Would you dive with someone who wouldn't share air if you were OOA?

[Kingpatzer]

You know, everone is guided by their own personal moral compass and it seems PB and Thalassamania are at opposite poles but is either one wrong?
(As long as those diving with them know which way the needle points)

If we define "wrong" as taking a bad situation and potentially making it worse through poor decission making that violates community standards of practice, then yes, they're both wrong.

I come at this from a military background, while not dive related, it has a lot of similarities. If there is a bird down, and I'm trying to get to it, making a casualty of myself and my crew in no way helps the situation. Indeed, it creates a much worse situation for someone else to deal with.

Have I helped? No. I have done quite the oposite of helping.

Now, if my goal is to endanger as many lives as possible, waste resources, and maximize the chance that someone dies, I've done a great thing.

But I doubt that's my goal.

What we want in rescue operations is to minimize risk, and not create additional casualties. That is why there are community accepted standards of practice (and community standards is why you can take a CPR course and have it count torwards Rescue certification, and why NAUI and PADI recognize each other's rescue courses). Intentionally violating community standards of practice is knowling making poor choices that violate standards intended to minimize risk, and thus preserve resources.

Having to fly out 1 helicopter from the coast guard means that 1/3rd to 1/4th of the coast guard's air rescue capability for that area is being taken up by an incident. Create a few more casualties through poor choices, and you can diminish the CG air operations capability by 2/3rds or more. Who is that helping?

Oh, and TSandM -- it was the Snake River Canyon, not the Grand Canyon, not that that detracts from your point, but I'm feeling pedantic today

 

[northen diver]

In my mind that is just as foolish a statement as anything that Papa_Bear has presented here.

Creating a worse situation for someone else to deal with because you don't act responsibly with regard to your own safety while trying to effect a rescue is not doing anyone any favors, least of all the person you're trying to rescue in the first place.

I am some what suprised that you would feel this way. Would you feel the same way if you had to fly in to "rescue" a few ground pounders that got lost in hostile terrain.

 

[northen diver]

If we define "wrong" as taking a bad situation and potentially making it worse through poor decission making that violates community standards of practice, then yes, they're both wrong.

I come at this from a military background, while not dive related, it has a lot of similarities. If there is a bird down, and I'm trying to get to it, making a casualty of myself and my crew in no way helps the situation. Indeed, it creates a much worse situation for someone else to deal with.

Have I helped? No. I have done quite the oposite of helping.

Now, if my goal is to endanger as many lives as possible, waste resources, and maximize the chance that someone dies, I've done a great thing.

But I doubt that's my goal.

What we want in rescue operations is to minimize risk, and not create additional casualties. That is why there are community accepted standards of practice (and community standards is why you can take a CPR course and have it count torwards Rescue certification, and why NAUI and PADI recognize each other's rescue courses). Intentionally violating community standards of practice is knowling making poor choices that violate standards intended to minimize risk, and thus preserve resources.

Having to fly out 1 helicopter from the coast guard means that 1/3rd to 1/4th of the coast guard's air rescue capability for that area is being taken up by an incident. Create a few more casualties through poor choices, and you can diminish the CG air operations capability by 2/3rds or more. Who is that helping?

Oh, and TSandM -- it was the Snake River Canyon, not the Grand Canyon, not that that detracts from your point, but I'm feeling pedantic today

What Thalassamania said was:

I will render aid under any circumstances without consideration of my own safety or wellbeing!


He didnt mention being reckless. People in resuce situtations often make split second decesions based off thier training, experiances, comfort zones and morals. I KNOW that the USCG helo pilots will extend their bingo times at times, they will deploy their AST's when it isnt in the "book" to do so. All to save a life while risking the lives of the crew memebers. And many times it is talked about with the flight mech, AST, pilot and Co pilot, even though the pilot has the final say so. NO, this isnt standard practice and doesnt happen every day or every week, but rescues arent text book all the time.

 

[Kingpatzer]

I am some what suprised that you would feel this way. Would you feel the same way if you had to fly in to "rescue" a few ground pounders that got lost in hostile terrain.

I have been involved in two situations where a rescue had to be aborted due for safety reasons (one weather related, one mechanical related). Was I happy about it? Hell no.

In the weather case, I certainly wanted to try, but the someone else made the call. I didn't realize at the time that it was the right call, but I came to accept it as reasonable later. That doesn't mean I liked the call even to this day I wonder about it.

In the other situation, we weren't getting there, and I knew it, we tried and it became clear that we weren't going to make it so I aborted. I damn near killed a few mechanics, but it was what it was.

Now, here's the thing. In the first case, where I didn't make the call, I was a younger, less experienced person. I didn't understand the reasons for the rules as well, and I was focused on the people we were going for rather than being focused on my crew. I also had excessive confidence in both my equipment and myself.

I grew up.

In the second instance, I understood the reasons for the rules. I was mad as hell that we couldn't perform our mission, but I would have been taking unacceptable chances and I knew it. I was no less happy.

At the end of my career I moved to an office for a little while. I got a small glimpse at the bigger picture. And I came to appreciate the rules and their justification even more.

I still think we could have gotten there in the first instance though . . .

 

[Vayu]

I wouldn't dive with someone like that. They are not worth my time.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

PB's posts have been eliminated, probably by his choice.....SB would be so much better if the content of posts could be discussed, instead of mean spirited, group attacks upon the member...this is endemic with most internet forums, and SB is no exception....The moderators, if they care, should minimize personal attacks, and steer the conversation to the substance of the topic....In this thread, one of my posts that simply said that I would be willing to dive with PB or any competent diver was summarily deleted.....The attacks and threats upon PB, including his business were tolerated..... A repeating pattern that is not likely to change anytime soon, given most people's limited mindsets.

I'm going to come out in wholehearted support of this sentiment.

Much of what Papa Bear stated goes against the grain of everything I believe in as a diver. However, what offended me was not so much what he said, as how he said it ... and I think that also goes for a lot of the folks who are giving him a hard time now. We need to justify our arguments based on content, and keep personality out of it, because most of us really don't know each other except as Internet personalities.

Papa Bear is as entitled to his opinions as everyone else here. He's entitled to run his business based on those beliefs, and accept any consequences that come about because of his actions ... NOT because of his posts on ScubaBoard.

If we cannot tolerate differences of belief here ... if we cannot discuss these differences RESPECTFULLY ... then ScubaBoard becomes nothing more than cheap entertainment, and nothing more real than a video game.

Papa Bear, I offer this publicly ... I disagree with a lot of what you say. And based on how you've expressed yourself here, I would not be comfortable diving with you ... but I defend with my whole being your right to say it, and to dive as you choose. One of the things that attracts me to diving is the freedom to make these decisions.

FWIW - I've been raked over the coals publicly on another board because of my decision to occasionally dive solo. What's occurred here isn't any different ... and it's just wrong to publicly rake anyone for choosing to approach their diving differently than you do.

Discuss your differences on their merits, please ... if there is anything to be gained from the discussion, it will be based not on what you do, but on why you do it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[captain]

Don, you're wrong. I have and would dive with such a person.

I dive with a nice guy who dives an old double hose. He can't help me, but I have my doubles, so I can help both him and myself. They are always shallow, short, easy dives, and we have had fun together.

Also, a lot of the divers I dive with don't have much experience and haven't done an air share since their original OW check-out dives, so I just assume that they would not be competent, or really able, to give me air if I needed it. And I do easy dives with them, too.

I'm not trying to cause problems, Don, like you stated. It's just the truth.

Sure he can help you, learn to buddy breath from his two hose, it was done in the days when it was the only type regulator in use.

 

[iScuba(ed)]

wow, what a heated thread.

Of course I would still dive with someone who clearly stated at the beginning of the dive the terms (the buddy "agreement").

At that moment however, I am accepting my own due risk. Just like getting in the water in the first place. Anything can go wrong.

And no, I would NOT absolutely, under no circumstances, refuse to share air in an emergency. BUT, I do have the sole right to refuse if I feel as though MY life would be at jeopardy too.

So many variables....

 

[DeepBound]

I chose "no" but the wording of the poll leaves some questions. If someone can't share air because of their configuration, that would be acceptable because I dive in a configuration where I don't need to depend on a buddy for air. But what kind of a person would refuse to share air if he could, and someone was dying? I wouldn't dive with a sociopath, no.

 

[SteveAD]

I agree with Bob (NWG) 100%. The greatest thing about America is our freedom. We are each free to act pretty much as we wish.

When looking at how many people refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, one might wonder if we have too much freedom, but I, like many others on this board did my time in the Army to ensure that if we have to make a choice between too much freedom or to little, we err in favor of the former.

Kingpatzer: With regard to not endangering additional lives and resources in a rescue operation, the human race in general and the US military in particular have a Proud Tradition of doing just that. The best publicized such event being the "Blackhawk Down" incident, where the better part of a battalion was sent out to recover the crew of a single helicopter and took additional casualties in the process, but they upheld the creed of No One Gets Left Behind.

Talking about diminishing the Coast Guards air rescue capability is just ridiculous. That capabilty does not exist to sit on the pad and "be available". The capability exists so that it can be used to save lives.

One good working definition of the word hero is one who does what it takes to save another without regard for his own safety. This is perfectly exemplified in one of the Coast Guards unofficial mottoes "We have to go out....We don't have to come back."

I am not by any stretch of the imagination saying that it is heroic to throw away ones life when there is no possibility of survival, but that a hero, faced with a dire situation, will attempt the rescue before calculating the odds of survival. Granted, that is why a significant percentage of Medals of Honor are awarded posthumously. But there are times when the window of opportunity is so narrow that there is not enough time to do the calculus of survival.