An American Tragedy
Written By: Joe Citelli NSS-CDS Chairman
On Christmas Day 2013 a father and son lost their lives while embarking on an ill thought out, poorly planned diving expedition to Eagles Nest Cave in Hernando County Florida. The 32 year old father and his 15 year old son ventured into what is considered an extremely advanced technical cave system and it claimed both their lives. Or did it?
The father was not cave trained or certified. As a matter of fact, he held no advanced technical certifications and his son had no certifications at all. So what might have possessed this man to endanger himself and his son the way that he did? It was most likely a matter of perception vs reality for him. Undoubtedly, he thought he was safe and could manage both himself and his son on this dive. The outcome proved such was not the case.
So who do we blame? Who is at fault here? For sure the cave didn’t cause the accident and there is no doubt that the father never intended to be the cause of his sons’ death. I propose we are all at fault, not as cave divers, but as a society. We have become programmed to “mind our own business” so we see no problem in looking the other way when we observe “an accident waiting to happen”.
Part of the NSSCDS mission is to promote cave safety. This mission challenges and encourages the entire membership to get involved and be proactive in accident prevention. When we see people engaging in activities we know they should not be engaging in we have an ethical and moral responsibility to make an attempt to educate them as to the error of their ways. There is nothing wrong with politely approaching the errant diver(s) and informing them of the dangers they are about to expose themselves to. If they reject your advice ask them if their wife or mother would think what they are about to do is a good idea. If they proceed in spite of your admonitions and you know their friends, family or even the dive shops they patronize, do not hesitate to make their dangerous behaviors known.
I suppose I could come up with a score of pragmatic, self-serving reasons why we should do this. Protecting cave access is probably the one foremost in everybody’s mind. However, how about we do it for an even better reason; that reason being because IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Were I present at the” Nest” on Christmas Day and stood mute even though I knew what the victims were up to I would not be able to live with myself. I suspect many of our members share that sentiment so I encourage you to follow your convictions and not hesitate to take the warnings to the next level if need be. Hind sight is always 20-20 but I suspect that were that father given a second chance he would be grateful that some of us did not mind our own business.
So, the next time you see an accident waiting to happen be proactive and JUST DO THE RIGHT THING.