Fatality in the Vandenberg Wreck, Key West Florida

[Slate]

I will make an educated guess that the dive gear will be found to be in perfect working order, and between 0 and 1000 psi in the tank.

 

[Kimela]

@yle - I'm thinking along the same lines. What are you supposed to do if your buddy says "nope, I'm not ending the dive"? Seriously, this is not a contingency I would be ready for, as my buddy (my husband) and I would always defer to one another. If you're with an insta-buddy, for instance, and this happens, what do you do? I guess you could signal the dive master (if there's one in the water with you)? What a terrible outcome - the buddy and crew will be second guessing themselves for the rest of their lives. So sad.

 

[Slate]

I believe it's only a matter of time before the buddy and the Dive Op and crew and possibly everyone that was within a 50 mile radius at the time will be the defendants in a lawsuit.

 

[Marie13]

@yle - I'm thinking along the same lines. What are you supposed to do if your buddy says "nope, I'm not ending the dive"? Seriously, this is not a contingency I would be ready for, as my buddy (my husband) and I would always defer to one another. If you're with an insta-buddy, for instance, and this happens, what do you do? I guess you could signal the dive master (if there's one in the water with you)? What a terrible outcome - the buddy and crew will be second guessing themselves for the rest of their lives. So sad.

I actually had this situation. I was diving with two other people. Quarry dives two year ago. Regular buddy of mine and a third who had invited himself on the outing. Toward the end of the dive I was cold and tired and just done. I signaled up. The third diver shook their head. I signalled “up up!” with both thumbs. Third diver still said no. I said screw it and buddy and I ascended. Third diver is solo certified so I didn’t feel bad leaving.

Now dealing with a narced buddy? I’ve had that, too. It was on my deepest dive to date last fall - 117ft. I’d warned buddy (who I had only dove with once before, but I knew somewhat decently) to stick close. We had ascended from 117ft to about 110. I had a dark narc thing going - gloom, doom, fear. Maybe some CO2 retention, too. Knew I had to ascend. Buddy was maybe 20ft away, chilled out, and not paying attention when I signaled with my light, or even when I screamed his name. I finally swam over to him and got his fin in a death grip. He stopped for a minute, then pulled away, and kept going. I grabbed his hand, got right in his face, and signaled up with both thumbs. He finally got the message and up we went. I would have left his butt down there if I hadn’t been able to get his attention. He was narced himself, but swears he wasn’t. I’ll not dive with him again.

 

[drrich2]

What are you supposed to do if your buddy says "nope, I'm not ending the dive"?

Assuming you and the buddy are certified diving adults and you are not in a student/teacher relationship, I imagine the thing to do is respect the autonomy and responsibility for himself of a fellow adult and head up without him.

Richard.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

Assuming you and the buddy are certified diving adults and you are not in a student/teacher relationship, I imagine the thing to do is respect the autonomy and responsibility for himself of a fellow adult and head up without him.

Richard.

Agreed. People can Armchair Quarterback the buddy’s decision all they want. At some point, you’re going to have to make the call to ascend.

This incident does bring up an important issue. Hypothetical relatively new divers, maybe have their AOW card, making a dive on the Vandenberg. Most of the dive is at around 110 ft depth, so bottom time will likely run out before air supply... but both will go pretty quickly. As part of the one deep dive that AOW students make, they are cautioned about the effects of narcosis and how to recognize that a narked buddy might need help.

So now... NDL is just about up, it's time to go, you still have plenty of air, and your buddy is showing signs of narcosis. What do you do? Take care of yourself and avoid going into deco? Or attempt to help your buddy, knowing that you'll need some emergency deco and hope that your air supply is enough?

Oh... and you have to make the decision immediately.

It might be a real benefit to AOW students to discuss these kind of scenarios in the classroom setting. There's no right or wrong answer, but if newer divers are encouraged to really think about these things before getting in the water, we could see fewer negative outcomes from situations like this.

The deceased was found inside of the wreck. Are you proposing that someone with only an AOW cert and no wreck penetration experience follow someone inside of a wreck in a situation like this?

To your last point, we discussed that during my AOW course. It’s one of the reasons I carry a pony bottle.

 

[Arcilux]

@yle - I'm thinking along the same lines. What are you supposed to do if your buddy says "nope, I'm not ending the dive"? Seriously, this is not a contingency I would be ready for, as my buddy (my husband) and I would always defer to one another. If you're with an insta-buddy, for instance, and this happens, what do you do? I guess you could signal the dive master (if there's one in the water with you)? What a terrible outcome - the buddy and crew will be second guessing themselves for the rest of their lives. So sad.

Assuming you and the buddy are certified diving adults and you are not in a student/teacher relationship, I imagine the thing to do is respect the autonomy and responsibility for himself of a fellow adult and head up without him.

Richard.

I asked my instructor a similar question (what do I do if I need to ascend and my buddy refuses to come with me) during my Open Water cert, his advice was to dive with a buddy I knew well or to hire a professional guide (he may have been biased since he was able to be hired as a guide). In the event where I found myself in this situation, his advice was to make sure I communicated with my buddy, but then focused on myself. Endangering myself wouldn't benefit anybody, and if help ended up being needed, getting to the boat and getting a certified rescue or dive master in the water would likely be more beneficial than trying to manage the situation myself.

The fact that I was a newly certified OW diver may have influenced his advice, but it still seems sound to me. Don't knowingly endanger your buddy, but if you need to surface and your buddy doesn't join you, focus on yourself first.

 

[azstinger11]

I’ll make every effort to get my buddy back to the surface in safe and healthy condition right up to the point they endanger my life/safety. Maybe that makes me a $hitty dive buddy but I’m not drowning/getting bent for any random person I meet on my dive boat (As I frequently dive with my wife, I’ll risk a lot more to help her out).

 

[scubafanatic]

Sad situation. Condolences to his family & friends.

What happened with buddy system, especially at 110’ depth.

I wonder if Thompson went OOA inside the wreck & passed out when he tried to get out. Did his gear got entangled inside the wreck & the site became completely silt out as he panicked and trashing around to untangle himself to where the only way to escape is by removing his gears?

This ship was highly sanitized/prepped to be entanglement safe before being sunk as an artificial reef for recreational level diver tourism.

 

[scubafanatic]

I don't get the "narc" theory. Based on the report it I inferred it was a bit into the dive (unless the buddy had to come right back up.) So going further into the wreck on the tail end of a dive ain't necessarily a good recipe ... even a cleared out wreck. I suppose we'll find out more when the gear is found and evaluated.

Totally ignoring dive buddy 'go up' signal and making things even worse by doing the total opposite by going deeper into the wreck, his euphoria intensifying with depth, being found only 25 ft from an exit having ditched all his gear, to me this indicates total narcosis, running out of air by ignoring (due to intense euphoria) gas supply until suddenly empty, then stripping off gear while in a panic drowning. Here's a youtube video of this instinctive peel off gear while panicking / almost drowning :