Incident Report

2014-01-08The diver was taking a route from the main shallow route line into the deep adit of a mine which required two short jumps of 3 to 4 metres approx\' 250 metres into the dive. He made a decision not to line these as the visibility was good. After making the second jump his bubbles dislodged a blizzard of brown mung from the ceiling and visibility was reduced to zero. The diver turned and swam back in the direction he thought he had come from but after a few metres found himself in a chamber with a large airspace at a depth of approx\' 18 metres. This was disconcerting. A bearing was taken the deep adit line regained and the jump markers found. A bearing was again taken and the line out was found. Total time taken toRight the wrong was between 5 and 6 minutes. The diver\'s background in UK sump diving actually exacerbated the situation: 1. Line junctions are used rather than jumps are generally used in the UK and the diver was not used to dealing with the latter. 2. Visibility in the UK generally starts awful and stays awful. The diver was lured into a false sense of security by the great visibility and did not expect it to change so quickly.Always lay a continuous line from the surface.