WC2011 - descent line stolen to Sara Campbell!

I agree but I disagree too. Please imagine a diver ascenting from -100m attempt and at -80m he hears the alarm to sound so instantly his relaxation goes away as he knows that something bad is happening up there. This might lead to a deep water black out so the emergency situation should be doubled by now...

The best way in using sounds underwater is just by puting small wireless ear phone in each diver's ear so the alarm should sound only to those doing something wrong. However, this might be a costy equipment.

I am very glad that the result was simply one embarrassed diver and one frustrated diver.

Great video record of this event.

We all agree how lucky (and capable) the diver is.

I am thankful for such good water visibility at that depth. It made a difference.

dimitris33 said:

Underwater sounds might disturbs significantly the others freediver's relaxation while descenting or ascenting around.

Additionaly I repeatedly read about "...my lanyard, his lanyard, her lanyard..etc".

Why not stopping everyone bringing his lanyard instead? If there going to be four diving zones for instance then four lanyards should be used permanently attached to the lines. The organizer will be responsible for having these lanyards as a standard competition equipment which will be off course of high quality without velcros etc..

This way the risk of failing lanyards reduced to only 3 or 4 depending on the competition zones contrary to about 150 lanyards brought by the athletes...

I don't know if this has been told before so excuse me.

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Then it has to be a top-notch fast and durable lanyard.

William uses for his CNF dives an internally connected one, very streamlined.
I'm guess he'll see any other as a downgrade.

Also There has to be more then 4 lanyards because some people want to do warm-up dives. And it's nice to have the lanyard attached before going to the competition line.
Another point is that people may want to practice taking it off blindfolded, in case they need to do it at depth.


Audio alarm:

I think Freedivers may want to have a device that has the following functionalities:

- Loud a depth alarm,
- Loud remotely triggered alarm (alert)
- Location beacon, for diver retrieval.

If these could be implemented in a future Freedive computer that could be great for additional security.

It could be part of the Freediver recovery vest design too.

I can say that it is likely that no one will ever create a complicated electronic device exclusively for freedivers since the market is not enough to make back the R&D investment. An exception is the freediver's recovery vest, but this project was essentially a 'donation/volunteer' project by the good will of Terry Maas which will likely never make back its investment.

A better strategy is to try to use existing technology rather than wait for some angel to produce the magic dream device.

A simple noisemaker device used by scuba divers would be extremely simple and costs only $15. You shake it and it makes an extreme noise. This would be the abort signal and it can be heard from 200m away or more.

i"ve just expressed an idea of fixed equipment. The remaining are technicalities and yes there can be fixed lanyards in the warm up lines too. The idea is not to bring every freediver his own lanyard as standard approved equipment will be fixed from the organizer of the event. The sound idea is another good one.

Would be pleased to hear more ideas thus to diminish risk of accidents and develop our beloved sport.

Lanyards are personal equipment, have different length based on size of an owner and weight. Even for different disciplines the length can be different.
The current case is a result of insufficient of official procedure for initial lanyard's test. At list a wrist strap during test must be wet.

i'm sorry but i think few things need to be told here.

First thing is the lanyard. It goes off right at the duck dive. To me it means it wasn't checked/used or
put in place correctly. Not good. If it's the world cup it should have world class safety in place.


Second, the diver should have been stopped right there. No lanyard no dive.Second safety failure.

Third, i completely disagree with what Picasso said:
"In case of no rope/line I would had to do CNF way up and rely on my oxygen storage. My CNF PB at the competition was 84m so I would probably at least ascend by my self and rely that safety would find me."


Judging from the video, without a rope you clearly had no idea how to dive vertically (either up or down) and you probably wouldn't have made it close to any safety.


Forth, there goes away William Trubridge "dive with no lanyard" theory.

Fifth, somehow i have the feeling Herbert no limit dive to 214m was way safer than this FIM at the world cup.

Food for thoughts, no hard feelings.

ThomasB said:

there goes away William Trubridge "dive with no lanyard" theory.

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Not really, because if you know you're diving without a lanyard you obviously don't close your eyes. Bit dodgy if you're wearing a mask that can flood, but we already knew that.

ThomasB said:

Fifth, somehow i have the feeling Herbert no limit dive to 214m was way safer than this FIM at the world cup.

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Why do you think this? Seems a bit of an odd comparison to make. Was there something fundamentally unsound about the FIM at the world champs? Or did Herbert just maintain his gear better than one of the (many) divers in this comp?

Mullins said:

Why do you think this? Seems a bit of an odd comparison to make. Was there something fundamentally unsound about the FIM at the world champs? Or did Herbert just maintain his gear better than one of the (many) divers in this comp?

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This was probably the provocative point of my post but it was still based on some solid reason:

-1st, lanyard failed at the very beginning of the dive. This can be obviously due to the way the user mantained his gears but also to the way the gear was checked by the organization. Both failed.

-2nd No procedure was in place to recover the above failure. One safety diver cared about recovering the falling lanyard while stopping the diver would have been my own main focus.

I believe if any basic safety gear failed in such an early stage of Herbert dive he would have been stopped somehow. At least that's my optimistic belief.

Mullins said:

Not really, because if you know you're diving without a lanyard you obviously don't close your eyes. Bit dodgy if you're wearing a mask that can flood, but we already knew that.

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Even thought i have no personal experience of any of those deep dive i would not rely on personal feelings/perception to keep safety to an high standard.
This applies not to freediving only IMHO.

I'm in favour of lanyards too, but this incident doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about no-lanyard diving.

Mullins said:

I'm in favour of lanyards too, but this incident doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about no-lanyard diving.

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Agreed, but it tell us something else. It proves safety is not a product (or a discipline) but a process. As i said, food for thoughts.

With my utter respect.

Hi everybody,

I was deep safety with scooter on this dive. Here are some more details about it.

When judges realized the lanyard was off, Michal was already 5-7 m deep. I think it is the first time such a case happens. The second safety dived to grab the sinking lanyard and avoid adding risk. The time the judges discussed penalties for diving without a lanyard, Michal was 15m. In the meantime, I asked loud, and maybe twice, if I should dive to stop him. With the scooter, I could still make it, but I got no answer. I had a range of few seconds to do the dive and it was now too late.

Some people say we should have stop him. After post incident analysis, that is an easy conclusion. But when things are happening LIVE, and you are not prepared for them, that's another story.

I fully agree with Trux's whole point and I would add Safety are not judges. They have an idea on the safety rules only based on their experience, which was inexistent for everybody in this case. We are trained to rescue during our actual safety dive, we have full permission during it, and we know what to do in half a second when things go wrong. We add to this several tasks like checking lanyard is clipped on, diver doesn't pack-BO, ... But for everything else at the surface, we rely on judges decisions and as convinced we can be a diver will BO, we even wait for their order before grabbing him. You think twice before DQing on your own initiative a diver going to 90m at the WC.. I guess that is why I asked for confirmation before acting.

Anyway, to complete the story now, I already knew I would do a deep safety, so I focused on the deep voice of our super platform operator George counting the meters down on the sonar: "55m, 60m, 65m, ....". Long pause, then me "Depth?!"... And George finally "I can't see him anymore!". Anxiety went up a notch. The sonar is a very good one, accurate (you can see monofins on the echo's shape), covers a wide range as it allows to follow divers on the 3 lines of the platform, and George is the most experienced reading it. But now, for a reason I still don't understand, we see nothing. We wait to feel a turn or pulls on the rope. Nothing. I decide to go with no idea how deep he is, and I kick to help the scooter. I stop a first time to check my depth, and scrutinize carefully the rope disapearing in the depths. I'm 35m deep, with an excellent 25-30m visibility, but there's nothing. I go to 45m and stop again. I assess I can now see the line down to 70-75m. Nothing, no pulls. Useless to go deeper, better to save energy to wait longer. My heartbeat is a bit high because of the kicking and anxiety. I stayed there more than a minute. As my contractions got stronger I decided to come up and met the second safety on the way. I realize he's doing MY safety, and that we're abandoning a diver in the blue, with no clue where he is, and no backup solution to lift him as he's not attached on the line. I'm thinking about what I will tell to the others back at the surface, wich other solutions we will try, and I can feel a bad tension in my guts and body.

Worried and sad faces welcome us at the surface.... And 10 seconds later, an eternity, someone yells (probably Stavros ) from the other side of the platform that he surfaced on Sara's line!! We are all relieved, but it will take me more than 1 hour before I manage to relax my body again.

My conclusions from this experience:
Michal has been REALLY lucky to drift below the platform toward the other lines. He would have drifted away from us and ascent CNF, the outcome could have been completely different :/
As safety, in any similar situation, I will now follow my intuition. Better to DQ someone and be responsible for a protest, than find myself in such a situation.
I also know this better now, because I've been certified judge 2 days after So as a judge, I will have lanyards + STRAPS tested, and brief clearly the safety team before comp on what to do in the water sure, but also in any case where they can assist judges at the surface.

It was so funny at the closing party to see the dive's clip looping in the back of all the happy dancers on the stage. Everybody was shouting and laughing each time we could see Michal swimming CNF by 80m, or Sara's face so surprised. Sorry Sara for this missed opportunity, and congratulations Michal, that was a hell of a dive

so, how long was he down for?

FishyHunter said:

so, how long was he down for?

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I was there 3:34 and had to ascend by CNF from 90 to 60, you can see uploaded dive profile in one of previous threads (here http://forums.deeperblue.com/freedi...t-line-stolen-sara-campbell-3.html#post861554). I think I could be quite far from competition lines, which could explain I wasn't "visible" by sonar. I dove up and kept turning in 360 ° degrees to find the rope and at around 70 I saw about 3 lines and I chose one that i thhought it is mine.

I fully agree with Remy "Some people say we should have stop him. After post incident analysis, that is an easy conclusion. But when things are happening LIVE, and you are not prepared for them, that's another story."

In general safety divers did very good job during the world champs.

We had indeed a lot of fun during afterparty and I think we can have fun when no one died or was hurt and everyone can have good experience from what happened. Of course I feel sorry for Sara. Sara had bad luck during the whole WC and my case was a "helo" of her bad luck :waterwork.

trux said:

I think it is a bit exagerated to blame the organizer or the safeties that they did not stop the diver.

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Hi Trux,

not sure whom you are talking to but i just want to clarify my thoughts.

I've never blamed the safeties guy directly as i can understand they act based on procedure. In my previous post i stated those 3 facts:

-The diver should have been stopped right there. No lanyard no dive.

- lanyard failed at the very beginning of the dive. This can be obviously due to the way the user mantained his gears but also to the way the gear was checked by the organization. Both failed.

- No procedure was in place to recover the above failure. One safety diver cared about recovering the falling lanyard while stopping the diver would have been my own main focus.

Reading my post again i understand it might sound like a "personal" attack to the safeties which i never actually meant. I'm sure they did a great job overall and safety statistics clearly proves it. On the other site the _procedure_ failed in this case, the unexpected happened and it wasn't managed correctly since there was no procedure in place everyone did the best they could and at the end we can only be glad they had a bit of luck on their side and everyone is here to talk about it.

Take care.

I wanna share some photos of my lanyard maybe they can help a bit.
The wristband has a double locking system, main is the double D ring (used for motorcicles helmets) the other is velcro.

Close it is really easy, and mainly can't loose it for mistake, that double ring lock is used for high quality brand helmets.

The wristband has a connection with the inox steal cable.

Now you see my old snap-hook, that will be changed with the other, it connect the first part of the cable to the second once.

This snap-hook is used in sailing and is very easy for relase and can hold heavy weights.

Now you see the lanyard with the 2 snap-hooks, one is the main once that is normally used to the main line, the other is the quick relase for saefty reason.

Hope that my little experience and idea could help a bit, the total amounth for that shitty stuff is 10 euros, i tested it dry for check out if was enough resistant and it can handle my 80 kg with no problems.