graham said:
How the hell did you manage that Sam?
see post
menacer said:
There has been a similar incident in swildons in the last couple of years where a group doing the short round found themselves down blue pencil and looking at the wrong end of s3 not s1!!! and not realising it.....The first guy went thru, got to the airbell between s2 and s3 realized his mistake (well im sure he realised it after 2 feet) and didnt pull on the rope to signal his mates to follow....fortunately.....
He also stayed put.
His mates unsure of what to do set off to retrace their steps and were met by a wessex cdg team returning from s12.
They explained what had happened....
Realising the error they split into 2 teams, one to go and hopefully find said new found cave diver alive in airbell, the others escorted the rest of the group up blue pencil and out.
The freezing cold new diver was found in the airbell, given a quick crash course in diving with a reg and pony and escorted out through s2...
They all lived happy ever after
So quite easily really graham.
4 cavers from derbyshire, none been in swildons before, only read the description a couple of times. take the wrong tunr and go down blue pencil passage. Bosh upstream.
To set the record straight. We knew we where NOT at sump one (rope on sump one was hawser laid - this was static). Caver A is sure that he's read that you can free dive up to at least sump 9 - and theres a big fat rope - so off he goes. After an unsettlingly long period of movement on the rope - it stopped, and there was no discernable 3 tugs.
Not quite sure what to do, I decided to give it a go (I think the mental process went something like - Ah well F**k it, and in I went - pulled like mad - then a voice in my head told me to turn round as this could infact just be miles - luckily for me, there was room to turn round and I pulled like mad back (after frustratingly pulling all the slack in
). I dread to think what would have happened had there not been room to spin round (panic I guess) seemed horribly close to the limit of my breath - reckon I probably went nearly all the way there - then turned and went all the way back.
Caver C started to get into the water - and I halted proceedings and basically strongly suggested in no uncertain terms that this was stupid and that we should head back the way we came. Which we did. At mud sump we met some divers (it was phil short :bow
- we explained the sceanario. He informed that we must have gone down blue blah blah blah. He informed that sump 3 was 10 meters long, to an air bell - followed straight away by sump 2. 8 meters long. I began to feel concerned for Caver A.
Phil plus one, carried on to sump 3 and would dive back though to meet us in swildons 2. We hoped to find Caver A on our way back downstream - but we arrived at a murky looking sump 2. Caver D was cold and tired - so headed out with some others to hopefully find Caver A on the surface.
We waited - and waited. Finally the water began to glow - and out popped diver B. He (to our great releif) informed that Caver A had been found - OK - but a bit cold, in the Air Bell and was undergoing a cresh course in diving.
Then Caver A popped out closely followed by Phil :bow:.
Caver A had informed that he was quite happy about the situation - the only reason he hadn't continued was because he couldnt find the start of the rope for sump 2 which was submerged under a small duck. He didn't want to dive back though because he had seen that one of us had made an attempt, but the line had gone slack without anyone arriving. He thought it best not to suddenly meet a floating obstacle on his way back through , so got himself wedged out the water, got his bivvy back on and waited. Probably the correct decesion in his situation.
Anyway - many beers where sunk that night, and there was much discussion about the rope vs dive line issue. I believe that there was discussion at the time amongst the Mendip cave rescue bods about the possible confusion.
My suggestion at the time was why not just have a tag on the end of each dive line. Sump name, depth and length. Seems like the simplist, least intrusive way to prevent similar accidents occuring.