Reprinted from South Australian Diving Fatalities, Peter Horne, 2004

In 1984, after almost 10 years without incident, there was a double-fatality in Piccaninnie Ponds. This brought the total number of divers to die in the site to four.

The two victims were very good friends and had done a lot of diving together, including a considerable amount of sinkhole diving, although one did not have any cave diving qualifications. Victim one was 28 years old and had gained his CDAA Category 2 cave diving qualification in August 1983, some eight months prior to the accident. Victim two, who was 31 years old, had gained his Basic Scuba Certificate in December 1981, but he had never been able to gain formal cave diving qualifications because of work commitments.

Victim one informed his wife the night before the accident that he intended to do a quick dive the next morning, as he had an appointment around 10AM. He prepared a comprehensive dive plan for the deep dive, and early on Saturday the 7th of April he headed out to the ponds to dive with his friend.

At about 9AM, two Victorian cave divers arrived at the carpark of the same dive site and prepared to do a dive themselves. They noticed another car there already, so they walked out to the landing and looked for bubbles, but saw none. A short while later, they got into their gear and entered the water at around 10:15. They descended to the start of the Dog Leg, a tunnel at a depth of 36 metres, and were surprised to find a scuba cylinder secured by a lanyard to a wall projection. It was equipped with two regulators, and a 3mm white guideline was tied off nearby, dropping down into the dark chimney-like tunnel. The vertical guideline was taut, and, as there were no bubbles rising out of the Dog Leg, the two cave divers had a suspicion that the divers below were dead. They carefully descended to a depth of about 45 metres, where they noticed that the guideline had been tied off to another projection before dropping through the narrow area called the Saddle. There, in the blackness 15 metres below, they could see some dim stationary light sources, like reflected torch beams or luminous gauges, and the total absence of movement or rising bubbles. This confirmed their worst fears and they then returned to the surface after performing the required decompression, and called the police.

The SA Police Underwater Recovery Squad recovered the bodies some time later, apparently with some difficulty because of the depth and the amount of loose line that was snagged everywhere. It was very quickly ascertained that the two victims had become inextricably entangled in their guideline; they had wrapped themselves up in the line so badly that it was wrapped right around their bodies several times and it was also snagged in their gear. Despite their predicament, one of the victims had still demonstrated the presence of mind to try to gather up the loose guideline by hand, and, as the accompanying police photo shows, he was in fact still holding the loops in his hand when their bodies were retrieved.

The maximum depth indicator on one gauge showed that they had reached a depth of 68 metres, which was more than 30 metres deeper than the maximum permitted depth at this location. It is most likely that they had turned around to begin their ascent when they became entangled in the silty confines at the bottom of the Dog Leg tunnel, and, as they would have been severely affected by nitrogen narcosis, they had little hope of sorting out the problem before their single cylinders ran out of air.

Body Discovery | Photo: SAPOL

Accident Analysis
Cause of Death - drowning after running out of air
Major Contributing Factors - inadequate gas for the dive, inadequate training, diving too deep on air

More information on Piccaninnie Ponds

Piccaninnie Ponds 3D Map | Credit: John Dalla-Zuanna