<Copied from the Cave Divers Forum>
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. Chris Rittenmeyer and Patrick Peacock started a dive at Eagle's Nest around 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 15, 2016. They were on JJ-CCRs with 95cf sidemount bailouts. Each diver had a scooter and an AL80 safety. They also towed a backup scooter. They had placed all their deco safeties in the cave the day before.
2. Chris and Patrick were both fully trained as Full Cave, Trimix, CCR, and DPV divers. Both divers had years of ocean and cave diving experience.
3. When the divers failed to return to deco at the anticipated time, their surface support buddy checked every 30 minutes until they were several hours overdue. Their buddy called Cave Country Dive Shop around 6:00 p.m. and spoke to Jon Bernot, who immediately loaded his vehicle and started driving to Eagle's Nest. While enroute, Jon called around and activated a response team of qualified and available cave divers.
4. Search Team 1, of Jon Bernot and Charlie Roberson, got underway around 11:00 p.m. to search the upstream passage, which was the dive plan according to the buddy. Team 1 checked the habitat and spotted three O2 bottles at 20 ffw, four 50% at 70 ffw, and two 120 bottles on the top of the mound, all of which were untouched. Team 1 noticed that the 120 bottles were on the downstream side of the line but decided to go ahead and check the upstream since that was believed to be the dive plan. Team 1 scoured the entire upstream all the way to the far reaches of the Green Room, King's Challenge, and all the large passage and rooms. When Team I failed to find anything upstream, they proceeded to check the Lockwood tunnel to no avail. Team 1 surfaced around 3:30 a.m.
5. Search Team 2, of Ted McCoy and AJ Gonzales, got underway around 3:45 a.m. and headed downstream. They immediately found the two bodies on the exit side of the Pit in approximately 220-230 ffw. Team 2 fully documented the scene and took detailed notes for about 45 minutes before exiting.
6. Diver 1 was wearing his CCR but his bailouts were not in place. One empty 95 bailout was beside him and attached to his rig via a QC6 and the long hose was deployed. His loop was open and out of his mouth. The inhale side of the loop was crushed. He had 300 psi of O2 but no onboard diluent remaining. He did have a 13cf inflation bottle with gas remaining. He had no primary light head and his backup lights were not deployed. There was a single scooter near Diver 1 but it was unclipped and turned off.
7. Diver 2 was only wearing a drysuit, mask and fins and was positively buoyant. He had a backup light clipped off and dangling out of his pocket. No other bottles were nearby.
8. A full AL80 safety was located just on the exit side of the Pit restriction in 270 ffw but was not easily seen on the way out. The primary light head with e/o cord was also located on the exit side of the Pit restriction. Their other full AL80 safety was located beside another team’s full safety just downstream of the jump to the Lockwood tunnel.
9. Two 95 bailouts were located just on the far side of the Pit. Both were empty.
10. Recovery Team 1 brought both bodies to the top of the Ballroom and Recovery Team 2 brought both bodies to the surface on Sunday afternoon.
11. Diver 2's CCR, a 95 bailout, and two scooters were located on Monday morning just outside the restriction to Revelation Space in the Room of Dreams. The CCR loop was closed and appeared to be fully operational. The 95 bailout was full. Diver 2 had video lights for a GoPro plugged into his canister light.
12. The gear recovery team of Jon Bernot and James Draker removed all the gear from the cave and turned it over to law enforcement on Monday, October 17, 2016.
