Cave Diving

I am a scuba diver and a certified cave diver. Many say that the sport of cave diving, per attempt, is the most dangerous sport in the world. When I first heard that statistic, my own jaw dropped wide open. If you had ever told me that I would learn and become passionate about "the most dangerous sport in the world", I would have said you were insane. Although I am (or have been) involved in several potentially dangerous activities such as firefighting, disaster medicine, urban search and rescue, skiing, and scuba, I really don't internally qualify them as being very dangerous. I suppose it is all a matter of personal comfort and mitigation of risk. Each of these activities has a set of "rules" to follow and equipment to wear that lessen the risk and provide a safety net.

Cave diving certainly stretches that safety net. Each cave diving student is taught the five common reasons why divers die in caves. Fatal accidents almost always involve the disregard of one of the five rules. In an overhead environment like a cave, one must learn to be self-sufficient, have redundant equipment, and remain calm at all times. Allowing panic to creep in will kill a cave diver quickly. There is no quick and easy way to the surface and the safety of the open water. Take a breath, assess the situation, and act.

Being a Paramedic is excellent training for cave diving, at least the mental part. A Paramedic must make quick decisions without a lot of extraneous information and remain calm in chaotic and emotionally charged scenes. Perfect grounding for the stress of the cave diving environment!

Truthfully, I never imagined that I would be a cave diver. My dive buddies were interested in taking a Cavern and Cave course 3 years ago and I agreed to give it a try although I was skeptical. I imagined tight spaces and dark closed-in tunnels underwater and that didn't sound fun or interesting to me. However, once I got into the caves of Florida and became challenged by the skills of the sport, I was hooked! Although there certainly are restrictive areas in a cave and the only light comes from the dive lights one carries, the limestone caves have exquisite beauty. There are embedded fossils, amazing rock formations, bones of animals, and adapted cave critters without pigment or eyes. But this is not what attracts me to the underwater caves.

So what is it about cave diving that makes me want to endure the risk of the sport? For me, it is all about living "in the moment". Much of our lives are spent thinking about 2 hours from now, 2 days from now, next week, or next year. We go through our days and weeks semi-conscious, numbed, and sometimes pitifully unaware of our environment. We drive to work unsure of whether that last traffic light was red, since we are on "auto pilot" when we are behind the wheel. In cave diving, you must be "in the moment", each moment. You must be aware of the flow of the water, the condition of the guideline, the whereabouts of your buddy, your position in the cave, your air supply, and the cave configuration. Lapses in attention can and WILL kill you or your dive buddy. Sobering. Engaging. Addicting.

It's hard to remain in the "here and now" in our everyday lives. Cave diving forces me to focus and stay grounded in the present. In its own way, the intensity of cave diving frees me from the burdens of my day to day life. I leave it all behind when I am in the cave. I have to leave it all behind. What a gift! I arise from the depths of the cave with a sense of freedom, as if I can start anew. Glorious.