How About "No" For An Answer?

NBC Miami: Diver's Father Wants Tampa-Area Eagle Nest Sink Cave Closed After Deaths

After the completely self-inflicted, negligent and totally avoidable deaths of a father and son cave diving, the surviving grand-father and father of the duo wants the cave closed to all divers.

A Florida man wants the state to close an underwater cave system after his son and grandson died there in a diving accident on Christmas Day.

Chester Spivey Jr. says the 300-foot deep Eagle Nest Sink cave in the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area is too dangerous for diving. Thirty-five-year-old Darrin Spivey and his 15-year-old son, Dillon Sanchez, were found dead Wednesday.

No the cave should not be closed, and No, it is not too dangerous for diving by trained and experienced divers.

It is however too dangerous to un-certified and untrained divers as in this case.

Understand that when these two proceeded un-certified and untrained to get into the cave system they had to pass by this sign:

Warnings do not get much clearer than that.

When you're dumb enough to ignore them and proceed past that sign without training and knowing how to handle the cave, you're proceeding at your own risk and it is likely that you will indeed die. Even a seven-year-old on reading that sign knew it meant you don't go past it.

We don't permanently shut down highways when idiot fathers get drunk and kill themselves and their kids while DWI because they ran off the road at a curve. We don't close down bridges because people jump off of them. Similarly we shouldn't close a cave system because some idiots sadly decided it was a good location to commit suicide.

The father/grandfather is clearly grieving their untimely and unnecessary deaths, and likely very much in denial that his offspring sadly died of a case of terminal stupidity.

However, he, like far too many others, instead of placing the blame correctly on the person(s) making poor decisions when a tragedy strikes, is seeking to shift the blame to an inanimate object.

Hopefully saner minds prevail and the cave will remain open, and their deaths can be used as a lesson for others to learn to not go into caves without training, the appropriate gear, and a dive plan.