About 18-20 mins into the dive, instructor 3, who is at an approximate depth of 60', sees Mrs. Wood at the considerably lower depth of 80'. She taps on her tanks and upon achieving Mrs Wood's attention signals her to ascend to her own depth. She is ignored. After further attempts to attract Mrs Wood's attention fail, the instructor descends and again communicates the need to ascend. At this stage Mrs. Wood proceeds to physically push instructor 3. away. Left with little choice but to try to over power Mrs. Woods, 3. starts to inflate her BCD. In response, Mrs. Wood starts to vent air from the BC via the shoulder dump valve. This altercation continues to an approximate depth of 140' at which point 3. decides to break contact due to the obvious ineffectiveness of her input and safety concerns at the depth being in excess of RDP's. With body language exhibiting anger and aggression, Mrs Wood descents out of sight, still dumping air from the shoulder valve as she goes..
Now, you see, to me
this report appears "padded" - I talk from over 30 years in the commercial dive business where I have seen my fair share of "incidents", and honestly, I have a few issues with some of the comments which seem to me, highly unlikely responses from a diver suffering from narcosis.
Nowhere in any post do we read the diver was struggeling or under extreme stress, actually from all reports I read here nowhere is it reported she was in any way out of control, (this is easy to see in any diver) hense we can assume narcosis is certainly a factor.
Now, in my opinion, a diver suffering high levels of stress will / may fight off assistance, however not a diver suffering only the effects of narcosis - hense if we assume the diver was suffering narcosis I think its highly unlikely they would (a) physically push assistance away (b) have the presence of mind to vent the BC continually - this "venting" is in my opinion not a normal reaction for any diver, certainly not one suffering from narcosis or even stress.
The part about body language and continual venting etc, - well, I have to ask, what was the aggressive body language? - a diver suffering narcosis is very unlikely to exhibit aggression / anger - again its not a natural reaction - a diver stressed beyond control yes, but then they would not have full control of the equipment (continued venting) as she appeared to have.
I think the rest of the report makes sense.
Please, Dantheengineer, understand, I mean no offence, the parts I outline simply dont gel in my water logged brain, I assume you just recalled it as you heard it, thats fine and I appreciate it, however in my humble opinion the story is getting somewhat embellished as it gos along.
