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Geoff:

I appreciate your thoughtful insight regarding this matter of cave deaths. 
Now yours is the type of posting that is well thought out, meaningful, and 
full of good information that can be of benefit to the members of this group 
including myself.

As far as your assuming that I meant being killed in a cave is inevitable for 
all cave divers is completely off base.  What I said was that "as long as 
people continue to dive in caves their will be deaths. That is a simple fact 
of the sport. I have been diving caves for many years and I am well aware 
that even the most safe and sophisticated cave divers do perish in caves no 
matter how well they are trained or how experienced they are. The same is 
true for mountain climbers. Take Alex Lowe for example. He was probably the 
most accomplished mountain climber in the world and died on a mountain by 
elements out of his control. Same with Anatoli Bukerov, Lopsong Shombo Sherpa 
etc. etc. etc. etc.(forgive the MIS spellings of their names)

It was not my intention to insitgate a long drawn out argument on this 
matter. I just simply wanted to point out that when someone is killed in a 
cave there should not be gleeful smirks of joy.

As to your point that you and many others have to suffer the consequences of 
a death with landowners, the State,  etc., is well taken.  I completely 
understand this concern and I too agree that people who are diving out of 
their limits (in this recent case, way out of their limits) should be 
discussed and investigated in a serious way. And if "training agencies" are 
actually encouraging "intro to cave" divers to dawn on a pair of doubles and 
head down to the Dome Room they should be severely punished.

I understand what you and your group are trying to do. You are trying to make 
diving safer which is of great benefit to the "community." I just feel that 
some of our members would gain a lot more respect from us "non sided" members 
by not taking the death of a "fellow diver" with so much sarcasm and glee.

Much can be learned from the group (WKPP) which has penetrated the furthest, 
dove the deepest, laid the most line, and has the best safety record in the 
history of the sport. This is a non debatable fact.  My thoughts are to use 
these facts, when commenting on a death, in a straight forward, non sarcastic 
way while respecting the souls of the dead who undoubtedly died a horrendous 
death. I believe that taking this type of approach will go a whole lot 
further with the diving public as well as the general public. No one 
appreciates sarcastic smart ass comments in the face of a true tragedy.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

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