Horrible diving accident and some Finnish spirit called SISU

Pic by Lars Solbackken/Lehtikuva (from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, www.hs.fi)

I was not sure if this has been on the news anywhere else than in Finland and in Norway, but a Google search "cave diving accident in Norway" gave me multiple hits about the story.

I am writing this because I feel sorry for the whole (especially) Finnish diving community for the losses and I want to show my blog readers something about Finnish mentality, friendship and how it can be. Something that is called "sisu" and it is not fully translatable, but the closest words would be something like " full determination regardless of cost", "persistence" or "strength". But strength in a very special way with a lot of loyalty included.

This happened February 2014 in Norway, in Plurdalen, Mo i Rana cave diving "heaven", where you have to be super experienced technical dry suit diver to be even thinking about entering the cave in 140m. This time everything went wrong for 5 Finnish divers who went to the cave. Only 3 of them came up alive, one injured, 2 died. They were all very experienced and also been diving there before, and divers keep going back because of the beauty of the cave system in whole.

The 2 dead divers were stuck in the cave system and made it impossible for future diving and the cave was soon banned. There was a consultation of British cave diving and safety experts weather the bodies were able to be brought to surface, so the place would be available for diving again. The experts said the operation was to be too dangerous and was not to be done, and the cave to be sealed. This news came out about 3 weeks ago.

What happened then, is the Finnish sisu.

For 2 weeks, in total silence, a group of 17 Finns went on planning how to bring their friends out from the cave, where they laid in 130 m depth. Without telling the foreign ministry (or anyone), they went back to Norway and did what the international group of diving experts said to be impossible. They brought their friends back to the surface! They were saying they would not have done it without the wish from the relatives of the dead and only one name is given to publicity.  The information and the documentation about the whole mission (worth reading) was released yesterday in English on Finnish Divers Federation web pages, enter here or copy link this  https://www.sukeltaja.fi/content/fi/11501/10832/227/227.html

Today the Norwegian cave team is helping the to bring the bodies, the latest news tell, that the second body is now brought back from the cave system.

The 3 divers who were diving when the accident happened, were in the operation as well, 2 under the surface diving and one up on the safety team. Now, would you like to have some friends like that?

I think I would.
Today, I am damn proud to be a Finnish person and also a diver. 

Additional information from Finnish main news sites in English;
http://yle.fi/uutiset/drowned_cave_divers_were_killed_in_two_separate_accidents/7080503
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_divers_final_rest_in_norwegian_sea_cave/7106932
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_diving_team_reclaims_bodies_of_drowned_divers_-_despite_norwegian_ban/7160182

The profile of the cave system in Finnish, by Jussi Sippola and Leila Nieminen according to Verdens Gang for www.hs.fi, 

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