My perceptions of our Eagles Nest incident

[Cave Diver Wayne]

Thank you so much for posting, me and my buddies have discussed when to part many times, don't know really how it would go. But your post makes us think again about reviewing lost diver policy. Thanks so much!

[midway]

...
Regardless of how else one might analyze the event, this one lesson is critical. Situational awareness will fail under stress; when one is feeling most frantic, is the time to back up a little, take some slow breaths, and regather all relevant information. In the ER, this saves lives, and I suspect it might in diving, too.

+1

A few years back a video demonstrating selective attention involving a moving gorilla that went unnoticed received a lot of attention:

http://www.bmedreport.com/archives/14998

Cave diving (and other forms of technical diving) helps improve situational and self awareness when under water. But there's a limit to human capability. Being aware of this, hopefully, helps promote a conservative mindset that reduces complacency. Thanks for sharing the experience.

[rjack]

Thanks for sharing Don.

Andy said earlier that you were using 10/50 dil for this dive? Is that true? Why so lean on the helium for 240+ft?

I seem to remember a Exley level rule somewhere about keeping narcosis to 100ft or less. Although some go out to 130ft on OC, I don't know of anyone doing >130ft narcosis on a CCR. 10/50 would be a bit of an outlier to me, but maybe its not as unusual as I imagine for FL.

Cheers,
Richard