A divers arrogance and ignorance

[gkwaldee]

I, myself, would like to think that a party member couldnt get that far away before i noticed anyway. But the water is VERY clear there, clearer than Guam for sure.

The idea of taking a single 80 to what, 8 ata's?.........thats nuts in my book. A bounce dive? Ok, but breathing rate, run time at incident, O2 tox, and N2 are just too many variables to "think" through in the heat of the moment. I would venture a guess that the DM had quite a few shivers thinking about what he did after the fact...........I would have.

At Blue Hole here on Guam, we have divers go deeper than 200 on single 80's..........once, there were a couple of "tourists" decide to follow a pair of divers in tech rigs and double 80's below 200. Blue Hole is deceptive, on low tide its around 125 at the roof of the window............on high tide it can get to 180 or so, depending on where you are in the window..............drops down to somewhere around 300 at the ledge and then to the bottom of the trench after that. Ive dove the hole while watching Japanese DM's take their tourists to the very bottom of RDT's. Ive watched people rigged with single 80's go to places at Crevice that I know are below 170 (twin fans is one spot)..........

I opt for the Darwin theory..............if they wanna be stupid (and I think thats stupid) then, F$%k em........I wanna watch my grand kids grow up, if i ever get any


One last thought........the pic of Andre...........where were the.................tiny bubbles? hehe

 

[Mako Mark]

The divemaster put himself in a situation in which he also could have become a victim and complicated the accident scenario.

A divemaster has no specific training to do this kind of dive, no training exists to effect rescues at 250' on a single air tank. I think he would have been perfectly justified in turning back, and think he was extreemly lucky that they BOTH didnt die in this situation.

There is a post in the cave diving board that refers to a cave diving accident where an open water diver suffered two broken arms and a broken leg while cave diving. He recieved them while having the snot kicked out of him by the cavedivers that rescued him and saved his life.

I think this would deserve a similar reaction.

 

[Mike Newman]

First rule of rescue (which this situation amounted to) 'don't put yourself in danger' That only makes the likelihood of sustaining two casualties the greater.

It seems fortunate that the operation here was switched on (had a second DM who got support on line) and that Andre was sufficiently confident of his own control to make it a safe proposition to pursue the guilty party. I'd have let them go before I risked my own safety at that depth.

 

[Cave Diver]

There are some situations where you have to let idiots kill themselves.

"What would you have done?"

I would have notified his next of kin.

Priceless!

 

[mjh]

There was a story a couple of years ago about a similar situation with a dive operator related to the Ritz Carleton. There was a good briefing by a single DM, everyone was paired up and diver (male) got in and instantly dropped to over 150 feet. The DM went after him, the guy panicked and rocketed to the surface. Of course an embolism formed in his brain and he ended up paralyzed. He sued and the Ritz ended up settling for some amount well into the millions. Now if I recall there might not have been oxygen on the boat. But threat of lawsuits has to be on every DM’s mind.

Personally I would have tied my surface sausage to a weight, tried to drop it on they guy and signal for him to come up. No one but the wife (IMHO) is worth going after in that scenario. But a DM must feel much more pressure to rescue morons.

 

[illumiGeek]

I find it interesting that people here are so fast to criticize Andre without knowing him. Without knowing his physical condition and abilities or his experience I find some of the comments here pretty harsh.

Back in the way-back-days (a few decades ago when SCUBA was still pretty young) I was involved with a small group of divers who wanted to explore beyond what many would consider the safe boundaries of diving. We made many dives in the 100'-150' range, and several beyond that (even a few a little below 200'). We were all very safety minded and planned things out carefully. On the deeper dives we stayed in very close proximity, typically with a buddy line, often we even held hands. Anyone in the group could abort at any time (everyone always stayed together both directions) and no one ever had to explain it. Although the very nature of this group was to openly discuss our experiences to both teach and learn from each other.

We learned a great deal about ourselves and each other during this experience. There were 6 in this group, and after a while 2 of the group decided to opt out of dives below 150'. They were not criticised for this, in fact they were praised for knowing their limitations and choosing safety over bravado. Only 3 of us ventured below the 200' mark, and because of careful planning and a great deal of experience and trust within the group we never had any problems (unless you count the propeller falling off the boat that one time) and we formed a kind of friendship that is difficult to describe.

In the end, time, life, love and work cast this group to the winds and we lost touch with each other. I look back on those days with fond memories, and I don't consider anyone in that group "stupid" (although from the comments here I guess there are some that would disagree).

One of the big things we learned is that people are different. Some people can't hold their liquor, and some are sensitive to allergies, and some deal with stress better than others. We each act and react in our own ways. Diving is no different. Some in our group were quite susceptable to narcosis, while others shrugged it off. Some burned through their air supply at depth quite rapidly, while others seemed to have hidden gills. The most important thing we learned from all of this is what we could, and couldn't do. This is the very nature of diving. The real learning begins after you leave the classroom.

Had I been involved in a similar incident I might not have had too many reservations about a short hop down to try and help the idiot. Although I have never been that deep before, I know enough of my abilities to be reasonably certain that I could (or could have, back then) made a short hop to that depth to help a fellow diver (even a stupid one) with an acceptable risk. That being said, though, if I had asked him twice to abort and he had refused, I wouldn't have asked a 3rd time.

I also understand there are people here that are reasonably certain they could not go that deep without terrible risk and would choose to not go, and I would commend them as well for not sacrificing their lives needlessly.

The point of this rather long winded dissertation is that it is very easy to model the world after ourselves and criticize those that do not behave in what we would consider an acceptable manner, but that does not mean this behavior is wrong. Now I don't know Andre either, but I would like to think that he was aware of the risks, and his abilities. He took the time to notify the other DM and see to the safety of the rest of the group. This does not seem to me to be a sudden or rash decision. And knowing that he had a good safety/support team topside he took a chance to help a fellow diver. The end result is that a life that almost certainly would have been lost was spared, and that is no small thing. The man is a hero in my book.

That's my nickels worth (two cents, with inflation)

 

[UWSojourner]

Wow Mars2u!

I can only hope that, if I should ever fall into that moron category, an Andre-type is around. May I never put such a choice in front of anyone!

Great story.

I thought I'd convey a story that the DM told me when I was diving the Big Blue Explorer in Palau.
The DM (Andre) and I were comparing and showing each other our Vytec dive computers and describing how each of us prefer to set our computers. One screen actually shows the deepest depth reached for all the dives...when I looked at his, my mouth dropped...

Andre (the DM) was taking a group out diving and was in the back of the pack. As with each dive, they discussed the profile and max. depth. Andre was keeping an eye on everyone and noticed one of the divers missing. He looked around and signaled the lead DM that one diver was missing. Looking down he saw the diver DEEP beneath them. He knew this wasn't good. He went after the diver and approached him and signaled to ascend. The diver (who I'll refer to as moron) shook his head no. Andre pointed at his computer and was obviously getting upset at the moron since he knew this was a very dangerous situation...

You see, they were at 251 ft. That's what the depth on the Vytec displayed.

After a third attempt, the moron finally agreed and they began to ascend. Of course now, they're in DECO. Andre said his Vytec was beeping like crazy and luckily the lead DM had already aborted the dive and dropped tanks for the guys to use since the DECO was going to use up their existing air.

Once the dive was completed, Andre calmly asked the moron what he was thinking... "I just wanted to see what was down there." and acted like it was no big deal. He also claimed that the guy didn't show signs of "happy fins" at depth. The guy was just arrogant and stupid. The boat manager did have a "discussion" with the moron and he didn't attempt his tactics again.

I asked Andre would he do it again? Andre said, yes...but only if the visibility was clear enough to see someone at depth like it was that day. He did say he regretted it later for going after this moron. Seems that the guy got busted for drug trafficing 2 months later and was sentenced to 10 yrs. in the Phillipines.

So there it was 251 ft. displayed on his Vytec. We just kind of stared at it for a moment in silence...reflecting.

"You know..." Andre said "I kind of wish the Vytec wouldn't remind me of that"

We both half-heartedly chuckled.

 

[armyscuba]

I brief a Dive,,Brief a Site..Brief the Depth..if a diver exceeds it, knowingly..they're on their own. The Army hasn't killed Me in 23 Years..I'll be damned I'm going after some Dumb @## at over 200 feet ...Sorry. and Iv'e been there. I still find it hard to believe he got that deep. Without previous dives to this depth. Is that My regulator or a straw? :spike:

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I wouldn't have gone to 250 unless I was carrying enough gas to go to 250. PERIOD.

The deepest I ever chased someone to was about 200 feet off the wall at Grand Cayman. They gave me the same lame excuse..just wanted to see what is was like.

 

[RiverRat]

The deepest I ever chased someone to was about 200 feet off the wall at Grand Cayman. They gave me the same lame excuse..just wanted to see what is was like.

I've only been in the sport about a year and I've already seen and heard some really crazy things going on. Actually some of this stuff is hard to believe. We're not playing golf or bowling here. How the hell do these whackos get certified? I thought the story I heard about 2 divers throwing their computers overboard on a line to "decompress" was crazy, but diving to 200 fsw just to see what it's like? Scary stuff............