[Closed] Fascinating (tragic) cave diving article on Beeb site

Stuff of nightmares for me. Read also the 'Dead Man's Handshake' article about Kingsdale Master Cave diving for a similar, albeit less tragic, sweaty palms read...

I just read that - sounds like my worst nightmares made real! Such a very fine line between life and death and if/when it goes wrong there is literally no way you can be saved 😯

I've been down two caves with a mate who does this kind of remote and extreme cave diving. After reading that story I'm beginning to think he must be mad.

Yeah had a read of that myself this morning. I get the lure of exploring new areas but for me the fear of struggling through pitch black cave systems and knowing if something goes wrong it's likely to be fatal far outweighs that so it's not something I'd ever want to do. I did a bit of caving as a teenager (wore a wet suit but not in submerged caves) and that was scary enough when you feel yourself getting wedged in and start panicking as you can't expand your chest to breath properly, which then makes you hyperventilate...)

A bit longer but this is an amazing all be it tragic read too.

[url= http://www.outsideonline.com/1922711/raising-dead ]Raising the dead Outside on line [/url]

I read that too. Can't think of a more terrifying pass time!

Think my entire English class was put off any sort of caving after reading an account of someone who got trapped head first down a passage and all attempts at rescue failed and eventually he ran out of air.

I got stuck at 95m in a cave for a while. (open circuit, four tanks)

It concentrates the mind a bit. When I managed to wriggle out backwards I then ended up in zero vis due to my strugging.

Eventually got clear only to figure out I was very likely short of deco gas by about 12 mins.

I've read about the tragedy at the Bushman's Hole and to be frank anything underwater scares the bejesus out of me....add narrow, restricting, dark and thanks but no thanks.

Fascinating though underwater caves.

Such a very fine line between life and death and if/when it goes wrong there is literally no way you can be saved

Agreed, but it's only a continuation of the same scale that saw gliding effortlessly* down Red25 at Swinley past the shrine marking the point someone died last year. Only need to come up short on a jump or have a tyre wash out pitching you into a tree and it's lights out.

*breathing out of my arse

I feel sick just reading that, with a creeping feeling of panic. Very brave those guys!

yes amazing/scary read

Trimix - Member
Eventually got clear only to figure out I was very likely short of deco gas by about 12 mins.

and...?

Here's a cracking video on the challenges and complexity of cave diving with Rick Stanton.

You can (and should) plan for the risks so that they can be dealt with or eliminated. This is the element that I enjoyed the most when doing it.

I would spend ages dreaming up possible chances of it going wrong, then planning on how to eliminate them, then practicing the drills, then doing some safe but rehearsed problems.

There is something very satisfying about being in total control of your life and not relying on someone else or some element of chance.

Never done diving or cave diving but I once had to duck under a sump that was in an S shaped passage, emerging into a bigger cave system. The only way to do it was to lie on your side and twist round the turns like a shrimp while breathing the air in a small pocket above your head, then take a deep breath and go for it with blind faith. Coming back, we couldn't find the entrance to the sump because it was under water and we began to get a little nervous; it was a good exercise in keeping one's wits. We found it and got out but even now I have nightmares about a big black mass of rock with a tiny twisting passage filling with water and me trapped in it like a worm in a tunnel.

Raising the dead Outside on line

Cracking read and very sad tale...

@theflatboy - I ended up with a very aggressive deco gradient and sucked O2 on the boat for about an hour.

Mild skin rash and joint pain which eventually went. I have had worse 🙁

My deco planning is set to about 20% - depending on the dive, so theoretically I can push it to say 10 % or even less.

But I know from experience that 20% feels fine, anything more aggressive results in side effects.

Sounds lucky - I have done quite a bit of boring AOW depth diving but can't imagine the sort of stuff you're talking about and in those articles, I'd be terrified!

Actually its only terrifying if you haven't planned it. If you spend a week planning / practicing it then its quite satisfying and not at all scary.

If it does go wrong - which in my case it has a couple of times - you are so focused on a solution there is no time to be scared.

Glittering underground caves and subterranean dives sounds fun. Then you read the article and its all confined spaces, getting tangled up, getting life changing injuries from coming up too quick and a good chance of death, then I realise I'm better off with
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Eventually got clear only to figure out I was very likely short of deco gas by about 12 mins.

globalti - Member

Never done diving or cave diving but I once had to duck under a sump that was in an S shaped passage, emerging into a bigger cave system. The only way to do it was to lie on your side and twist round the turns like a shrimp while breathing the air in a small pocket above your head, then take a deep breath and go for it with blind faith. Coming back, we couldn't find the entrance to the sump because it was under water and we began to get a little nervous; it was a good exercise in keeping one's wits. We found it and got out but even now I have nightmares about a big black mass of rock with a tiny twisting passage filling with water and me trapped in it like a worm in a tunnel.

Never got into technical diving, and none of the links above have made want to change that.

I had palpitations reading it !

Much respect to those who do (hat tip to trimix, but bloody hell I'd have gone to the pot after those symptoms! 🙂 I'm guessing that there wasn't one near) But I decided that mixed gases were beyond my budget and caves were therefore out as well

A bit of wreck is ok though

Scares the shit out of me too - I've been dryish caving but only places where I've been assured that flooding "pretty much" couldn't happen

Got stuck (or rather, "unable to get through") in the cheese press at Ingleton once and that was bad enough, even knowing there were several people well capable of pulling me out backwards and that there was an easy walk around the thing after that

Dorothea Quarry in North Wales has many tragic divers deaths and has fences and big bloody signs telling people to keep away as theres a chance of death yet still people dive there.
Could someone please explain to a layman why it's so dangerous there?

I can't even bring myself to read those articles, just reading globalti's bit about the sump gives me the horrors, my worst nightmare, getting stuck in a narrow passage underground.

You don't need to be underwater to lose consciousness in a tunnel;

[img] [/img]

very Wemmbley Hogg

Christ, remind me why I ride with you Trimix !?
😉

Diving - Yes.
Caves - Sod off.
Cave diving - Erm, nope.

Interesting read, be good to see the film. Although I suspect it'll give me nightmares.

iolo - it's statistically no worse than any other inland dive site if you consider number of dives compared to incidents - but the local papers like to write stories; Because there is a public RoW that runs alongside the site, the slope and the size of the site it's very hard to turn it into a commercial dive location. because of the state of the road in and out the ambulances can't get in or out so the divers know to call the coastguard to chopper them to the pot at murrayfield on the wirral, which is a big notice of an incident which makes for an easy headline, even if it's precautionary

yes it's deep - 90m for a fair section of it and even more if you really hunt for the deepest point (I think 101m), so if you don't know what you are doing you could end up in a very bad way (or dead I'm sorry to say) but you could do this at capernwray or chepstow or stoney cove
it's also really impressive - some of the best visibility and the slate faces are mega, and the petrified forest on the back section 🙂

capernwray is 20m deep, chepstow about 50m stoney cove about 35m - there are lots of things that could cause a bend

Read the book of Raising The Dead, genuinely haunting. Do I imagine it or did some poor soul lose his companions and his way, find an air pocket and sit there in the pitch darkness until he died of starvation? Pretty high up on my list of bad ways to go.

What a great (and sad) article and it completely reinforces my only major phobia... cold, dark water. Combine a footbridge, a fast flowing river, night and winter makes me take a deep breath and mutter 'get a grip'.

I want to watch the documentary, but not with the curtains closed and probably with a lot of 'pause-breath' moments.

Do I imagine it or did some poor soul lose his companions and his way, find an air pocket and sit there in the pitch darkness until he died of starvation? Pretty high up on my list of bad ways to go.

That scares me as well. Shadow Divers is a book worth reading.

Not for me at all.i became stuck in a drainage pipe when i was a young boy and still have night terrors. Even putting on a motorcycle helmet can and has brought on panic attacks.
I'm unable to watch people caving on TV.
Oddly my wife took me into cheddar limestone caves as she thought it would be fun,not the best day out.

Read the original article last night on the BBC website, found it a really hard read, was an interesting, but horrible read.
Found it interesting what the British guy was saying about how safe it is as you should prepare for every eventuality.

Checking bike and kit before a solo mid-winter night ride will never really feel that important anymore.

Read the link and watched that Rick Stanton video. Really interesting but tragic story on the BBC. I had no idea how much gear they needed to take with them and the lengths/depths of the dives were much greater than I had imagined. Fascinating but truly scary stuff.

So starved to death in the dark

I remember that one, he had access to water and when they found his body he had several weeks beard growth so it was a long slow death......... 😕

I used to work in a dive shop with two cave divers. They were some of the most pleasant people I ever knew - relaxed, smart, focused, very good at pre-planning. Owners, and proud users, of adult nappies.

It used to be a Monday morning ritual to buy them a coffee and cake if they'd done a hard dive and nothing went wrong - laugh it off - make light of it. Frankly, Mondays we're always me wondering if the lads would be in work or dead. One to many, for my liking, serious incidents - a trip to the emergency deco chamber to check up on one of them.

I've dived a bit. Climbed a lot. Caved a bit. The concept of cave-diving still scares the pants off me. Fascinates me nearly as much.

If anyone is interested I wrote an article about another "experience" I had while diving.

It involves:
Hanging on to a decompression trapeze so the boat can tow me out of the shipping lanes.

Attempting to complete my final 35 mins of deco while losing consciousness.

Asphyxia underwater.
Asphyxia on the boat.

Bit long to post here - I can email it to you if you want.