Solo Diving in FL State Parks

[Nitrogenius]

Hey, don't throw me in with the Germans.

Last time I checked you were
Too much AFD these days to not be? ..


zee Germans btw

[WEPIV]

Last time I checked you were
Too much AFD these days to not be? ..


zee Germans btw

ARD und/order ZDF?

[Nitrogenius]

ARD und/order ZDF?

you can see them on both

[Sludge]

when friend number 7 got scratched off my phone list.

I don't get this. I have been cave diving for almost twenty years, and TWO personal friends have died cave diving. Both were determined to be heart attacks. So they could have been playing golf and they'd be just as dead.

[PfcAJ]

I carry a backup for every piece of safety equipment except for myself. If I have a medical incident that I can't handle by myself, then it was my time to go.

Of all the parts and pieces involved with cave diving, the human is one of the most questionable. A backup brain is a good idea always (IMO), but especially when you're brand new.

Bad choices kill more cave divers than "medical" issues.

[floridabob]

I don't get this. I have been cave diving for almost twenty years, and TWO personal friends have died cave diving. Both were determined to be heart attacks. So they could have been playing golf and they'd be just as dead.

What's not to get? Cave divers know people that die cave diving. Seems fairly straightforward.

Kensuf's friends probably were doing something more than 90 minute dives on stages and saving their back gas for safety. Which, in retrospect, may not seem so safe now.

But I'm interested in you elaborating on your point.

Bob

[kensuf]

I don't get this. I have been cave diving for almost twenty years, and TWO personal friends have died cave diving. Both were determined to be heart attacks. So they could have been playing golf and they'd be just as dead.

#1: shallow water black-out
#2: mismarked gas cylinders, breathed 50% at 150'
#3: that one was a suicide
#4: we still don't know how he died, he was solo in Ginnie. Another friend found the body.
#5: deep air
#6: Steve Berman
#7: breathed pure helium at 20' because he mislabeled a bottle he decanted pure helium in.

[kensuf]

The guy who found #4 was just there for a fun dive and came across the guy in the mud flats.

[floridabob]

2/7ths due to labelling errors. If only there was a green or yellow hose involved. Mighta made the difference.

Or a purple tank!

Finding a dead body does sound fun.

Bob

[kensuf]

2/7 were solo too.

The labeling errors: The first one had his tanks labeled "1" and "2", not 26% and 50%. The second had it labeled 100%, but he never put an analyzer on it to verify it was O2 and he forgot it was pure helium.

The kid who found the body had just finished full cave a few weeks earlier. He was doing the mud flats circuit when he came across the guy, completely freaked him out.

Then there's the tangentals, guys I never knew but were good friends of my friends or that I only met once or twice. That list includes Lance Crawford (Alachua, 1993, my mentor through most of the mid-late 90s, and the guy I did my first 2 mile dive with was his buddy on that dive), Sherwood Schille (Cheryl), Jim Miller (Leon Sinks), Marson Kay (Weekie), Agnes (Tank Cave). Of course I knew Wes too, but that was a CCR accident in OW. And Bill Bowden, who died after a DCS clusterfuck at the nest in 2011, took hypoxic trimix from me in the 90s.

#### I'm worse than Lockwood.

Bob, buy me a beer.