Are you going back for your buddy?

[chillyinCanada]

I lost my group once upon a time. I looked around longer than I should have and was determining whether or not to surface when the dm showed up looking pretty worried. The dive continued uneventfully.

The crew was laughing at the dm later because he had surfaced and frantically called out "chilly is missing!".

"She's right behind you, dude."

Just as a good boat crew should on that sort of a gentle drift dive, they'd been watching our bubbles.

 

[Lobzilla]

Sure, but what should happen and what actually happens, are sometimes two different things. I think the jist of this post is "What do you do when something that shouldn't happen, actually happens?"

Here is my answer to that question: If you go diving with a buddy because the buddy system was taught and understood as a valuable safety element, you get separated and you both make it back to land unharmed, you should have a discussion about that preventable failure and FIX IT.

What do you do if you "run out of air"? Are going to approach the next dive with even more sloppy gas planning? Most likely not.

Would you buy an octopus that, knowing from discussions on Scubaboard, works maybe 20% of the time? Most likely not.

What irks me is that instructors who teach the buddy system, encourage it, even demand it when their liability is on the line, accept -here in this thread- that in reality nobody gives a hoot about actually delivering on the promise. That it has become amusing when a divemaster actually takes his responsibility seriously and gets worried about a "lost sheep".

I know that stuff happens but I do not accept buddy separation as the normal course of business because I do not want to be in the shoes of the father who goes diving with his son at Dutch Springs, looses his buddy, does not find him, and then gets informed at the "lost and found buddy counter" that the body of a teenage, male diver was recovered, who (as later determined) ran out of air, panicked, and died from AGE/pulmonary barotrauma after a Poseidon Missile ascent.

The son's future - gone. His friends and family - left with a void that cannot be filled by a cheesy memorial with photos and flowers. The father - for the rest of his life hounded by pain, guilt, and the question: What if I had ...

The next time you loose your buddy, thank God when you found him/her well by luck or by your preferred method and then FIX THE PROBLEM.

Or, like MaxBottomTime and others, be clear upfront that everybody is on their own and back that up with the required skills.

 

[Compressor]

Alot of excellent replies in my opinion.
When I dive with my wife and daughter, we look around for 1 minute and then surface. HOWEVER, we make a conscious effort not to get separated. During the dive, we signal each other to keep together if there is some separation. I was taught this in my OW class over 30 years ago and it has served me well.

With others, we agree on a rule but I have seen buddies that are not committed. So even though we are "buddy diving", nothing could be further from the truth. When you jump in the water and the buddy bolts away, I am solo diving and am not going to go to the surface and look at the pelicans and seagulls.

 

[Kharon]

Why not include in the dive plan that if you lose each other and don't reconnect within a set time you each pop a smb and surface?

 

[doctormike]

Here is my answer to that question: If you go diving with a buddy because the buddy system was taught and understood as a valuable safety element, you get separated and you both make it back to land unharmed, you should have a discussion about that preventable failure and FIX IT.

What do you do if you "run out of air"? Are going to approach the next dive with even more sloppy gas planning? Most likely not.

Would you buy an octopus that, knowing from discussions on Scubaboard, works maybe 20% of the time? Most likely not.

What irks me is that instructors who teach the buddy system, encourage it, even demand it when their liability is on the line, accept -here in this thread- that in reality nobody gives a hoot about actually delivering on the promise. That it has become amusing when a divemaster actually takes his responsibility seriously and gets worried about a "lost sheep".

I know that stuff happens but I do not accept buddy separation as the normal course of business because I do not want to be in the shoes of the father who goes diving with his son at Dutch Springs, looses his buddy, does not find him, and then gets informed at the "lost and found buddy counter" that the body of a teenage, male diver was recovered, who (as later determined) ran out of air, panicked, and died from AGE/pulmonary barotrauma after a Poseidon Missile ascent.

I think that we are getting a little carried away here, and conflating things like running out of gas with buddy separation. Yes, they are both failures of situational awareness. But you really shouldn't be in the water at all if losing your buddy means that you are going to die because you can't simply make a safe ascent on your own once you are alone.

Think of buddy separation as a system failure. The reason that we don't plan for two failures is because if we did it would be impossible to plan a dive safely at all. I carry open circuit bailout and deco gas, but I don't carry two sets of OC bailout and deco gas in case both the rebreather AND the bailout fail. Is it conceivable that such a situation could exist? Sure. But it becomes prohibitive to include that much redundancy.

So yes, a buddy can be a backup gas supply if you have a catastrophic gear failure (or go OOG because of inattention). But if you have decided that you are diving using the buddy system as a valuable safety element, and you lose your buddy, then you surface. You shouldn't be at increased risk unless you lose your buddy and ALSO go OOG or get entangled, etc... and that is a two failure scenario.

I don't remember the details of the scenario that you described (I'm assuming that you are talking about Kyle Kulp), and it certainly sounds tragic. But the take home message should that if you lose your buddy (and aren't planning a solo dive), then you surface. Not that losing your buddy is unthinkable and never acceptable, along the lines of running OOG. Separation happens, especially with poor visibility, even with the best of intentions, unless you spend the entire dive glued to your buddy. But it's not like OOG, which barring catastrophic gear failure should NEVER happen.

 

[drbill]

Too many factors that need to be determined to give a single answer.

One real I dive solo 95% of the time is I take personal responsibility for myself. When diving with my son, I tend to be highly distracted as my focus is on him and his safety. Some of my other buddies are same ocean types (they are all dive pros) while others stick close.

I remember the day I had an instabuddy. We stopped so I could film something and I kept an eye on her via the reflection in my housing's rear port. Suddenly she disappeared from view. I finished filming and she was nowhere to be seen. I searched for a minute and surfaced. She was nowhere to be seen. I resubmerged to look for her and after about 5 minutes I surfaced and began the swim toward the exit point so I could contact the sheriff. I found her, already in her street clothes, and heading out for a drink with two guys she had just met. I read her the riot act about leaving me without communicating it. Her response was that she knew I was ok. I yelled back that I didn't know she was ok and had been searching for her body.

 

[Norrm]

Her response was that she knew I was ok. I yelled back that I didn't know she was ok and had been searching for her body.

Divers like this give instabuddys a bad name.

 

[dmaziuk]

That will let you know if they are within earshot, but not where they are.

No, that'll let you know they're within the ultrasound beeper's range and alive and well. On a leisurely benign dive you both should know roughly where each other was before you lost visual contact. It can tell you both to start looking for each other and you should know which way to look.

If you have no clue where your buddy might be, that thing can still tell you you are not in a body recovery situation yet. Which I imagine could help keep your BP and stress below the OH @#$% WE'RE GONNA DIE!!! level.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Some divers react to a missing buddy differently. Some think their buddy is likely OK because if something bad happened it would have probably happened them them as well since they are both underwater in the same general area. Others jump to the conclusion that a buddy separation is major calamity. There was a monumentally long thread six years ago started by a diver with 22 dives but several cards in his wallet including OW, AOW, Nitrox and Rescue. If you have a few hours to waste check out this thread.

 

[Bierstadt]

Some divers react to a missing buddy differently. Some think their buddy is likely OK because if something bad happened it would have probably happened them them as well since they are both underwater in the same general area. Others jump to the conclusion that a buddy separation is major calamity. There was a monumentally long thread six years ago started by a diver with 22 dives but several cards in his wallet including OW, AOW, Nitrox and Rescue. If you have a few hours to waste check out this thread.

Not getting sucked too deep into an old thread, but I can see why it went long. I HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT THIS AND MUST SHARE IT! (s/c) Probably just as well it was 6 years ago. lol

On the main topic, I agree with the subjective reality of dive buddy contingencies. We have a default we're trained to do, and anything else is situational. And there will always be situations.