Are you going back for your buddy?

[Steelyeyes]

Part of rescue diver training for me was searching for a submerged diver. I don't suppose they'd teach that skill if staying on the surface waiting was the best protocol to follow.

I sometimes dive with my son, he's in his mid 30s, ex commercial diver, used to working underwater alone. Buddy diving is a newish thing for him so sometimes, like when we were doing a shallow kelp dive in Sekiu WA, he'd scoot ahead, turn around a large rock and disappear. I'd look for him for a minute or so, surface, look for bubbles, and if I saw them I'd descend and swim on that heading to catch up. If I didn't see bubbles right away I'd give it a minute or so more, he'd realize that I wasn't behind him and he'd pop up and we'd reconnect. In Puget Sound if you're not nearly or actually in touching distance losing your buddy is far easier than say in the Caymans, the Keys, or Belize where the water has more of a transparent quality.

The rest of the time my buddy is my wife. She's got about 200 dives and is a good buddy. Once in a while she gets distracted and lags behind but we figure it out.

So, looking for your buddy is situational. Depends on your relationship, the visibility, if you are heading for a specific target or direction, etc. Back in the 80s I went diving with a few people about one time each that were terrible buddies and I spent a lot of time on those dives chasing them, or their bubbles down. On an ascent after waiting or looking around for a minute or so I'd go up in a widening spiral and since we were in Hawaii most of the time the vis allowed me to see their bubble stream before reaching the surface more times than not. Those buddies got one dive with me.

 

[doctormike]

Part of rescue diver training for me was searching for a submerged diver. I don't suppose they'd teach that skill if staying on the surface waiting was the best protocol to follow.

No, for a buddy team that has not agreed on a solo dive if separation happens, the best protocol is that you both surface after a specific amount of time searching at depth. Implying to a standard recreational buddy team that in case of accidental separation you need to do a missing diver search isn't good advice.

It's pretty unlikely that you will simultaneously lose your buddy and then become entrapped within the next few minutes (the main reason that searching would make sense). On the other hand, it is pretty likely that if you are both looking for each other, one of you may do something ill advised in the attempt to heroically "rescue" the missing diver - like run low on gas, go into unplanned deco, violate MOD, etc...

Both divers should just surface. It's not a big deal, you have the best chance of finding each other, and you won't have one diver panicking on the boat with the other panicking at depth.

 

[2airishuman]

The way this thread has unfolded, I think it is important to realize that there have been fatalities where an overly casual attitude towards buddy diving was among the sine qua non factors in the accident.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Sometimes adherence to the rules of buddy diving have lead to fatalities as well.
Wife of scuba victim: 'They weren't going to leave their buddy'

Diver 'died of heart attack brought on by stress of saving friend from drowning' | Daily Mail Online

Two divers found dead after exploring treacherous underwater cave system

There have been many similar stories, including a few Scubaboard posters who have died while with a buddy.

 

[txgoose]

This is a difficult one for me as I dive with my sons and my wife. As others have said, walking away without exhausting all avenues would be tough. Yes, recognizing that sometimes exhausting all avenues might not be the smartest choice. We all know that it can be complicated when cherished loved ones are involved.

The difficult parts: If I don't look for a minute and surface, they could be on the surface fearing for me. If I do look for a minute and go to the surface and can't find them or bubbles I realistically have to wait there long enough to allow them to also surface. At which point, if they were in trouble, they may likely be gone already.

As a family of pairs, we have reiterated many times to look for a minute and surface. So far we have not lost our pairs. We have planned, but hoping to not test the plan.

 

[Lobzilla]

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. 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.

You said: "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." Where did that statement come from? Statements like this are lame excuse for taking a risk rather than an honest effort at risk management/mitigation.

A rebreather failure plus subsequent full failure of your bailout system is easily survivable in a team of two - just use your buddy's bailout. Choose to dive by yourself and the dual failure will kill you. If you decide to take that risk, then man-up to the fact that you made a decision, instead of pretending that there was no alternative.

Same is true with buddy separation. If you do not want to invest the effort to stay together and reap the benefits, that's fine. But please let's not pretend that there is no alternative or that there is some uncontrollable cosmic force pulling teams apart underwater.

Shortly after OW cert I did a two tank boat dive with an instabuddy off Cape Ann in New England. First dive was event-less other than that I had to chase instabuddy like a dog chases a squirrel to avoid separation.

On the second dive we descend to the bottom at 70 ish feet when instabuddy suddenly freaks out and rips the regulator out of my mouth. No communication, no slashed throat sign, just boom - regulator gone. As surprised as I was, he actually saved me some work because he was going to get that regulator anyway. I switched to the backup regulator hanging under my chin and think "big deal, let's just call it a day and do an orderly retreat".

But the dude is panicked and wants to shoot to the surface, so I have to grab him, hold him down, calm him down, and then work my way up with him. He stayed reasonably calm, the ascent was not too shabby, and back on the the boat we find out that he forgot to switch tanks between dives. My bad for not checking his SPG before each dive.

By me insisting to remain my instabuddy's backup air supply as well as his backup brain he had these resources available when he suddenly needed both desperately. Would he have survived an otherwise certain Poseidon Missile ascent? Who knows. But he was certainly very thankful for having a close buddy on that dive.

The fatality at Dutch I mentioned earlier occurred several years before Kyle Kulp died. The earlier fatality was the result of:

• Failure to assure sufficient gas supply
• Team separation (i.e. failure to assure backup gas and brain)
• Failure to ascend within the physiological limits

Avoiding only one, ANY one, of these mistakes would have greatly increased the boy's chance to attend his prom. Unfortunately, the same people who think that unplanned buddy separation is acceptable also think that proper gas planning is too boring AND also think that controlled ascents are only for deco divers.

Everyone, do whatever you want with your buddy but please stop rationalizing the compromises you let sneak into your actions. Instead look at the choices you have, evaluate the potential consequences of each choice and the probability of these consequences occurring, and then pick whatever you can live with or die for.

To those who want to understand a little more about the danger inherent in Normalization of Deviances (i.e. justifying the continuous breaking of a rule that is there for a reason), I suggest the linked video.

 

[Lobzilla]

Sometimes adherence to the rules of buddy diving have lead to fatalities as well.
Wife of scuba victim: 'They weren't going to leave their buddy'

Diver 'died of heart attack brought on by stress of saving friend from drowning' | Daily Mail Online

Two divers found dead after exploring treacherous underwater cave system

There have been many similar stories, including a few Scubaboard posters who have died while with a buddy.

MaxBottomtime, as I said earlier, I have no problem with people making the conscious choice of diving solo after preparing accordingly. I do it myself on occasion.

The huge problem is that those OW divers who allow buddy separation as a normal occurrence do rarely understand that the buddy system is a core element of the whole OW safety system. By allowing that safety element to be missing they significantly weaken the whole system that is supposed to keep them safe.

Citing deaths with buddy as a reason for not diving with one is as logically flawed as not wearing a seat belt and ripping out your airbag just because some people die even with these safety systems in place.

What does two unqualified divers dying in cave prove? A failure of the buddy system or that you should never, EVER dive in environments that require skills you don't have?

Let me repeat this to all OW divers and any diver without cave training: Never, ever, enter a cave. Not even "just a little bit". Your death is almost guaranteed. The fatalities are found with signs of long, agonizing struggle, their finger tips scraped bare from desperate but futile attempts to claw their way back to air through solid rock. DO NOT DO THIS to yourself, your friends, and your family.

On the other hand, if you take only an intro-level cave training class, all of your diving will improve tremendously even if you decide not to become a full cave diver.

 

[mcpowell]

To those who want to understand a little more about the danger inherent in Normalization of Deviances (i.e. justifying the continuous breaking of a rule that is there for a reason), I suggest the linked video.

This is a fascinating video to me. Made more interesting due to the fact I was in the o-ring industry 30 years ago and we often discussed NASA using Viton o-rings and the fact that the o-rings didn't work well in low temperatures. (This was after the Challenger disaster).

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I was only pointing out that many mistakenly feel that diving with a buddy is always safer. Of course, a competent buddy may be able to help in a bad situation but too many divers rely on having a buddy as a fail safe when they really should learn to be more self sufficient.

 

[doctormike]

You said: "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." Where did that statement come from? Statements like this are lame excuse for taking a risk rather than an honest effort at risk management/mitigation.

It's a pretty commonly taught concept in technical and solo training. For example, you plan a dive to be able to safely do your deco even if you lose your deco gas, by bringing enough back gas. Perhaps the analogy wasn't appropriate for this discussion.

A rebreather failure plus subsequent full failure of your bailout system is easily survivable in a team of two - just use your buddy's bailout. Choose to dive by yourself and the dual failure will kill you. If you decide to take that risk, then man-up to the fact that you made a decision, instead of pretending that there was no alternative.

Gotcha. Will try to man-up more in the future.

Avoiding only one, ANY one, of these mistakes would have greatly increased the boy's chance to attend his prom. Unfortunately, the same people who think that unplanned buddy separation is acceptable also think that proper gas planning is too boring AND also think that controlled ascents are only for deco divers.

Not sure which straw men you are going after here, I have kind of lost track.

The point I was making was that if you lose your buddy, you ascend and find each other on the surface. Losing your buddy shouldn't be this major catastrophe, and it is NOT normalization of deviance to explain that to new divers. If anything, it might make them LESS likely to begin a panic spiral and start an accident chain if it happens. It's not appropriate to treat accidental buddy separation like going OOG. If you don't immediately fix the latter, you will die within minutes. That simply isn't the case for the former, and dramatic posts to the contrary aren't helpful.

If you are diving and an accidental buddy separation will significantly increase your risk of not being able to make a simple safe ascent, then you need to work on your diving under professional supervision until you are capable of doing so. In the dive that you described involving yourself, I would think that it would me more helpful for your buddy to think "OMG I need to always be aware of my gas supply", rather that "OMG I need to always be next to my buddy".