Three Divers Die at Forty Fathom Grotto…almost!

By Hal Watts

All too often we read or hear about divers drowning. With many fatalities, we have to guess the causes, or theoretically reconstruct the events leading up to the diver’s death.

We rarely, however, hear about the near misses, whether because they’re not as dramatic, or because the participants don’t want to publicize their mistakes.

Here’s an account of three divers who almost died, but luckily did not become statistics in this issue’s "Incident Reports." I think that by reading a step-by-step description of how easily accidents can and do happen, we can all learn from the mistakes made, and hopefully avoid them ourselves.

Safety should always be the first word in extended range/technical diving.

I own a dive site-Hal Watts’ Forty Fathom Grotto-in Ocala, Florida. It’s used by recreational divers, as well as instructors-regardless of which agency they’re associated with-to teach all levels of certification. Training depths are limited to the depth the instructors are certified to teach through their specific agency, providing it doesn’t exceed 200 f/63 m. The only exceptions are for the Grotto’s full-time staff, who are PSA Extended Range Deep Air Instructors (ERDI), certified to teach to 240 f/76 m. [Note that aquaCORPS supports the 200 f/63 m air diving limit. See Blueprint For Survival 2.0 p XX-Ed.]

I was having dinner one evening with my six-year-old grandson Ryan Stanford and his father Dwight in our log home overlooking the Grotto. After dinner, Dwight went out on the front porch, and I planned to join him in a few minutes. But he soon yelled out for me to join him immediately: "I think we have a problem in the water." I rushed out and could see ripples in the water, which was just below our screened-in porch.

I didn’t even know there were any divers in the water, and later found out that Bob Hambidge, who manages the Grotto, had signed in two divers with their instructor for technical nitrox training. I went down to the water and saw a diver standing in about three feet of water on a rock. The water was 214 f/66 m straight down. I saw another diver lying face up in the water. I initially thought he was just floating in the water, resting, as I do after surfacing from a deep dive.

It was almost dark, and after looking more closely at the floating diver, I could hear him saying in a barely audible voice, "Help me. Somebody please help me."

Dwight and I rushed down to the bank. The standing diver-who turned out to be the instructor-said that he was going to find the third diver. Bob Hambidge’s wife Kathy just happened to come over to visit and we asked her to get Bob and call 911.

Dwight and I started to remove the victim’s equipment, as Bob got the rescue canoe in the water and paddled it over to where we were. We couldn’t pull the diver close enough to the bank because his fins, twin 104s, and butt-mounted cave battery pack were all tangled up in a line. We got the cylinders off him, and Dwight reached underwater to remove his fins, which allowed us to get him into the canoe. Have you ever tried to put a disabled 215-pound person in a canoe and launch it in deep water? Hopefully, you will never be faced with that task.

Bob and Dwight paddled the victim to the surface floating docks on the other side. I ran around to the dock and started to put on a diving rig to go look for the other two divers. The victim was put on oxygen. He was lucid enough to answer Bob’s questions. Bob gave him a quick neuro exam, and from what I could determine, the victim was not showing any signs or reporting any symptoms of decompression illness. However, he was still completely immobile and in shock. According to a dive watch with a built-in computer, he had skipped 28 minutes of decompression.

While I was getting my equipment on, Dwight paddled around the Grotto looking for the other diver’s bubbles. By this time it was dark. Dwight pointed out two sets of lights down about 30 f/9 m. We then saw a diver swimming toward one of the four underwater platforms; he reached the 30-f/9 m platform and stopped underwater. Dwight took a message down to him on a slate, containing three questions: (1) Are you OK? (2) Do you need any more gas? (3) Do you need oxygen?

The answer was that he was okay and did not need any gas.

Dwight then got back into the canoe and paddled toward the other diver’s light. I descended to the diver on the 30-foot platform, who was the instructor. He was okay, and going through the emergency procedure for omitted or interrupted decompression. So was the other diver at 30 feet on the other side of the Grotto. I took him by the hand and swam him to the other decompressing diver. When I surfaced, the emergency medical team was on the dock, taking care of the victim. After examining him, they made arrangements to take him to a recompression chamber at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, 42 miles away.

While the victim was en route to the chamber, Dwight, Bob, the other two divers, and I had a long discussion about what happened.

I won’t use any names, and will refer to the three as the instructor, the victim, and the third diver. I am not going to pass judgment on any person or training agency; my goal is to inform other divers about just how these things occur and how the domino effect takes over.

Most of the clear-cut, good information comes from the third diver, who seemed to have had better mental control and less narcosis. The instructor had the two nitrox candidates go to the 30-f/9 m platform and do some shallow equipment handling skills, such as gas shutdown.

According to the third diver, they swam across the Grotto to a permanent descent/ascent line that is tied off at 200 f/63 m on a log on the bottom, according to the Grotto’s depth policy. He said that the victim went right to the bottom, stirring up the silt among the trees. They apparently did not follow the line because, according to their computers, they were at 214 f/66 m-14 feet deeper than the bottom of the line. (The instructor, however, said they were at 200 feet, on the log.)

The third diver was slightly above the victim and could see him, standing in the silt, doing the gas shutdown. The victim seemed to have a problem and reached up and took the third diver’s alternate air source, which had a 10-foot hose. He started breathing from the octopus and then went back to his own primary second stage. Then he again took the third diver’s octopus. The third diver noticed that the victim’s primary valve was blowing air out from it, so he reached down and shut it off. Keep in mind that all this is taking place at 214 f/63 m in a dive site that neither the victim or third diver had ever dived before.

The third diver then saw the instructor go to the victim and thought everything was okay. Then he noticed that things weren’t okay, so he pushed the inflator button on the victim’s BCD. It didn’t inflate because the instructor had shut off the valve that was leaking, which was the one the inflator hose was connected to.

So, the third diver held onto the victim and inflated his own BCD, and all of a sudden the three divers, tangled up together, began to ascend at a very rapid rate. The third diver tried to slow the ascent by dumping all the gas out of his BCD. He said the next thing he knew, the three were at about 30 f/9 m, and then the other two divers started falling fast toward the bottom. Since his BCD was empty, he couldn’t slow down because the victim still had his octopus in his mouth and was most likely holding on to it for his life.

Next, all three divers hit the bottom, 214 f/66 m in silt and tree branches. The instructor’s mask was knocked off by the victim and they were hooked together in some manner, maybe by the line. The third diver said that all three then started toward the surface again, at a very fast rate. He couldn’t slow them down. Their ascent was stopped suddenly when he noticed that they were being held down by some lines.

The third diver-who happened to be a cave diver, and carried a caver’s specialty scissors that are more efficient than a conventional diving knife-made at least five different cuts with his scissors to free the team from the lines. He even had to cut away a safety (stage) tank that was tangled up in the mess. With two divers hanging onto his 10-foot hose, pulling him up from 214 f/66 m to 30 feet and then back down to 214 feet and back up, I just don’t see how he kept his wits and handled the situation.

After freeing the team from the lines, he said they started back toward the surface. He still had no control of the ascent. At about 30 f/9m, he grabbed onto the ledge and stopped his ascent. This must have pulled the octopus out of victim’s mouth, sending the instructor and the victim to the surface. This is probably when Dwight noticed that there was a problem down by the water.

So, what can we learn from all this?

The third diver’s reactions really saved all three lives by having enough control to take out the scissors and cut them free. Maintaining control is the key to handling emergency situations. What I’ve stressed time and time again since I began teaching diving in 1963 is: "Stop, think, get control, and react."

I asked the instructor why he required the candidates to do the gas shutdowns at this extreme depth. He said it was in case the valve got turned off accidentally, which is a carry-over from cave and wreck penetration, where the valves could keep rubbing on the cave ceiling, and eventually turn off. I don’t think this procedure is safe, or even necessary, in this type of training or diving. Even when this is taught in cave training, it isn’t done at depths that would have an exposure to nitrogen narcosis for divers at this level of training. At depths below 130 f/40 m, I feel this exercise should not be done, and I think the events described here prove my point.

Although the victim and third diver were cave certified, and claimed they had been wall diving together to 200 f/63 m, the instructor (who cave certified the victim) had only previously dived with the victim to 100 f/31 m, and not at all with the third diver. In my opinion, instructors should not accept "equivalent" training, and should instead, treat candidates as new divers to a specific discipline and train them accordingly.

Teaching technical nitrox should have a depth limit of 170 f/52 m, +-10 f/3 m. At PSA, we require instructors to have an assistant for dives deeper than 165 f/50 m.

On a personal level, I also learned something new from this episode: I now keep a pair of caver’s scissors in my BCD pocket.

The day after these events, the victim came by and thanked our staff for our professional assistance. The only DCI symptom he had the night before was a headache, which went away in the chamber. He was treated and released with no lasting ill effects. All’s well that ends well.

A good ending for our industry, and a good lesson for all of us.

Has Watts is a pioneer in diving education, having trained deep divers since 1968. He is the founder and president of the Professional Scuba Association, Inc. (PSA), which offers technical diving training, and is also an instructor or instructor trainer with ANDI, IANTD, PADI, PSA, SSI, and TDI. Watts has a Master's Degree in Law, LLM, but gave up his legal career in 1970 to pursue his interest in diving. A good thing. He can be contacted @ fax: 407.896.4542, Orlando, FL.