| Name | Age | Sex | Injuries | Injured areas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ho Lung, Donna | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded |
| Gutknecht, Silvain | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded |
| Campbell, Keith | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded |
On March 9 three divers from the Jamaica Sub-Aqua Club went to Godswell Sink Hole in the Clarendon area of Jamaica. The divers were Donna Ho Lung, Silvain Gutknecht and Keith Campbell. At the sinkhole a rope ladder is attached to a tree, giving access to a ledge at water level, 80 feet below. They planned to descend to the bottom of the sinkhole (-185 feet?), start up after ten minutes, decompress three minutes at 20 feet and ten minutes at ten feet. They started at 12:48 p.m. with 80 foot visibility and proceeded past a pile of trees at 120 feet. At the bottom (-160 feet) a passage was seen extending downward into a room 30 feet in diameter. The water was very clear. Gutknecht and Ho Lung entered this lower chamber (-170 feet). This quickly became silted, dropping the visibility to zero causing complete disorientation. Gutknecht began circling the room with one hand on the wall and the other on the silted floor, to try to find the outlet. Ho Lung held onto his shoulder. When he contacted tree limbs, Gutknecht recalled these being at the entrance, so he went in this direction. He felt Ho Lung's hand slip down to his leg. It became hard to breathe through his regulator - he was running out of air. Gutknecht swam faster, losing contact with Ho Lung; suddenly he saw a grey light. He inflated (with carbon dioxide) his buoyancy compensation and headed for the surface. Campbell meanwhile had not descended as far since he had only a 60 cubic foot tank. He watched as the whole bottom of the sink became silted. He went to the edge of the silt and flashed his light. Gutknecht went by but not Ho Lung. When his air was low, he followed Gutknecht. Jamaica had no deep water body recovery team so NSS-CDS and NCRC were called and a team was flown from Florida. The body was found on March 13 at -160 feet with no air in her tanks. She was outside the lower room tunnel at a place where the ceiling of the sink angled to the floor, blocked by a tree root.
Nicholson offers the following:
1) They failed to stick to their plan - when the crystal clear room was seen, they were lured on into a silted situation.
2) No guide line was used.
3) The one-third air supply rule was not used.
4) They were too deep - sport divers shouldn't go over -100 feet without deep water training.
5) They had no cave-dive training.
6) No adequate lights - Ho Lung might have seen Campbell's light if it had been brighter.
7) Ho Lung apparently didn't know how to use the extra air in her buoyancy-compensator via the oral inflator.
8) Proper swimming technique to avoid silting - head down, feet up, was possibly not used.
9) An alternate air source with octopus regulator was not used.
Perhaps there should be a concerted effort by NACD/NSS-CDS to provide cave-dive education at dive shops. All divers have to get their tanks filled.
A cave diving accident occurred due to multiple factors including deviation from the dive plan, lack of cave diving training, inadequate equipment, and poor visibility due to silting, leading to the death of one diver.