"Safety Tank Caches" Yay or Nay ????????

[Herbie]

I was debating with another diver a topic that I have never heard of or seen posted before.
The idea was in retrospect to the main reason cave divers perish and it came down to out of gas. Whether it was due to a dead light, lost line, lost direction, panic, silt out, etc...
Apart from some health issue(heart attack, etc) we perish when we have nothing more to breathe.
The topic of debate was a suggestion to why not have "safety tanks" cached at various locales throughout cave systems with direction to nearest exit info on a wet note / line arrow with distance for divers to use in emergency situations(aka life/death).
I mentioned the fact that these tanks/regs would have to be serviced routinely, the cost for this endeavor, that it would be unsightly to some, the liability issues, etc...
His response was the same over and over again. "If it saves one life it would be priceless".
He said "surely there would be some divers who would volunteer for the maintenance and staging of the gear, it would be another reason to get some dives in ..right? Some agencies might band together to raise funds to save lives.. right? It might help to keep caves open and a safer image with the general public and landowners ..right? There could be some kind of waiver to sign that using these tanks is at your own risk for liability reasons..right? Its kind of like a line commitee ....divers follow the laid lines and its not the commitees fault if they still get lost..right? "If it saves one life its priceless..right?".
I did not have an comeback for this, anyone out there have one?

[stairman]

Herbie you must have been offline a while. Deanme brought it up and got slammed for the suggestion. It seems cached tanks dont hold up good. Rich Courtney would be a good guy to maintain these in Ginnie though! Just kidding Rich.

[Kelly Jessop]

My only concern is that it would give people the feeling they can push limits and not be conservative. There is already some convulted gas rationalization,I would hate to see people conclude they can go a little further because they know there is a safety tank there. Keeping these tanks and regulators serviced is a difficult job,because I have seen tanks/regs that have been left in caves for prolonged periods of time; some end up in the scrap metal pile.

[RN]

And then what happens when one of those tanks is missing or empty and the family sues whoever was supposed to maintain them because they didn't do it often enough?

[MedCop]

Hasn't this been beat to death already?

It comes down to:

People have to be responsible for their own actions. Our society is becoming a bunch coddled, depend on everyone else society.

If you want safety tanks in a system put them in for your dives / series of dives. DO NOT depend on someone else doing this for you. Crap, carry an AL80 that you never touch if you feel you need a safety.

[OFG-1]

Hasn't this been beat to death already?

Beaten to death, stuffed in a wood chipper, the pieces collected and put into a food processor, seasoned and served as a dipping sauce for future discussions.

[Herbie]

Beaten to death, stuffed in a wood chipper, the pieces collected and put into a food processor, seasoned and served as a dipping sauce for future discussions.

We are not talking about the story of your life you OFG.

[OFG-1]

We are not talking about the story of your life you OFG.

True, if referring to my life, the dipping sauce would be consumed by a group of really smart baboons, would give them stomach cramps followed by explosive diarrhea and bazooka barfing, and then dung beetles would bury what was left.

[LiteHedded]

nay

[Benthic]

No just 'nay,' but 'HELL NAY!'

Brian