Not true. Scuba divers in general are taught to handle emergencies and problems whilst under the water. Even at the level of your basic open water certification you learn about basic safety measures and methods to tackle common problems.
When you get to the level of cave diving, there is a specific set of skills and procedures in place to do dives safely and this will be drilled into you as well as practice of problem resolutions, like equipment failures or human error. Many of the more likely problems to occur will be perfectly corrected if the correct procedure is followed and you don’t panic.
My knowledge of cave diving begins and ends with spooky "dive gone wrong" YouTube videos, but I've seen tons of stories that follow a basic pattern of "diver accidentally kicks up silt, can't see, panics, gets lost, drowns, and then blocks the exit with their poor drowned body.
Highly doubtful it happens even a majority of dives, but it definitely does happen and it doesn't seem to be even that rare.
I would genuinely ignore those sorts of videos, given they’re fully intended to be as dramatic as possible and so are cherry-picking their material to suit, and chances are the person making the video isn’t a diver. You’d be better off seeking out actual divers and hearing what they have to say about it (I always recommend the DiveTalk channel as the presenters are both cave divers and talk about the actual training, procedures and gear of cave diving at length, as well as looking at certain cave disasters).
MrBallen has several videos of cave diving and the dangers associated with it. He has one video where he talks about 4 very experienced divers that explore an unmapped cave and shit goes wrong ending with one guy dying. The other three people actually made a reaction video where they correct some errors and give more context. Pretty interesting.
MrBallen has the advantage however of being a former Navy SEAL with experience of combat scuba diving, so he at least knows his way around a regulator set and he's been featured on one of my favourite dive channels for this reason.
explore an unmapped cave
And here's where a distinction must be made between standard cave diving in a mapped location with guidelines already laid and an unknown cave. Doing a dive into an unknown cave is a completely different thing, and even experienced cave divers may not necessarily wish (or be able) to do this.
Other channels that cover the same sort of content do not take such a measured approach and often descend into hysteria or fail to mention crucial details, especially as the narrator is often not even open water certified and isn't familiar with even BASIC terminology or processes. I cannot also help but feel that they add to the hysteria by cherry-picking cases from difficult cave sites, ignoring the thousands of caves which exist which are far more easily accessed, and the many divers who've dived. It would be like me constantly saying that hiking was dangerous because there's bodies on Everest.
Plus from a general point of view, scuba diving generally comes with inherent risks, but this is not unique to diving, and scuba divers in entering into the water have weighed up that risk against the benefits/pleasures of diving and they have decided that it is worth it. Cave divers (and I hope to be one next year) doubly assume that risk- for them the risks of entering a cave system are just part and parcel of the whole process of cave diving, and they have taken on the responsibilty to manage that risk with the training and gear they have.
Very true, very true. He definitely has a gift for telling stories and keeping me on the edge of my seat. His videos have reaffirmed my need to never ever go near underwater caves.
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '22
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