Incident, panic and rapid ascent from 20 meters. Q&A

[Freidenker]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum, I guess this ist the better place to post my experience, if not, please tell. There was no accident as a result of this incident, luckily, but the potencial consecuences were there and I would like to have your opinion about the incident in order to check what could have done better.

Time and location: Yesterday at 11:00 AM I went to dive with a big group of people from my diving school. The dive site was a mountain lake at 1400 meters above sea level. 10 meters visibility, with the water at 17ºC.

The Dive: Since none of my regular diving buddies were diving that day I paired with a diver I never dived before. He's and old diver at the school and I supposed that he had a googd level, enough for a normal-autonomous not school dive, I mean with normal something not beyond an open waters's dive. We planned a dive of max 20 meters.

We started our dive from a little shallow bay, advancing about 6 minutes at a depth of 5 to 10 meters, till we reached a cliff where we planned to go deeper. We did that, we went to 19 meters and started the dive following the shore, at dive minute 13 and at 18 meters I felt my buddy moving my tank vigorously to call me, I turn around and he is making rapid movements and breathing like hell, he made a lot of indentendible signs from which I can only understand the "I am going up NOW". I made the ok sign and told him to go slow, little by little, I offered him my secondary regulator, wondering if he had a failure, but he denied it and continuing with the "up" sign, we started to ascend, I told him to go slow up, to keep calm and in front of him I tried to mark a slow ascent, but he was so agitated moving his fins a lot, no way to stop him, he went to surface pretty quick, not sure how much since I lost him. I decided to respect the ascent speed, and emerged like a minute before him, nevertheless I made no safety stop and I pushed the speed to the limit with the computer sometimes making SLOW alerts, but in general I ascended at the 9 meters per minute speed.

Once up I asked him what happened, I told him that he ascended way to fast (we have no deco chamber here, not even close to one). And he told me then that he was having ear pain because of compensation problems. I know this guy despite I never dived with him before, and he has some tendency to lie and exaggerate things, and because of the facts I find it difficult to believe his story, we were at almost 20 meters two minutes ago, and then when we were gradually ascending, at 18 meters he feels so much pain?

1- If he had trouble equalizing why didn't he say so before? Trouble when we are already at 18 coming from 19,6 meters?
2- He was obviouly panicking, since if he had compensation problems he just had to ascend till the pain recedes and not all the way to the surface

It was lucky that he did the incident at minute 13 and not after, our nitrogen load was pretty little (the nitrogen bar of my Tusa iq750 marked two slots of a total of 4 for no deco dive, with a great nitrogen load I guess he would have made a DCS. I was even worried about me, I don't make these kind of ascents, I like to be well below the limits and always to respect the safety stop, and I pushed the ascent a little to reach him sooner.

Question:

1-What could be the risks for him of DCS from this ascent in this kind of dive, and for me as well, since I pushed it a little.

He was so decided to go to the surface that I'm 100% positive sure that if I grabbed him he would have taken me up with him. He was unconttrolable, just as he ignored totally that he can't ascend so fast.

I guess he panicked and made the excuse of the equalizing problem, but I will never know for sure. In any case I think he lacks the basic training to be an automomous diver and need more instruction. He's an old diver but dive little and I guess not training propperly. If he really had the problem he says, I can't understand why he ascended directly to the surface and not a few meters just till the pain recedes. I will never dive with this person again, not in my life.

Any thoughts will be much welcome, about what I could have done better too.

Sorry for my rusted english, I hope you can understand the story despite it.

Greetings and thanks in advance.

 

[Croomrider]

Sounds like you did what you could. You didn't match his assent rate but came up as fast as you felt was safe to help him. You learned not to dive with him again, and that is probably the main thing!

Mike

 

[flots am]

I told him to go slow up, to keep calm and in front of him I tried to mark a slow ascent, but he was so agitated moving his fins a lot, no way to stop him, he went to surface pretty quick, not sure how much since I lost him. I decided to respect the ascent speed, and emerged like a minute before him, nevertheless I made no safety stop and I pushed the speed to the limit with the computer sometimes making SLOW alerts, but in general I ascended at the 9 meters per minute speed.

The next time this happens, just wave "goodbye", ascend at your normal rate and meet him on the surface, where you can help if needed.

There's no reason to make two victims.

He was so decided to go to the surface that I'm 100% positive sure that if I grabbed him he would have taken me up with him. He was unconttrolable, just as he ignored totally that he can't ascend so fast.

Without quite a bit of training and practice, it's nearly impossible to safely stop a panicked diver. You might end up killing or injuring him (or you).

Just let him go.

flots.

 

[dytis-sm]

From a similar experience i had, I realize some form of "guilt" in possibly have done something wrong. But if a buddy panics and bolts for the surface in my opinion there is not much you can do other than what you did...following slowly and making sure they surfaced ok. Then you can sort of "follow" them from below and do you safety stop or whatever you need to do not to hurt yourself. In you case it sounds like you did surface a bit sooner but again you sound like you considered the minimal diving time.

Somehow this type of situation seems to always happen with "instabuddies"... I think we are all guilty of attaining some comfort with our regular dive buddies. Then an insta-buddy comes along to remind us that we need to pay closer attention to basics like buddy checks, review of hand signs, a dive plan, etc. which we probably do not do as much with people we dive with often. Some better communication through the dive may have prevented this. It sounds like you were leading the dive since he had to grab your tank for attention and may have skipped checking with him often if everything is ok...May be that would be the lesson learned (checking more often with your buddy), at least that was in my similar case.

 

[boulderjohn]

First of all, your decision to ascend at a safe rate was a good one.

Next, neither of you would have been at serious risk of DCS. The real risk in a rapid ascent early in the dive is from lung overexpansion injury. A panicked diver may hold his or her breath on such an ascent. Accident analysis in a combined PADI and DAN study showed that a lung overexpansion injury (embolism) after a panicked ascent is the number one cause of dive fatalities other than health (chiefly cardiac) incidents.

Finally, you weren't sure where to put this. There is a subforum for exactly this sort of thing--near misses and lessons learned from them. I will move this thread to that subforum for you.

 

[Stoo]

Based on your 13 minute/18 metre profile, I think that there is little chance of a DCS hit. Altitude is a factor, but you're still well within no deco limits I imagine (I don't have altitude tables handy).

Assuming he kept breathing on the way up, then there's really not much risk. (And presumable he did that, since you didn't report that he died!)

It sounds like you found yourself in the classic "Insta-buddy" situation where your buddy, for some reason, was caught beyond his comfort zone. "Something" caused him to become agitated and uncomfortable to the point where he had to get up "now". I've seen similar things over the years more times than I could count. It could have been an ear squeeze, it could have been a tight suit, or poorly tuned regulator any number of things. How was his fitness level? Did he over-exert himself?

As others have said, once a situation like this starts, there's not a lot you can do the stop it. The trick is (and I say this with 25 years of teaching in my past) to closely monitor your buddy for signs of stress and take steps to help your buddy get it under control before it escalates. While this particular ascent was made successfully, there is typically a very fine line between a brief period of "excitement", and a serious accident.

I think that monitoring an unknown buddy is really hard to do however. Diving with a new buddy is a different relationship than an Instructor/Student relationship, where being "in their face" is acceptable. It probably isn't so easy with some guy you just met. I rarely (ok, never) dive with unknown people. But if I had to, I think I'd try to talk with them for some time prior to the dive, and also suit up with them. I don't know what your level of experience and certification is, but certainly learning to recognize signs of stress in someone BEFORE the dive begins, is a critical skill for a DM or Instructor to develop.

I'm glad that everything turned out ok. Sometimes a little luck, and "the Grace of God" is all we need for a good dive. Rapid ascents, on their own, are not a huge issue, assuming the dive profile is well shy of the NDL and nobody is holding their breath, but they have the potential to have disastrous consequences.

 

[lsorenson]

He's and old diver at the school and I supposed that he had a googd leve

To me, this is the only mistake you really made...! Never ever make a judgement about a persons ability regardless the age...!!! There are those at the young age of 18 with a 1000+ dives and those of the age of 60+ with less than 20 dives...

I never ask anyone how long they have been diving... what I ask is their experience...! Someone who has been diving for 20 years means little if they only dive once, maybe twice a year... as many vacation divers do.

lee

 

[boulderjohn]

I recently conducted a scuba review session for 8 divers. Six of them were fairly new and relatively inexperienced. The other two were older divers with quite a few lifetime dives and vintage equipment, but they had not been diving in 11 years. The fairly new and inexperienced divers, fortunately, all did very well and probably could have done just fine on their coming trips without the review. The older and more experienced couple were a downright disaster. They monopolized so much of my attention that it was indeed fortunate that the other six were having no problems at all.

 

[victorzamora]

To me, this is the only mistake you really made...! Never ever make a judgement about a persons ability regardless the age...!!! There are those at the young age of 18 with a 1000+ dives and those of the age of 60+ with less than 20 dives...

I never ask anyone how long they have been diving... what I ask is their experience...! Someone who has been diving for 20 years means little if they only dive once, maybe twice a year... as many vacation divers do.

lee

I think the implication there was he's "been around" the LDS and therefore was presumably experienced. On the same token of you knowing young people with thousands of dives and older people with few, there are also panicky, flighty, incompetent divers with thousands and relaxed, level-headed, and competent divers with few dives.

Freidenker: Lesson learned is to not dive with him again. Not diving with new-to-you divers is something you can't always avoid.

Something you may consider next time, however, is planning a short, VERY simple dive.....10m, 10min. Inform the new buddy you're going to do some drills, and do an out-of-air drill both ways (without ascending) and then both of you flood and clear your masks. These are the two biggest problems flighty/panicky divers have. Once I see a diver handle both, I'm typically right about them being decent....especially if you both do both skills horizontal instead of upright, even if you're touching the bottom.

The other lesson to learn is you might want to start swimming side-by-side when possible. That way he wouldn't have had to grab your tank for you to look at him, which could've caused the situation to get worse (he got frustrated/desparate).

Overall, you handled yourself well and I'm glad it all turned out well.

 

[Freidenker]

Thank you all for the answers. I am making a lot of them.

Sounds like you did what you could. You didn't match his assent rate but came up as fast as you felt was safe to help him. You learned not to dive with him again, and that is probably the main thing!


Mike

I won't dive with him again, but this projects a red light into the future. Certainly I would never make a technical, deep or more complex dive with someone I never dived before, but this experience teaches me that even a regular dive, an asbolutely basic one, can trigger panic in "theorically" experienced divers. I,ve spoken with this guy many times, I took classes with him, he's an Advanced, he dives before than me, but certainly not at the same rate and I don't know how actually was he diving lately, I naver thought that he could have problems because the dive was very easy, good visibility, not cold water, he was using his own equipment.

The next time this happens, just wave "goodbye", ascend at your normal rate and meet him on the surface, where you can help if needed.


There's no reason to make two victims.






Without quite a bit of training and practice, it's nearly impossible to safely stop a panicked diver. You might end up killing or injuring him (or you).


Just let him go.


flots.

Knowing the result of the incident, I think what you say would have been the right call, but what if he is injured floating on the surface, I can call for help, use my whistle, drag him to the shore, etc. I almost never exceeded the speed limit, I think mine was a safe ascent, not perfect though, I don't feel comfortable going up so close to the limit, I always try to extend my safety stop if I can, I try every dive as a deco dive, I didn't like my ascent at all.

From a similar experience i had, I realize some form of "guilt" in possibly have done something wrong. But if a buddy panics and bolts for the surface in my opinion there is not much you can do other than what you did...following slowly and making sure they surfaced ok. Then you can sort of "follow" them from below and do you safety stop or whatever you need to do not to hurt yourself. In you case it sounds like you did surface a bit sooner but again you sound like you considered the minimal diving time.


Somehow this type of situation seems to always happen with "instabuddies"... I think we are all guilty of attaining some comfort with our regular dive buddies. Then an insta-buddy comes along to remind us that we need to pay closer attention to basics like buddy checks, review of hand signs, a dive plan, etc. which we probably do not do as much with people we dive with often. Some better communication through the dive may have prevented this. It sounds like you were leading the dive since he had to grab your tank for attention and may have skipped checking with him often if everything is ok...May be that would be the lesson learned (checking more often with your buddy), at least that was in my similar case.

Yes, I considered the 13 minutes dive time, that's why the number is so well marked in my memory, if I was near the table's limit I think I would never dare to make an ascent at the limit as I did. What worried me about this experience is the lack of warning the panic had, just as I was told so many times, I never expected it, we were already gaining altitude, the cliff was gone and we could see the bottom. I can't guess what disturbed him to panic, the enviroment was pretty easy, we were very slow, not exertion at all. I was checking on him often for the ok sign, in the 13 minutes no less than 5 or 7 times at least, I am kinda neurotic with that, specially if I am leading. It was from one moment to the other, near the shore, bottom at sight, going very slow, never expected him to panic there.


True what you say about checking better instabuddies. I guess that even making a few basic exercises starting the dive would have been a good idea, mask flooding, recover the regulator, etc. That involes some social engineering too, no doubt that a diver who can less that he thinks of himself is a problem that can arise at any time. I guess this is somehow one case of that.

Based on your 13 minute/18 metre profile, I think that there is little chance of a DCS hit. Altitude is a factor, but you're still well within no deco limits I imagine (I don't have altitude tables handy).


Assuming he kept breathing on the way up, then there's really not much risk. (And presumable he did that, since you didn't report that he died!)


It sounds like you found yourself in the classic "Insta-buddy" situation where your buddy, for some reason, was caught beyond his comfort zone. "Something" caused him to become agitated and uncomfortable to the point where he had to get up "now". I've seen similar things over the years more times than I could count. It could have been an ear squeeze, it could have been a tight suit, or poorly tuned regulator any number of things. How was his fitness level? Did he over-exert himself?


As others have said, once a situation like this starts, there's not a lot you can do the stop it. The trick is (and I say this with 25 years of teaching in my past) to closely monitor your buddy for signs of stress and take steps to help your buddy get it under control before it escalates. While this particular ascent was made successfully, there is typically a very fine line between a brief period of "excitement", and a serious accident.


I think that monitoring an unknown buddy is really hard to do however. Diving with a new buddy is a different relationship than an Instructor/Student relationship, where being "in their face" is acceptable. It probably isn't so easy with some guy you just met. I rarely (ok, never) dive with unknown people. But if I had to, I think I'd try to talk with them for some time prior to the dive, and also suit up with them. I don't know what your level of experience and certification is, but certainly learning to recognize signs of stress in someone BEFORE the dive begins, is a critical skill for a DM or Instructor to develop.


I'm glad that everything turned out ok. Sometimes a little luck, and "the Grace of God" is all we need for a good dive. Rapid ascents, on their own, are not a huge issue, assuming the dive profile is well shy of the NDL and nobody is holding their breath, but they have the potential to have disastrous consequences.

Thank you Stoo, I am glad to hear that, luckily the altitude was not much either (1400 meters) and yes, I was far away from the no deco limit, most of those 13 minutes were between 5 and 12 meters.


I may never know what agitated him. His fitness level is ok, he's around 45, no overweight, not over exertion, this teaches me how unpredictably someone can panic, this guy is no unknown for me, but outside the water, never met him in the water before, we were talking before the dive, he seemed ok, he dives before I do, but I've been diving a lot since I started two years ago, and that may have led me to treat him as an experienced diver when obviously he was not well, I've seen some people diving and making the same errors dive after dive, like too vertical, moving hands etc, may be 20 meters was too deep for him, because he panicked after descending, and for what he said after the dive he was like too aware of the depth, with decimals included, and not about other things. The way down is between two walls, may be that triggered an alert in his comfort zone.


I'm a rescue thinking about going DM in the near future, I will certainly have into account your advice of having attention to any signs I could have missed, if there was one I missed it totally.

To me, this is the only mistake you really made...! Never ever make a judgement about a persons ability regardless the age...!!! There are those at the young age of 18 with a 1000+ dives and those of the age of 60+ with less than 20 dives...


I never ask anyone how long they have been diving... what I ask is their experience...! Someone who has been diving for 20 years means little if they only dive once, maybe twice a year... as many vacation divers do.


lee

I never take chronological age into account, but yes, my mistake was to think that as he was one of the "classics" school's divers he was ok, what you point out was indubitably my mistake, it's kinda weird to treat an old diver as if he were a beginner, specially when everybody treats him as an experienced diver. One thing to note is that he had his mask too tight, I noted that when surfaced, now that I think about it, I missed that when we started. May be he's afraid of getting water in the nose.

I recently conducted a scuba review session for 8 divers. Six of them were fairly new and relatively inexperienced. The other two were older divers with quite a few lifetime dives and vintage equipment, but they had not been diving in 11 years. The fairly new and inexperienced divers, fortunately, all did very well and probably could have done just fine on their coming trips without the review. The older and more experienced couple were a downright disaster. They monopolized so much of my attention that it was indeed fortunate that the other six were having no problems at all.

This is interesting, may be to the "think that you know" is an obstacle that cannot be underestimated. This can be one case of that.

---------- Post added February 24th, 2014 at 04:40 PM ----------

I think the implication there was he's "been around" the LDS and therefore was presumably experienced. On the same token of you knowing young people with thousands of dives and older people with few, there are also panicky, flighty, incompetent divers with thousands and relaxed, level-headed, and competent divers with few dives.

Freidenker: Lesson learned is to not dive with him again. Not diving with new-to-you divers is something you can't always avoid.

Something you may consider next time, however, is planning a short, VERY simple dive.....10m, 10min. Inform the new buddy you're going to do some drills, and do an out-of-air drill both ways (without ascending) and then both of you flood and clear your masks. These are the two biggest problems flighty/panicky divers have. Once I see a diver handle both, I'm typically right about them being decent....especially if you both do both skills horizontal instead of upright, even if you're touching the bottom.

The other lesson to learn is you might want to start swimming side-by-side when possible. That way he wouldn't have had to grab your tank for you to look at him, which could've caused the situation to get worse (he got frustrated/desparate).

Overall, you handled yourself well and I'm glad it all turned out well.

I think that's finally what this experience teaches, I guess he would have trouble making the exercises and in that case we would have done a total beginner's dive at no more than 10 meters. I concur that the numbers of dives is also relative, I've seen people making always the same mistakes, surely having also a pretty narrow comfort zone.