Dödsolycka vid grottdykning - uppdaterad 2006-09-06


Information om dödsolycka vid grottdykning i Norge:

http://www.nettavisen.no/innenriks/article712402.ece
http://www.nettavisen.no/innenriks/article713644.ece
http://www.nettavisen.no/innenriks/article717499.ece

Report from the Plura Recovery Operation

As most of you know by now, Ståle Tveitane from Grimstad lost his life in Plura River Cave on 16th August. He was last seen at about 75m deep and 1200m into the system by his diving partner, who returned to raise the alarm. An initial search of the air chamber later the same night confirmed that Ståle had not returned from the deep part of the cave. The assumption from that point on was that he had died.

A recovery operation which involves diving as long and deep as this is a very serious business. For several days it was very unclear how a recovery could be performed and who was qualified and able to do the job. A particular problem in cave diving rescues is that diving is heavily regulated. A dive on self-contained breathing apparatus with no surface support at this depth is completely out of the envelope - the rules simply say it is not allowed. Yet the rules were obviously not written with cave diving in mind. This meant that a plan had to be developed which would satisfy the health and safety authorities that the operation could be completed in safety.

The plan which was eventually adopted was to seek formal help from the British Cave Rescue Council. Two British cave divers, Rick Stanton and Jason Mallinson, were requested to assist with the deep diving operations. Both Rick and Jason have huge experience of deep cave diving and both of them had taken part in various cave rescues and recovery operations before. Mark Dougherty was appointed as surface team leader for the deep diving team. Nicklas Myrin from SSF acted as his assistant. Two more British divers and a team of French divers (two deep divers, two support divers and 2 surface support) were on stand-by.

Three support divers came from the Oslo Fire Brigade with Ronny Arnesen as team leader. Surface support came from various different organisations - NGF, the civil defence, the military (who supplied a diving doctor and a recompression chamber with three staff) and the police. In total about 35 people were involved. Communication to the air chamber in the system was achieved using Heyphones borrowed through the BCRC. NGF members operated the radio on the surface.

Obviously it took several days to put this plan into action and travel to the site. The operation started on Sunday 27th with a formal briefing. After this, all five divers dived through to the airbell, carrying through the radio, three decompression cylinders and a portable decompression habitat. All of the decompression equipment was installed and then Rick and Jason made a brief reconnaissance of sump 2. They had not actually intended to go so deep, but Rick thought he could see something just below the 60 metre level. Since he had plenty of gas reserves he made a quick descent, confirmed that the body had indeed been located (at -67m) and returned. On the way out the divers removed a number of stage cylinders which has been left in the cave during the diving camp.

On Monday 28th Rick and Jason returned back to 67m and brought the body out to -12m in sump 2. The fire service divers took over from this point, although all five divers were needed to manage some of the obstacles in the air chamber.

On Tuesday 29th all five divers dived again to retrieve all of the equipment in the cave.

Ståle has made the final journey home to his family and the funeral will be next Friday, 8th September. I think everybody who worked on this operation did a great job. It was a good example of how cavers can cooperate across international boundaries when faced with a challenging situation.

Mark S Dougherty

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