Scenario: OW diver asks you where is the cave.

[Jax]

I voted No

Then explain the best I can why and desperately try to scare the #### out of them.

Like!

(who cares if it isn't Facebook?)

[gasdiver]

I find it hard to believe that anyone that is open water certified, hasn't been told not to go into caves / wrecks or any overhead. You might be right, I was originally YMCA certified back in the late 70's, but I did get my kids certified in the last couple of years and I know darn well that was taught to them.

I sat through my daughter's PADI o/w class a few years ago and it was never brought up.

[Jax]

In KIlleen Tx you could go through a drive in and get a frozen alcoholic drink that even had a straw in it, there were also "beer Barns" where you could drive through and get alcoholic beverages without having to get out of the car.

Boy, are you dating yourself!

[Tegg]

Did people die in caves before the internet?

[FW]

Did people die in caves before the internet?

Funny, but if you look at the accident statistics, you might notice a recent decline in OW divers dying in caves, and a rise in internet usage. Maybe the internet is responsible for saving OW divers

[swadiver]

4th of July weekend 1988, Little River is the site. On July 4th, a very obvious open water diver, pounding down beers all by himself, asks the 4 of us cave divers essentially that question. we tell him the things we should, cave diving can be very dangerous, get the proper training and equipment, etc. we do our dive, he is still there when we come up, but won't talk to us again.

early morning, July 5th, the open water diver's car is still on site, but he is no where to be seen. this is long before the days of concrete, steps, facilities. probably sleeping it off in his car, we figure. we shrug our heads and head out to do our dive. this, by the way, was in the days of Little River flowing as a first magnitude spring does. a lot of pulling and gliding to be done. anyway, down the chimney we go, level out and go a few hundred feet, and what do we find? Our open water diver of the day before, dead as a doornail, mask off, reg out of his mouth, pushed by the flow into a pocket off to the side. he is equipped as if he was rolling off the boat in Pennekamp Park for a nice 30 ft reef dive, with a single 80 cu ft tank (which was empty) and a small light. he did have a snorkel though.

. My buddy, Steve Irving (original WKKP) and I had been through cave rescue/recovery training, so we elected to perform the recovery. we brought him up to just below the entrance, and stowed him in that small side passage off to the right. we surfaced and alerted the authorities. when the coroner arrived with an ambulance, we completed the recovery to the surface.

I thought long and hard after this incident as to whether we were forceful enough in our attempt to educate and dissuade this individual from making a dive there. i don't think we could have done more, but i still felt very bad about it. i believe this guy entered the cave sometime late afternoon on the 4th after he had been drinking, and quickly ran out of gas trying to get into the system. some speculated it may have been "suicide by cave", but we never did find out anymore definitive info.

the point is, of course, being in any way helpful to this type of diver is criminal and we should all do what we can to when approached to stop someone from making a fatal mistake.

[JamesK]

At Ginnie today I got the chance to enjoy a beautiful dive. While I was dropping my tanks near the steps a group of open water divers were there. I overheard them say "I tried to follow them in, but they started getting all mad. I don't know what their problem was". I just shook my head. I was in shock. I watched out for them on my dive so they did not try to follow me in. I wanted to say something to them but did not want any problems with my vehicle when I left or my tanks while I geared up. So if the cave team happen to be on this board, thank you. Your actions might have saved a life.

[JamesK]

However, I did tel some drunk snorkelers to stay out of the cave. They wanted to was down in to the eye. They actually listened.

[a64pilot]

I try not to belittle them, bring up that the only difference between you and them is the training and equipment. Suggest to them that what do they think is the probability of success of someone that had no training at all completing an open water dive without hurting themselves? Suggest to them a name of an instructor who can help? How many people rode a bicycle successfully the first time? What if falling off meant death? Remind them that getting lost = death, equipment failure without a backup = death, they only have one light, light failure = death, etc.
I don't know about you guy's, but I was that open water diver diving the "springs" and that open hole called to me, admittedly I "pushed the limits" before I got formal training, and to be truthful, who trained the pioneers? I am not abdicating self training, but have we become so mainstream that we deny the call of the unknown?
Ain't nothing wrong with mentoring a wanna be, some you can't , there is always the drunk, "hold my beer, watch this" Redneck, but most aren't.

[jj1987]

By artifacters, you mean thieves? Or legitimate? I assume you mean thieves.

Both.