Critical Accident Rescues/Incidents - How many involvements have you had?

[ADeadlierSnake]

How many times have you witnessed or been involved in a rescue attempt where the diver being rescued was in critical condition?

I apologize for the length of the question, but I summed it up in as few words as possible. I witnessed my first diver emergency yesterday, and the part that surprises me most is that it happened so "soon". As a relatively new diver with only ~170 dives, and who only started diving seriously this last January, I most certainly did not expect to witness such an event until much later in my dive "career". I see no end in sight for my diving, so I knew I would see this sort of thing happen eventually. I am just curious how often it does happen, hence my question. I'm not asking because I have been shaken up by the event, because in fact the whole thing went very smoothly from a response standpoint. I'm just curious how often you frequent divers are called upon to use your rescue training (in very serious cases, not like a skin bend or something).
Hopefully this starts some interesting discussion, and not a bunch of flaming. Fingers crossed!

I had no idea where to post this, but since it is related to Accidents/Incidents, I posted it here. If it needs to be moved, by all means, have at it.

To anyone who answers: It might be interesting to know how long youve been diving too!

 

[TSandM]

I've been involved in two. One was a diver who developed distress underwater, surfaced and died; the other was yesterday. Incidents aren't all that common. I think your timing was just good (or bad).

 

[ADeadlierSnake]

I like to think my timing was good. My being or not being there wouldnt have prevented the accident, and I learned more yesterday about how to respond in a REAL emergency than I have in my previous ~3 EFR courses and my Rescue Diver course. I feel far more capable after having been involved in coordinating an actual emergency. Furthermore, it was great to have everyone work together in such a rapid manner like that. I think we all learned a lot. Of course it is always unfortunate whenever something like that happens, however I choose to look at the bright side.

 

[japan-diver]

I dive everyday for work in a busy tropical dive center and have been doing it for over 15 years (13,000 + dives). I have witnessed very few accidents in this time where the diver was critical. I have been involved in a few evacuations for DCS incidents - but the victim was breathing and conscious the whole time. I have been involved in the actual rescue/attempt where CPR was needed twice- in one of these accidents most of the people on the boat were open water students or very newly certified. Diving lends itself to accidents and the more you dive the greater chance you will be present at the scene of one- I have seen accidents or missed them by minutes at sites many time arriving just after they happened or leaving right before and hearing about it later. You were just in the wrong place, wrong time- we always need to be prepared to help if possible and a new diver has nearly the same chance of being at the scene of an accident as a dive professional - that chance is still small though.

 

[paolov]

If you would like to lower the chances of you being involved in an accident, pursue continuous diver education and training.

the more you learn, the more you understand, the better you are to gauge risks for you and for those around you.

keep up to date on things that would have an impact on our sport.

BP/W !!! oopss :scubadive: ..... heheheheh

 

[kathydee]

By around dive 600 I had helped with two accidents. The first was during our rescue course when a diver from our boat did a rapid ascent from 40 feet, embolized, spit his reg out and was found face down and unconscious. It was touch and go with breath, but miraculously, 7 chamber rides later he escaped without issue.

The second was a near drowning, at the surface, shore entry, new diver, big surge - Somehow the gas escaped her BCD and neither she nor her partner had the awareness to restore buoyancy. A rescue diver towed her to shore with blue lips and no breath. That first gurgle and shallow breath was a very welcome relief to those of us who were preparing to start CPR.

 

[tajkd]

I think it really depends how often, where you dive. I crew on a dive boat on the east coast and we have an incident about once per year. I do see hundreds of divers in that time so the rate may not be too high. Not all the incidents are serious. I've seen only three critical incidents in 650 dives.

 

[scubadada]

No critical incidents in 650 dives since 1997. Oxygen deployed twice for risk events. So far, so good

 

[Wookie]

But then, I'm a dive operator. I have seen years with 20 near drownings, 8 DCS cases and 2 fatalities. Thankfully, only one of those years.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Since the title of the thread references direct involvement and we only witnessed the incident, I chose never. It was about dive #10 when I witnessed my first diver (and only to date thankfully) death. My ex and I were both certified divers and were with a local shop doing some fun dives while they did open water dives for a group (our divers were not with the group). We were rooming with one of the students and his wife. We surface from our last dive of the weekend (Rick's 4th and final certification dive) when we saw what I believed to be a safety drill being performed. So, we floated on the surface for a minute and then I realized that this was not an exercise......this was real. It was then that I saw the name printed on the bottom of the victim's fins and realized it was our roommate Rick. It got real in a hurry. Rather than get in the way by trying to physically help with anything we watched in horror from a distance as the shop did everything in their power to bring Rick back. They were unable to and Rick passed.

We had just started diving, and just met this man and his wife but that is something that is imprinted in my mind and will be until the day I die. We did what we could to help the shop and employees as well as the student buddy of Rick, for the following weeks.

How many times have you witnessed or been involved in a rescue attempt where the diver being rescued was in critical condition?

I apologize for the length of the question, but I summed it up in as few words as possible. I witnessed my first diver emergency yesterday, and the part that surprises me most is that it happened so "soon". As a relatively new diver with only ~170 dives, and who only started diving seriously this last January, I most certainly did not expect to witness such an event until much later in my dive "career". I see no end in sight for my diving, so I knew I would see this sort of thing happen eventually. I am just curious how often it does happen, hence my question. I'm not asking because I have been shaken up by the event, because in fact the whole thing went very smoothly from a response standpoint. I'm just curious how often you frequent divers are called upon to use your rescue training (in very serious cases, not like a skin bend or something).
Hopefully this starts some interesting discussion, and not a bunch of flaming. Fingers crossed!

I had no idea where to post this, but since it is related to Accidents/Incidents, I posted it here. If it needs to be moved, by all means, have at it.

To anyone who answers: It might be interesting to know how long youve been diving too!