Manatee Springs fatality?

[mdax]

Fast moving water is so dangerous, some of the scariest times I've ever had were running class iv rapids in my kayak.
Combine fast water with cave diving and you have serious environmental challenges, I've also had some interesting times in the local river siphon.

There is no reason for more details, fast moving water in a cave can kill you in a variety of ways.

Hopefully they knew how dangerous it was going into it, and just made a mistake. So sad.

[JohnAd]

I think this thread illustrates a very common problem causing breakdowns in communication. You see it in all walks of life in which people talk about topics in a group that has different levels of expertise. The people who really know the topic well talk among themselves using a form of shorthand and a confidence that they don't need to include details because other people with a similar knowledge base will understand. You see it most commonly in discussions about incidents that include rebreathers, with people composing sentences full of acronyms that are absolutely meaningless to non-rebreather divers.

In this thread, people who know that cave system well started talking about it as if everyone else participating in the thread has the same knowledge base, and their discussion amongst themselves is pretty meaningless to someone who has never dived the system. Speaking as one who has never been in that system myself, I am not clear on what happened. This is frustrating to me, because I assume that I will soon be trying to write a full report on it on behalf of the NSS. I will be writing that report knowing that 90% of my audience will not even be divers, and I will need to include those details so they can understand.

It would be very helpful if someone who knows the system well would write a clear description with details that will make the event clear for people who have never been there.

[PfcAJ]

I feel like that is unacceptable.

Welcome to cave diving.

[rddvet]

I think this thread illustrates a very common problem causing breakdowns in communication. You see it in all walks of life in which people talk about topics in a group that has different levels of expertise. The people who really know the topic well talk among themselves using a form of shorthand and a confidence that they don't need to include details because other people with a similar knowledge base will understand. You see it most commonly in discussions about incidents that include rebreathers, with people composing sentences full of acronyms that are absolutely meaningless to non-rebreather divers.

In this thread, people who know that cave system well started talking about it as if everyone else participating in the thread has the same knowledge base, and their discussion amongst themselves is pretty meaningless to someone who has never dived the system. Speaking as one who has never been in that system myself, I am not clear on what happened. This is frustrating to me, because I assume that I will soon be trying to write a full report on it on behalf of the NSS. I will be writing that report knowing that 90% of my audience will not even be divers, and I will need to include those details so they can understand.

It would be very helpful if someone who knows the system well would write a clear description with details that will make the event clear for people who have never been there.

If you have to write a report on it for the NSS wouldnt the easiest thing to do is reach out to the iucrr team? Problem solved.



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[CaveSloth]

As someone who has not dived this site what it sounds to me like at this point is that there were 2 ways out of the cave, a main way and an alternate way. In times past the alternate way would have been fine, but there was a cave-in a couple years ago that has made it into a gnarly restriction. The restriction combined with the high flow caused her to be wedged and pinned in a way that she could not free herself, and no one else had the gas to go back and help her, or they were afraid of being wedged themselves. Why she went that way or if she intended to or simply wasn't paying attention or worst case was forced that way by the current is still unknown and no one has suggested anything regarding how or why she went the alternate way.

[bent]

If you have to write a report on it for the NSS wouldnt the easiest thing to do is reach out to the iucrr team? Problem solved.

Or maybe someone who actually knows anything about this should write the report? Maybe we can find someone who's more qualified to write it... like someone who's been at Manatee at least once? Anyone?

...discussions about incidents that include rebreathers, with people composing sentences full of acronyms that are absolutely meaningless to non-rebreather divers.

So what? If people are actually interested they can look up stuff in no-time. No need to dumb down things and spoon feed people. BTW: you didn't explain what NSS is. This acronym is meaningless to non-cave divers.

[bent]

CaveSloth, you keep asking the same thing over and over again. How would people know what happened exactly? There maybe a report or not at some point in the future. 'Why she went that way?' How would anyone know that? Do you expect someone to tell you exactly what happened and what they were thinking even though they weren't there?

[MarkR]

Complete detailed recovery logs stopped being released years ago. It's just the way it is unfortunately. More can be taught by having the details but in today's litigious society and all of the internet hooplah, it's understandable.

More has been released on this incident that most from the last 4 years. The difference with this situation, is that it appears to be an accident where the answer is not the typical ?lack of training?, ?CCRs are deathtraps?, or ?Poor Gas Management? that is what seems to be normally to blame.

@CaveSloth, just accept that you might never know exactly what happened here. Acceptable or not... I do believe the members of the IUCCR are committed to releasing information that could prevent a future accident like this. They are just very reluctant to pass on details, which I totally understand. I sort of feel like the more people demand to know ?the whole story?.. the less some people are likely to want to discuss it.

[CaveSloth]

That's cool. Sorry if I am being too demanding or pushy. I am thankful for the information we already have and especially for those in this forum who have shared their first hand knowledge of the layout of that section of the cave, chimney, impact of recent cave-in etc...

[diveconjeff]

A terrible event to be certain. My thoughts go out to everyone involved.