

Dear FFDiver221, welcome to the forum. I've heard other people suggest similar concepts of hooking off to the line in one way or another, but I think the bottom line is that it would probably be way too restrictive and way too much work to clip on and off. As cave divers we will "OK" the line with our fingers if we get in a silt out situation, which tends to work quite well. It gives us the ability to move quite quickly, move around obstructions, and doesn't become an entanglement hazard in and of itself like a carabiner does.

I think you will appreciate the concept once you get in your cave class and experience the low viz drills in person!

Hope you enjoy your journey to become a cave diver!

Regards,
Randy

That system was originally adopted in Australia in the 1970s and 80s. We called the short lines "tethers" - one end looped around the wrist, the other with a clip to the line, they were only about 6" long. They gradually lost favour in the 90s and now no-one uses them

Tony

[FFDiver221]

That system was originally adopted in Australia in the 1970s and 80s. We called the short lines "tethers" - one end looped around the wrist, the other with a clip to the line, they were only about 6" long. They gradually lost favour in the 90s and now no-one uses them

Tony

Thanks for the feedback. Im familiar with the OK system of holding the line as we do the same thing depending on conditions. Was just wondering from the standpoint of low visibilty in a low flow cave and the possibilty of an extreme emergency and getting off the line if it would help. I think in places with high flow, low silt conditions it would be more pain than it is worth. I was just wondering it it would be a good tool to add to the tool box for an appropriate place and or conditions. I try to anaylze every contingency before I do anything even just doing a simple dive as any dive can kill a person. AT least I did not ignite a firestorm yet so maybe that is a good sign

David

[Randy Thornton]

Thanks for the feedback. Im familiar with the OK system of holding the line as we do the same thing depending on conditions. Was just wondering from the standpoint of low visibilty in a low flow cave and the possibilty of an extreme emergency and getting off the line if it would help. I think in places with high flow, low silt conditions it would be more pain than it is worth. I was just wondering it it would be a good tool to add to the tool box for an appropriate place and or conditions. I try to anaylze every contingency before I do anything even just doing a simple dive as any dive can kill a person. AT least I did not ignite a firestorm yet so maybe that is a good sign

David

Hi David,

I think clipping on a tether would present more downside than upside. OKing the line seems to work well for us in a multitude of situations, so I would think most people would be reluctant to tie themselves into anything. Entanglement is one of the big fears of cave divers everywhere. By the way, typically in a silt out situation, the entire cave is not mucked up. It's usually just a short segment of the cave where you have been mucking about! In a low flow cave, once you have swam back through that section, it will more often than not clear up again. In a high flow cave, if you just stay put for a minute, the flow will blow the bad viz past you and then you are usually good to go. Of course, there are no absolutes in this business, but a silt out in a section of the cave is usually not the end of the world. It's usually just a short segment of the cave or it passes fairly quickly!

Regards,
Randy

[Webmaster]

I've just done that once or twice before and effectively tethered myself to the line, but only when I was not moving and doing something that required a lot of attention in low vis. I can't even remember now why I did it then, but it worked ok and seemed like a good idea for that particular moment.

[FFDiver221]

I've just done that once or twice before and effectively tethered myself to the line, but only when I was not moving and doing something that required a lot of attention in low vis. I can't even remember now why I did it then, but it worked ok and seemed like a good idea for that particular moment.

That is sort of my thoughts is that it would not be useful all the time just in certain scenarios. We train in the fire service to deal with entanglements because in a structure that is burnt very bad there are a lot of wires and we even train in a tunnel that is about two feet square crisscrossed with electrical wires and work our way through this tunnel which is about 8 feet long and it is tough becuase they like for us to do it without cutting any wires. In the real world I keep three sets of cable cutters in my gear so even if I am pinned i still have a very good chance of getting a hand on at least one of them. The thoughts of being entangled and running out of air is a very large concern just as much as being burnt or being caught in a collapse. The only good thing is if a person gets trapped and we can reach them we can transfill air into another persons ait cylinder until we free them, so we have that safety margin.