When Things Go Wrong

[Kevin Carlisle]

You mean things like touch contact, light signals, and thumbs?

Try light signals in zero viz. Doesn't work so well, neither does touch contact when they go through a spot you can't fit. Which I guess was problem number two with this scenario. He thought instead of knowing for sure. That night the instructor that was a part of this cone up and told myself and another the whole story. I have no doubts he wont make those mistakes again.

[TraceMalin]

Try light signals in zero viz. Doesn't work so well, neither does touch contact when they go through a spot you can't fit. Which I guess was problem number two with this scenario. He thought instead of knowing for sure. That night the instructor that was a part of this cone up and told myself and another the whole story. I have no doubts he wont make those mistakes again.

It sounds like the instructor learned a valuable lesson. Other than the fact that Edd came to the rescue and saved the students, the details of what happened between the instructor and the students underwater hasn't been clear in over 200 posts. Some people believe it should be a private matter. Others would view it as a deliberate cover-up of information. Some people just want to know out of curiosity. As a PSAI professional, I'm honored to have a diver such as Edd teaching in the ranks of the organization. If I wanted the exact details of the story, I could contact Edd or Jim Charles and receive as much information privately as they are willing to share. As it stands, I'm just glad an accident was averted by those involved.

I posted what I did to call attention to the fact that not all of the information has been made available and sometimes students do surprising things even when instructors attempt to exercise due care and apply common sense. Without that information it isn't possible to analyze the incident from the start of the team breakdown to the fortunate resolution.

Because of experiences I've had when teaching technical diving and cave diving, I now teach my students from cavern to cave instructor trainer that the instructor must be part of the team. It's a fairly common practice for the instructor to place himself out of the team, but for everyone's safety the students need to maintain awareness of the presence of the instructor. In tight quarters, I'll usually place myself in touch contact with the team. If I let go, the students should stop. Should being the operative word. The cave environment presents an excellent classroom to teach the reason for every cave diving skill, test the abilities of students, and expose them to dicey situations in training so they do not have to face some of the worst-case scenarios without a lifeguard or mentor for the first time.

Cave instructors are faced with challenges that some cave divers and open water or tech instructors cannot imagine. It is not always possible to be in the best position to stop a student. You try to cover all bases, but sometimes a student will steal third when you are 99% sure it's the guy leading towards second you need to watch more closely. Without all the details of what happened underwater, I wanted to play Devil's Advocate and not necessarily place 100% of the blame on the instructor. I could understand the students losing the instructor. I'd blame the instructor for that. But, I'm more intrigued by how they lost one another. That would be on them. However, like I said, I haven't heard the full story and since it hasn't been made crystal clear in this thread, I'm more interested in inquiry than Inquisition.

[GL]

Here's another version of the story, published yesterday. It sounds like they talked directly to Edd. Also, there will be a show to be aired Monday night about the diver who disappeared at Vortex on a show called "Disappeared" on the Investigation Discovery channel.

http://www2.jcfloridan.com/news/2012...ue-ar-3427749/

When Investigation Discovery interviewed local cave-diving expert Edd Sorenson several weeks ago for an upcoming episode of Disappeared, the team didn’t know that, in the very near future, Sorenson would achieve something that might have made a good episode on some other program the network has to offer.

Sorenson saved a pair of cave divers a couple of weekends ago at Blue Springs. Although law enforcement never issued any public information on that incident, Jackson County deputies, fire/rescue officials and others responded to stand by if needed as Sorenson plunged in to help.

Sorenson was in the pavilion teaching a cave diving class at Blue Springs when a diver popped up in Merritt’s Mill Pond, hysterical and yelling for help. He was an instructor, himself, and two of his students were stuck in the cave. With zero visibility, he couldn’t find them.

Sorenson sprang into action. He went from street clothes to scuba gear in less than eight minutes, his students rushing his gear to water’s edge as he suited up. He had to feel around blindly once inside the narrow passage, and couldn’t find them for the first 15 minutes. Finally, he heard one of the men making a noise through his regulator.

Sorenson followed the sound, which is difficult, since in water sound is omni-directional. Sorenson found that diver, took him to a safe location in the water, calmed him down, and told him to wait there. He went back to find the other, and brought them both to surface and safety. Sorenson was just in time; a few moments later they would have run out of air and he would have been doing a recovery dive, rather than a rescue.

Recovery is usually the only thing left to do when divers get into trouble in a cave; they rarely make it out alive. To Sorenson’s knowledge, this is only the fifth cave rescue with survivors on record in the United States.

Sorenson said the students’ big mistake was using double back-mount tanks instead of the smaller single-tank side-mounted tank they needed in the tight space they entered. The larger tanks had wedged them in.

Sorenson said he was grateful to have been able to beat the odds.

One of the most-respected and utilized rescue/recovery and exploring cave divers in the country and abroad, Sorenson owns the Cave Adventurers dive shop near the spring.

He will be featured in the March 19 episode of “Disappeared” on Investigation Discovery when the show explores the mysterious 2010 disappearance of a diver at Vortex Spring in nearby Ponce de Leon. It airs at 8 p.m. central time.

[JTB]

Amazing Edd,, wonderful story.

[Sludge]

Sorenson said the students’ big mistake was using double back-mount tanks instead of the smaller single-tank side-mounted tank they needed in the tight space they entered. The larger tanks had wedged them in.

Leave it to Edd to put in a plug for "all divers should dive sidemount!"

[bladerunner]

Amazing story. Happy as hell for the two divers Ed helped.

PD

[scububa]

Leave it to Edd to put in a plug for "all divers should dive sidemount!"

The picture in the web article is right out of his side mount book :-O

[Danseur]

In classes, I will often put a ridiculous contents analysis label on my tanks to see if any of the students, other instructors, or people close by will notice and call my attention to it. Thus far, no one has ever caught what could be a fatal error - or, said anything, anyway.

Cough*Cough*

No one? It's one of the things I really remember and loved about my trimix class. Instructor doesn't analyze all of their gas for the dive, student doesn't confirm contents and catch it = FAIL COURSE. Great teaching scenario!