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I wrote this up Saturday night about some incidents that happened Saturday afternoon at Little River. I found out this morning who "Diver B" was, his name is Jim Vahey from Miami. I strongly urge you guys not to trust this asshole at all. For the record, here are the facts: FACT: We found Jim Vahey 350' from the exit of Little River cave, just past Table Rock. His buddy was nowhere to be found. Vahey was headed for the door. FACT: He flagged us down and wrote on a slate "diver trapped". I asked him "where" he said "main line". FACT: I assumed that if Vahey was exiting the cave then the trapped diver was almost out of air. I know if my buddy was trapped I would do everything I could to save him before I had no choice but to leave or suffer a similar fate. My only concern was to get air to this trapped diver. FACT: Vahey had 1300psi in his doubles when we found him. I didn't know this at the time. FACT: I found his buddy (who shall remain nameless as the victim of this guys strokery) 1500' from the exit, tangled, in zero visibility, with 800psi left in his doubles. My two dive buddies and I pulled the missing diver out, and stayed with him throughout deco. FACT: It really would have been pretty damned bad if we went to Cheryl rather then Little River. FACT: You NEVER leave your buddy tangled in the line and bail to the exit unless you're down to the last thirds of air. FACT: I still haven't squeezed into the Florida Room Syphon. Now, on to the story. ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: ken@co*.ci*.uf*.ed* (Ken Sallot) To: "Cost effective home improvement" <freeattic@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*> Subject: Keep rule #1 in mind... Date sent: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 19:53:12 I just wanted to comment. Some of the people on this list are relatively new cave divers. They're on here because they're helping us out in Tallahassee, and are still in the process of learning how to dive. Let me remind you guys of one very important rule. It's probably the most important rule you'll ever learn. It's rule #1. Don't dive with strokes. What this means is don't dive with anyone who makes your dive a hazard. I bring all this to your attention because today I nearly wound up taking place in a body recovery in Little River. There was a buddy team who were scootering back to the last room. They'd never been there before. One of them was diving a Tekna 3x without bouyancy tubes. He wound up blitzing out the passage right beyond the dome room. On their way out of the cave 3x guy got caught with some danglies or something. I'm not sure of all of the details. Diver 3x's buddy (we'll call him diver B) panicked and split on him. All this did was cause Mr. 3x's SAC rate to go through the roof because now he's stuck in a cave with a shitty scooter by himself. Not only a cave, but a silted out cave that he'd never been that far in before. Myself and two other guys where just heading into the cave (literally we just passed table rock) on a leisurly little scooter dive when we ran into Diver B. Diver B signalled for a pencil, I gave him one, where he then wrote out that there was a diver trapped somewhere up the main line. I signalled to one of my buddies to team up with me, and the third guy to escort the solo buddy out. I didn't know what sort of situation had gone on, as far as I knew Diver B stayed with his buddy until he couldn't anymore and then split which would have meant we probably had to deal with a corpse (at which point we would have noted where it was, and exited letting others deal with the actual recovery). I punched my mako to 9. At the last jump for the new deep section (the last spring tunnel until way past the well) visibility dropped down to 1-2"s. In the process of heading back to look for this guy (figuring if he was still alive I could give him some air, afterall I had a full set of doubles), I wound up leaving my buddy a little bit behind. I turned around at that point and waited for him because I wasn't going into 0 vis looking for someone who had just been trapped solo. Sorry, but I'm not going to risk myself that badly. When I found Todd, I turned back around and went in. After about 75' from the last jump I could hear 3X's breathing, so I knew he was alive. I saw a dim glow, we found him. When I found him he had 800psi left in his doubles, his primary light failed within the first minute of finding him, and he was panicking. He had an Orca computer on one post (blatant strokery), and a pressure gauge on the other. The orca was wrapped up in the line. His 3x was also caught up in the line and the thought of ditching it never seemed to don on him. I turned on a backup light, and handed it to him, he got the clue and turned on his own backup light. I kept a firm grip on his arm to calm him, untangled his computer, and proceeded to exit. I convinced him to dump the 3x right at the 3 way split, and when we hit clear water a hundred feet or so down the florida room I towed him out. He wound up needing an air share when we hit the chimney. He had rolled off his primary regulator and naturally assumed he was out of air. He got to deco with 400psi left. The major problem here was his buddy. His buddy kept trying to tell me how many times that he'd been to Little River, and to the last room. Kept trying to tell me that it was 100' from the dome room the well (yah right), etc. The biggest problem was when we ran into his buddy he had 1300psi left. In otherwords, he left with his buddies third of air. He should NOT have just bailed on his buddy, all that did was make a bad situation worse. To you new guys learning this stuff, think seriously and carefully about who you choose to dive with. Do not assume that because someone's been cave diving for 10 years that it'll automatically be safe to dive with them. True, there is no better teacher then experience, but 10 years of scootering to the hinkel and back only means you're good at scootering to the hinkel and back. Pick your dive buddies wisely and carefully. Remember, if you and your buddy become seperated, first: locate the last spot you saw your buddy. If you can, write a note on the line with the time and what your action is. By all means stay there as long as you can, do a sweep for your buddy. Listen for his bubbles (it's amazing but you'll hear them). And keep your cool. If you have to, use half of his thirds before exiting, because simply stated, if you leave with his air, then what good are you. When you leave, if you can leave a marker that you've left. And above all, don't pull any reels or clothespins. Practice your signals with your buddies. Not everyone knows the signal for "how much deco" or "how much air is left in your tanks". Or someone may not understand your signals. Going over them once the first time you ever dive with someone should eliminate confusion. Keep a set of wet notes on you. If you can't communicate underwater in an emergency it'll add to the stress. If you can't communicate with signals, spend the 30 seconds to write it out on wet notes. Enough rambling on my part. I just don't ever want to hear that another person I've known drowned. Ken
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