2 kids trapped in Thai Cave Complex
07-08-2018, 08:32 AM
Quote: (07-07-2018 04:14 PM)puckerman Wrote:
I've been in caves before, but those are the touristy ones like Luray Caverns in Virginia. I don't see much reason to go caving otherwise.
I have a second cousin who had an injury that hurt so bad that he wore tennis shoes to his daughter's wedding. I had a great uncle who died in a coal mine back in the 1930's and left six orphans.
This whole thing reminds me a lot of the Quecreek rescue back in 2002. Nine miners were trapped for over three days after they poked a hole in the wrong place, and the mine filled up with about 75 million of gallons of water. I definitely remember thinking they wouldn't get them out alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quecreek_Mine_rescue
They got them out by boring a hole into the place where the miners were. They pulled them out through the bore hole. Of course, that hole was only about 139 feet.
Why have they given up on boring a hole? I have no idea. My guess is that they don't have the equipment to do it. Do they have water pumps? I can only guess that it is just too long for them. Of course, there is also a risk that the hole will fill up with water.
I also remember Copiapó in Chilé in 2010. These miners were underground for over two months. They did have a huge hole though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Copia...g_accident
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Jesus Christ. Fuck that guy. I hope he survives so the fathers can straighten him out.
This whole thing is reminding me of these rich idiots who try to climb Mount Everest. They find a guide who is an experienced and knowledgeable climber. Then they pay the guide $10,000 or more to lead them up to the top of Mount Everest--no previous climbing experience required.
This stupid jackass took a bunch of kids who didn't know any better, who are told to do whatever the coach tells them to do. Just, what was he thinking? Was this supposed to be some kind of team-building exercise?
I haven't done any deep diving. I hope to do that sometime. Deep diving has its dangers. But if you get in trouble, you can just go up to the surface to save yourself.
With cave diving, you combine the dangers of caving and diving. You are underground and can get disoriented. Many cave divers get confused and go into the wrong cavern when they are trying to get out. The dirt can shift and can bury when you are underwater. It is just a way for spoiled brats to get thrills. If we are lucky, they die and don't kill anyone else.
I think that since there is like 2500' of rock above the kids, that the time it would take to drill a comparatively large size bore hole and to mobilize the equipment is way too long. And access to the area, and even determining the correct area is challenging given poor roads and maps. They do have pumps, but you're dealing with such a huge volume of water, it makes a minor difference. Like draining a swimming pool with a straw.
Seeing as you're so contemptuous of any sort of adventure seeker, where do you draw the line? Rich people with mountaineering training who get into trouble? Poor people who've spent their life in the mountains? Or is anyone who requires a $25k rescue left to the sharks in your book? How much money was wasted on those silly adventure seeking Apollo 13 nuts? Going to the moon?! What kind of nonsense is that.
I read an interesting psych study about lots of people who share your view, but then whom have zero problem with society dropping $100k on health care for obese/smokers/shitty health people who lived a life that was (albeit much more slowly) due to require with far more certainty, far more expensive remediation.
What risks should society cover is a debate for another day. Motorbike accidents, STD treatments, even accidents from recreational car travel? I have a feeling like many others your opinion just happens conveniently encompasses risky shit that you like to do.
No man is an island, and no man is perfect. Sooner or later we're all going to need help from someone else, be it from bad luck, bad planning, or bad decisions. Despite being young and healthy, I try not to begrudge others who find themselves in situations I like to tell myself I'd never allow myself to get in to. There but for the grace of God and all that...
Cave diving definitely has risks, and I'd love to hear more about what happened to that Thai Seal. "Run out of oxygen" is pretty broad, and could mean several different things. Having several friends who do a lot of this stuff and looking into it my self, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy is the name of the game. Losing your reg or losing visibility are basically non-events. In the courses you need to extricate yourself out of a cave blind, that's why training is so imperative because something tiny happens like losing a reg, you panic, lose the line, blow up a silt storm, drop your lights and fuck yourself. "Getting disoriented and having the dirt shift" sound like arguments by someone who didn't look into cave diving further than their imagination.
I've seen the same thing when inexperienced people lose a reg at 10m, can't find it on the first attempt, then they scramble and try to shoot to the surface.
You say you want to do deep diving, but I would say it's only marginally safer than caving, because you simply can't just "shoot to the surface" if you have problems. Often times you're looking at 30+ minutes of deco and gas switches on the way up to prevent bends and other various nasties.
What was the coach thinking? The same thing a million other people think when they answer a quick cell phone message while driving, drive anyways despite having had that third beer, when they cut across rail tracks, or play on wet rocks near the ocean. "It will probably be fine for me, just like it's been fine for 9999 of the last 10000 people who did this".