Incident Report

1995-10-21It’s a long time ago now but some very salutary lessons worth sharing. On a standard tourist trip through the Old Ing - Birkwith sumps on single kit, no fins, no lead, no buoyancy. Diving the final sump through the slot and rising rapidly into the large part of the sump, suddenly coming across a flapping, completly broken line. No way to stop my ascent, simply held tight to the end of the line with both hands brought me to a dead stop with a massive jerk on the line. I was then able to pull myself gently down the line back into the slot and get back out at the upstream end, to then exit the cave through Dismal Hill. I was very lucky that the line held whilst I was pulling myself back down to get into the slot . It could very easily have broken and I then had no sensible way to get out of the downstream end of the sump - even with a search reel I would have found myself pinned to the roof trying to conduct a search for the other end of the line in a very stressful situation.No matter how straightforward the trip, some form of buoyancy control, both negative and positive is essential...