AIBU to question recovering divers’ bodies

I imagine that it’s, at least in part, to try to establish what happened. They may learn something that could have implications for other divers, and there may be legal liability for what went wrong, and evidence needed.

No, her DH probably would not. But that is not the issue. The family cannot have a funeral for a DD. Every effort possible is made to recover bodies so that they can have a proper funeral. It's important and part of grief. Also, without a body there is the nagging worry/hope that death may not have occurred.

The company clearly didn’t have the right equipment. Went too deep and couldn’t get back.

That's not what I've read. From the Independent:

"The group entered a complex underwater cave in Vaavu Atoll at around 50m of depth on the morning of Thursday, a depth well beyond the permitted recreational diving limit of 30m."

I've read that the weather conditions were rough that day; they may have suffered "oxygen toxicity" from the oxygen/nitrogen mix; they may have taken a wrong turn; someone may have panicked...

It seems like they don't know what happened. Bringing them back helps determine how and why they died. And it's the humane thing to do, for them and for their families.

You have a point.
But you underestimate the depth of skill, knowledge, and a sort of unreal devotion to wanting to help in tragic and rescue situations...there are really talented individuals who step forward to help. Dangerous for them for sure. But it makes the world a slightly better place, undoubtedly.
A cousin of mine was rescued from a deep cave in Ausrian Alps. He was surely deae, but for a group of amazing caving locals who put themselves in danger and saved his life.

There's a YouTube channel, DiveTalk, that talks about this kind of thing. It's really interesting.
I loved diving when I was younger, the idea terrifies me now!

Yes, that’s correct. My father is a technical diver with over 15,000 dives around the world including in deep water and caves. He’s been absolutely baffled by the decisions they made, especially with their experience.

Hence why the Italian government is conducting an investigation.

This.

My life is routinely in my buddy's hands. And hers in mine.

It is OK that you don't get it. But rest assured there would have been an over abundance of volunteers.

Yep, very different ethos among climbers vs divers though. Climbers are all “lone adventurer, able to self-rescue”, and divers are very team-oriented, stick together, look after each other.

Climbers don’t have buddies who are expected to share their oxygen, bring each other back down the mountain etc. Whereas divers learn to rescue each other on day 1 - you literally can’t get your basic Padi card without doing a simulated lift to the surface with your buddy whilst sharing air.

There are literally hundreds of bodies left on Mount Everest. Although periodic attempts are made to recover them, many have been there for decades. Climbers literally pass some of them as they ascend and descend the mountain.

Yes but why? Half the time plane crash bodies are not even in one piece. Seems pointless to me.

The black boxes are useful

They do also try to recover them too! Along with the black box. Usually too deep for divers though, so robotic subs I think.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o

Hmm what about airplane crashes into the sea with somefimes hundreds of bodies

I do actually think you have a point

If I was one of the deceased it wouldn't bother me but some people are funny about stuff like that

Nobody should be diving to 60m on air! Cave or not, it is ridiculously dangerous and if you want to dive that deep you need to go off and learn how to use trimix safely. Using air for a dive that deep is the equivalent of deciding to head down the M1 on a Lime scooter.

Add in “entering a cave without the right kit” and that is just the cherry on top of a very risky cake. It is baffling that a load of apparently experienced divers chose to do it, but once they did, it was highly likely there would be an accident of some sort.

That is how divers are. Especially cave divers.

The Finnish team were among the best. They would have needed no money, instruction, or pressure to do this.

Divers stick together.

As someone whos family was involved in cave rescue there is very much an ethos of not leaving someone underground and rescuers do risk their lives to bring the deceased back to their families. I had a good friend who died trying to recover a body off the West Coast of Ireland that was a suicide. The full inshore rescue was employed even though it was suicide and it was a recovery not a rescue. Still they went to get the body back for the family. which cost her her life. So bring bodies back to families is a very strong part of those that dedicate their lives to this. Not always possible as the Mossdale Scar tragedy shows. They had to leave 6 there and created an official tomb and designated burial place.

Diver here
it’s just something we do as part of the dive community. Where possible we want to get bodies back to their families, and their dive watches/ computers provide information /footage of what went wrong so we can learn from it. A bit like a black box in a plane crash. The recovery divers all volunteer to do so and are incredibly skilled and experienced.

It’s also the circumstances. They were breaking the law, did not have permits or permission to dive that deep, did not have all the equipment they should have had. Recovered GoPro footage suggests that even though they were experienced divers, they made very simple errors that led to the tragedy.

Reports are saying that the prosecutor’s office in Rome has opened a culpable homicide investigation due to the circumstances/law breaking.

No one knew that would happen though

Thread like this got pulled the other week as some people just kept coming on and being rude and sarcastic.

@Backedoffhackedoff ODFOD.

Clearly he wouldn’t want someone to die, but try asking anyone in that situation whether they wouldn’t want every reasonable effort to be made and you’ll get the same answer.

It comes down to whether the risk is reasonable, and the diver has to make that call. In the meantime, I’m trying to work out a computer vision algorithm to identify human remains in deep water. Because that’s how much pain it has caused and there is currently no solution but divers.

Lots of reasons. Partly for the comfort of the family. It's hugely important for families to have a body to bury and to say goodbye to. It's also legally extremely complicated to have anyone declared dead without a body.

But probably the main reason is so we know what happened. We now have a pretty likely theory on what happened to the five divers who died, which is actually not what you said - they didn't have the right equipment and they did go too deep, but they died because they took a wrong turn in the cave because their correct path back was obscured by a sandbank. This is useful information that can serve as a warning to divers in future and helps us understand dangers, as well as fulfilling legal requirements in determining a cause of death at inquest. It also means we know it wasn't simple equipment failure which would have myriad safety implications.

As far as I know, the specialist diving team from Finland had volunteered to go and recover the bodies. Extremely dangerous mission but I guess they were confident in their skill. Very admirable and impressive.

I can’t help but think how eerie it must have been when they located the bodies in the hard to access cave chamber.

The navy diver died from the bends - which can happen even in very shallow, safe dives if you ascend too quickly, or don’t decompress properly. Nobody would have been expecting him to die on that dive.

Diving as a sport has a very altruistic ethos - it is drummed into you that you never leave your buddy, and you must always help others in difficulty. Likely because the first divers were navy divers, and the team spirit carried over. People will see it as their duty to recover a fellow diver’s body for their family and allow them a decent burial.

So it’s ok that someone else had to die to try and do that?! Jesus.