Exceeding training limits on a trust me dive
This in an event that happened to me back in 2012. At the time I was at the Apprentice level , with approx. 25 dives post certification.
Due to the recent discussion on the forum concerning training limits, I decided to share this story. The names of the other members of the team have been changed.
Frank and I, both at the Apprentice level, dove at our local mine last weekend, we made a total of three dives.
Not all went well and I decided to share this story, despite the fact that I am very embarrassed…
For the second dive in the afternoon, my longtime mentor and buddy John was to lead Frank and myself. His plan was that we dive the first part of a short circuit, which we of course would not complete in order to stay within the apprentice training limits.
John had done this circuit before and was more familiar with this mine that we were.
Unfortunately I let myself get talked into "bending" the apprentice limits a little for this dive. Basically we were required to do a jump onto the circuit line, but, there was also a T on the main line before that. Now since we went "straight ahead" on this first T, I let myself be convinced by John that it would be ok to do two navigational decisions. This would turn out to be the first mistake (1), but not the only one. Since there will be a few more mistakes, I’ve marked them with a number in parentheses.
The next pre-dive mistake (2) was that we did not have full tanks, since we had done a smaller dive with them earlier and had been unable to get fills.
My 12l doubles were at 150bar, Franks at 140bar. While this would have been plenty of gas for a short dive along the mainline (depth of max. 25m, no more than 12-15 minutes from the exit at all times) it would turn out to be a little bit sparse for what we were about to do. But then to our defence, we were told it was a „short and uncomplicated half-circuit only“, nothing out of the extraordinary.
Thus began our trust-me dive.
At first everything went well, John was in the lead, Frank was second and I was in third position. John marked the first T and completed the jump onto the white circuit line.
To our astonishment we jumped from a depth of 25 meters through a restriction up to less than 10 meters into a series of chambers where the workers used to mine the slate.
There were several near vertical passages and minor restrictions and I could see that Frank was getting stressed navigating this twisty course - so was I,.
We were most certainly not briefed and prepared (3) for this type of diving, which is so very different from the large main line passages we had been diving in the mine..
In addition Frank was struggling to keep up with John, who was clearly way too fast and far ahead of us.
As a matter of fact, we were both rushing to keep up.
Unfortunately neither of us called the dive at this point and neither of us asked John to slow down (4).
Finally, after a total dive time of little more than 15 or so minutes, we dipped through a vertical hole and were at 25 meters again, apparently on one of the main tunnels.
John pointed his light onto a yellow line, looking just like the main line we knew, in the passage below us and I could see a familiar red directional marker.
This was obviously the other side of the circuit on one of the main passages of the mine.
John signalled us to return up into the hole in reverse order, in the briefing however we had agreed that we would return in the same order we came in and that we would not reverse, in order for me to capture the two of them on video.
After turning the dive, this lead to some confusion. In addition, Frank dipped down onto the yellow line doing a 2m visual jump (5), apparently thinking we would now follow this line to the exit. The whole confusion was beginning to get to me, I felt extremely uneasy. I turned to Frank, he turned to me, we both turned to John - but amidst all this confusion John was now gone and his light was nowhere to be seen…
It seemed like he left us and swam up, back into the nasty little hole we came down from. By instinct, Frank did what we thought was the most sensible thing to do and started swimming on the yellow line in the lower passage, towards the direction the arrow was pointing (6).
He did not do a jump, did not even mark the jump point with at least cookie, he just wanted to ge thte $&% out of the mine at this point (7). Needless to say, stupid me had the same train of thought and sheepishly followed him…
After 15-20m of swimming, I suddenly realised this was right at the top of the list of the most stupid ideas I had ever come up with. We did not know for a fact where this line went and I checked my gas, I was down to less than 100 bar. I knew Frank had even less than that, and I was getting really scared.
Of course I knew that if this was not the right passage, or if it was much longer than expected, we might never get out of the mine alive. My breathing was getting faster, I can´t remember that I had every been this scared in my entire life. Of course I told myself I would quite cave diving (and maybe diving altogether) should I manage to get out alive.
Fear was beginning to get the better of me, I remember holding my regulator because I was afraid I might lose it.
At this point we saw lights flash far behind us. It was John who had come back through the circuit-hole again to look for us. As he later said he had thought we would follow him into the hole and that he did not mean to leave us in the passage below.
John flashed the light like a madman and we returned to him, he signalled us to get up into the hole. At this point I was quite frankly on the verge of shaking in fear. I pleaded John to take the „quick“ route on the yellow line back, but he motioned us up into the hole.
I followed the steep and almost vertical slope up, Frank was in the lead this time, why I don´t know, John must have just shoved us both up into the hole. Within seconds my brain started working perfectly again, all the fear vanished, my breathing and heartbeat returned to normal. I was back on track, not losing control anymore. The world was spinning in the right direction again.
We returned from the circuit, John removed the jump spool and we headed back towards the exit. When John motioned us that we might take a look at two rooms on the way back I showed him the finger. No more sightseeing for me after what had happened.
After surfacing, Franks tanks were down to 60bar, mine were at 70bar.
In the debriefing we found out that up in the shallow and stressful part of the mine (up/down, left right through the rubble) John had actually marked another T, which both Frank and I had not noticed at all (8). I am sure that John had Frank OK the T, but I suspect Frank did not realise it. I spoke to Frank about it and he had no clue that there had been a T up there. So much for our line awareness :-(
We also found out that we would have reached the same T on the main line that we had marked in the beginning of the dive, had we continued on the passage we were swimming, actually we were only a couple of minutes away from the T and would have recognised John´s cookie there.
Unfortunately this event has of course impacted my self-confidence in regard to cave diving.
Nevertheless, Frank and I did a third dive on Sunday. I felt very uneasy during most of the dive and called it early after little more than half an hour. I did not do a fourth dive (as originally planned) after that on Sunday, but then I don´t think anybody minded that.
In due course I hope that this was the last time I brought myself into such a stupid situation.
I am now working on rebuilding my confidence, step one is of course understanding exactly what happened. In retrospect, I believe it was the uncertainty and doubt of not being on the right line, together with getting „low“ on gas, that started to cause the fear and early signs of panic.
Needless to say, as awful and stupid as this second dive was, it has been an extraordinary learning experience.
Frank and I have talked and learned a lot.
Welcome to the Cave Diver's Forum.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by FW
Bookmarks