a few near misses & lessons learned from a recreational scuba diver

[Saldiac]

These are just 'minor' incidents that I encountered during the recreational scuba diving I've done so far.

The first one happened the day after I finished my wreck dive course and was buddied up with someone on the boat. At that time I had done about 16/17 dives.
We were diving either the Duane or the Spiegel Grove wreck and even though we were warned about the currents and told to stay on or close to the wreck my buddy suddenly decided to swim up, away from the wreck. I immediately felt he made an incorrect decision but didn't act for a few seconds until I saw a sea turtle and a barracuda to my right. I pulled on his fin and he turned back, shot a few pics of the turtle and barracuda, then we went back to the wreck.
Thinking back still makes me cringe since this could've gone horribly wrong, especially at the depth of those wrecks.
Lesson learned: talk more in depth to new buddy to discuss the dive and dive the plan.

The second incident happened last summer when I was diving a fairly familiar site at the island here. I lost my weight belt at around 16-20 meters depth but didn't realize it right away. I tried to regain buoyancy by letting air out of my BCD but was still ascending. Then I decided to swim back down since I knew surfacing wouldn't be a good thing. Once I got back down the dive master had recovered my weight belt and helped me put it back on.
From what I remember I felt the weight belt wasn't tight enough so I opened it and closed it twice or so during the dive. Quite possibly I didn't close it properly the last time I wanted to tighten it.
Lesson learned: don't fiddle too much with weight belt underwater.

The third incident happened 2 or 3 months ago when I ended up being separated from the group. My dive buddy was lagging behind the group so I waited for him to catch up with me. The group was ahead of me and he was behind me in a rocky area. Just as I saw the group ahead turn a corner I looked back and didn't see my buddy anymore. As I turned my head to look ahead the group had disappeared.
Of course my heartbeat went up and my breathing became heavier but I calmed myself down, checked my air (still had 100 plus bar left), and started to think about the best action to take. I could either try to chase the group through the rocks with many left and right turns (potentially worsening the situation) or I could swim along the left side of the rocks which would lead me back to the vicinity of the anchor line. I chose the 2nd option and after a while I noticed bubbles in front of me. I had actually found the second group of divers from our boat and once I reached them I looked to my right and saw my own group appear from the rocky landscape. My dive buddy was with them.
Lesson learned: make sure buddy keeps up with group pace before chance of separation can occur.

I'm sure there's many more lessons to be learned through these incidents but I've only done 56 dives so far. As such, I still consider myself a novice diver with a lot to learn.

 

[yodelhawk]

Good info! And thanks for sharing. It's this kind of stuff that us newbies need to tell each other so we do not repeate each others mistakes. Thanks again!

 

[Mike]

Lesson learned: make sure buddy keeps up with group pace before chance of separation can occur.

You can try to make your buddy keep up, however if your buddy isn't keeping up you should consider abandoning the group before you abandon your dive buddy.

 

[Saldiac]

Good point Mike.
After the dive he explained that he was just slamming some rocks together to attract some fish. If I had stayed behind him I would've seen the group getting away from us and could have gotten his attention to rejoin the group. If we lost sight of the group in that case we would still have each other.

 

[TSandM]

Saldiac, I understand your issues with the third situation. I remember, when I was quite novice, doing a drift dive off Maui. The guide was moving right along, and my husband kept wanting to stop and take photographs, and the group was getting nearly out of sight. I was quite anxious, worried that if we lost the group, we'd get lost and not be able to find the boat. I kept motioning my husband to come along, and he got more and more irritated; eventually, I gave up and accompanied the guide.

I was wrong. As a buddy pair, we had resources to help one another. Leaving my husband on his own was the wrong decision, but came out of my feeling that we weren't safe without the guide. THAT was the big problem, not the decision I made. In retrospect, we should have asked (and didn't) what we should do or what the boat would do if we got separated from the group. If we'd had a procedure in place and understood that it wasn't going to be a big deal, I would have been saved a great deal of anxiety. So many things that go wrong with a dive can be avoided by a bit of communication or planning before one ever gets in the water!

 

[davetowz]

When things happen underwater, remember to Stop, Think, breathe, relax and then act. The only true emergency underwater is running out of something to breathe. Freaking out seldom leads to good decisions. Sounds to me like you are on the correct path.

 

[Saldiac]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Indeed I felt I shouldn't leave my buddy behind even if it meant that we could be separated from the group. But since recreational divers are so used to just follow the dive guide/master blindly this turned out to be a good learning experience for me. It made me want to take the rescue diver course even more than I already did.
Even if I'm still a relatively novice diver I want to have the skill set that will allow me to act properly in these situations and this also gives me more confidence and comfortability to help myself and others should I encounter a problem underwater.

Definitely discussing with the guide and your buddy in terms of what should be done if you deviate from the dive plan is a good point. It is quite easy to get caught up in taking pictures or trying to attract more fish without realizing that the group is marching on.

In this incident, it was fortunate that the separation happened at a dive site where I've dived several times so after I calmed myself down I knew what direction I should head to. Had it been an unfamiliar dive site I might have tried to retrace the dive back to anchor line. Or in the worst case I might have made a controlled ascent to the surface.

 

[mselenaous]

Thanks for sharing your learning experiences Saldiac. Reading about how these events happen help all of us be more alert and think in "accident prevention" mode.

 

[Saldiac]

I managed to find my own topic so I'll update it with some info about a dive I did last Saturday
In the meantime I've upped my dive total to 84 and am a certified rescue diver.
During this dive I had to handle a real low-on-air situation which is the first I've had to handle so far.

Went to a new dive area and got hooked up with an inexperienced buddy who hadn't dived in a year and was also taking a camera to shoot pics. This was no problem, it actually made me aware I might have to help him at any point during the dive. After the briefing of the wreck (at 34m max.) and explicit instruction to turn back towards the line when hitting 100 bar (half a tank) I talked to my buddy and reviewed the basic signals (really glad I did since he was a bit rusty). So far so good.
Once we're in the water he's the last to descend while I slowly descend and keep looking back asking if he's okay (he confirms every time). All goes well and eventually he gets to the wreck and we're good to go.
I immediately felt narked, hard to describe it but I just felt a bit off. Despite this I was glad that I noticed it and paid extra attention to my buddy, other divers and surroundings. The visibility was great (30m) and lots of fish life around the wreck so while he's shooting pics I'm just hovering around him and enjoying the sights. After a while we decide to swim towards the bow and after maybe 15m I ask him how much air he has left. He signals 130 bar and I still had 140 bar. We swim a bit further, then run into the dive guide who tells us to turn around which we do. This is where it gets interesting!

My buddy suddenly is about 3-4 meters above me so I signal to let out air which he tries to do while being horizontal so I tell him to go vertical and let out air. After two cycles of this he manages to get down to my level and we meet up at the stern of the wreck. I ask him how much air he has left and he signals 50 bar. Considering he had 130 maybe 5-6 minutes ago I look at his SPG but only look at his depth gauge (narked!). While I was a bit confused I took control and led him back to the anchor line and ask him again how much air he has left. He signals 50 again but I grabbed his SPG and this time look at the proper gauge and see he's got maybe 40 bar left. Since we're at 26m I immediately offer him my alternate but he refuses to take it. After maybe 20-30 seconds of me repeatedly pushing my alternate in his face he finally nods, takes out his regulator and puts in my alternate. I pressed the purge button for him since I wasn't sure if he'd remember to do so. At this point I check my own air supply and see that I still have 100 bar (half a tank) so I knew we were in pretty good shape.
Our safety stop went fine and once we got to the surface I inflated his BCD, again since I wasn't sure he'd remember to do it. We briefly talked about him burning through his air. I told him taking pics increases air consumption and he correctly said he was vertical too often. (I did signal him to go horizontal several times on the dive.) We also talked about the air sharing and he said his first thought was that he still had air but I explained how we were on a deep/wreck dive with a slow ascent while he also needs air upon getting to the surface.
Once I got back on the boat I checked my air and saw I still had 60 bar left. So we burned through 40 bar on our ascent during sharing air.

Lessons learned:
1) maybe I could have intervened earlier while he was trying to get back down to my level but he reacted appropriately to all of my signals/cues and didn't show signs of panic
2) not an excuse but on a recent trip to Malaysia the air pressure gauges only had 2 digits (i.e., 20 = 200 bar, 15 = 150 bar, etc.) so some interference might've confused me (depth gauge also has 2 digits)
3) I continued the dive while I knew I was a bit narked, because I felt like I would be able to act if anything would happen, but maybe I was slightly overconfident due to the narcosis
4) possibly my mental rotation skills were affected due to the narcosis since I read my own SPG correctly for air supply while misreading his once or twice

Overall I felt comfortable and think I did a decent job managing the situation. Furthermore, the dive itself was great despite being only 28 minutes long.
I did a 2nd dive in the afternoon at a shallow location and more than made up by spending 49 minutes at 7-8m depth with great visibility (25-30m). My buddy (different one than the one from the morning dive) and me were in the water longer than the instructor and the 2 DSD students so the boat recalled us by driving away for 5m (interesting recall method ). I surfaced with 100 bar left but was starting to feel a bit bored anyway so all good.

 

[TSandM]

Handled almost perfectly! But you learned something, I think, which is that narcosis can make you stupid, and stupid isn't good in situations where you need to be able to handle data effectively. I can say that from personal experience, because I have learned that I am too stupid to cave dive at 100 feet on Nitrox or air -- I can't process information properly.