Blackcrusader
Contributor
Sounds fine in theory Dody. I was on a night dive on a wreck in Brunei and came out of an open hole and got caught up in a fishing net. Not a fishing line but a net from a fishing boat. I had to remove my BCD and use my knife to cut myself free and it took some time and a lot of strength. The other divers stayed close by but I waved them off to not assist. They helped by providing extra lighting. First thing is be self reliant where possible and secondly did not need other divers getting caught in the same net. There is a reason sometimes that trying to help another diver ends up with two in trouble not just one. I did the rescue course not because I want to rescue anyone but because I should know how to help myself before worrying about others. My BSAC courses were in a club over many months of training. I re-did rescue with PADI and I can say this, there was a lot not taught in that course that I did with my BSAC course with my instructor. They are very different training programs.
The only serious incident I have had was with another BSAC Sports leader in Puerto Galera at the fish bowl dive site when the tie came of his mouth piece and he exhaled and the regulator came out and he inhaled water. We were deeper than 30m in a very strong current. His secondary had come off it's clip and when he swept for it could not find it. I was lucky we were really close together and he basically came with the current and just climbed on my back and took my secondary and in the process tipped us inverted and we got swept down into the bowl. There are probably other divers on scubaboard who have dived there who can tell you it can be a tricky dive even for experienced divers. We were accompanied by a PADI instructor who got separated from us at the time of the incident and just watched from above assuming the worst case scenario was about to happen. He did not risk himself which was a good thing really. He said he would have probably panicked knowing if he had gone into deco as he was not trained for that.
My buddy hyperventilated and I had to remove my regulator from his mouth so stop that. Hand to hand buddy breathing as taught in our BSAC courses. He knew what was happening and he held his hand on mine so he could put the reg back in but mostly I had control. It took several minutes for him to stop hyperventilating. We also went into unplanned deco as we also went very deep ( deeper than 40m ) and covered that obligation and ended the dive. He very nearly drowned and I didn't hear it I just heard some spluttering after he had climbed on me. We both did not panic but it was close for my dive buddy who is also a good friend I had known for several years in Taiwan. We were not instabuddies which was a good thing. Good thing BSAC Sports leader courses are to deco dive on air to 50m way back in the good old days lol.
You just never know how assisting a diver in distress is going to turn out as you really cannot plan for it. You should not put yourself at serious risk and end up as one of the bodies being recovered and this should have been covered in your rescue course.
Death is a part of life. I've never had the experience of seeing a drowned diver although a few of my instructor friends have but they were not part of a rescue team. People are very sentimental about life it seems.
In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will.
