A question to an incident

[jjhill]

[sorry I can't resist, this is not the first one of these I've read lately]

Do divers not know how to orally inflate a BC anymore???? What is going on with divers panicking or dieing because of one little button not working!?

I think if you ask any diver if they know how to orally inflate a BCD the immediate answer would be a resounding yes. However people who are inexperienced or unprepared for an incident are rarely capable of clear logical thinking.

A new diver descending to depth attempts to inflate the BCD, notices nothing happens, confused they try again, still nothing. Now they are descending faster then they want and are unable to stop the descent. They start panicking, kicking as hard as they can for the perceived safety zone the surface. What would be a minor annoyance to a prepared experienced diver turns into a very serious incident.

There are too many divers who breeze through courses, who do the required skill in the pool or in a controlled supervised OW dive who take the risks of diving for granted and never think about or practice what am I going to do if ____ happens.

In addition there are far too many divers who can't be bothered to do a proper buddy or even personal gear check to make sure your hose is connected and BCD working before jumping in the water.

While it is great that a lot of people are taking up diving to see the underwater world, there are many people who do not take it seriously enough and who despite holding a valid C-card probably should not dive.

 

[I Dive]

she tuck on some water but was OK.

I take this to mean she swallowed quite a bit of water, and if so, she should have been sent to a doc to get looked at. I wouldn't necessarily consider this near drowning, but it sounds close enough to me that a doc should have evaluated her. Let's hope she is alright.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

It sounds (from the original description by the OP) that this incident took place at the surface right at the beginning of the dive, where so many incidents and near-incidents occur.

This thread is actually a good illustration of how little things can easily spiral out of control and cause an injury or fatality.

Forgive the "hijack", but there are some good lessons in this thread:

(1) I think it is a great example of the importance of absolute familiarity with gear setup and attention to detail that needs to be hammered in to new divers from the very beginning of training, and something they can never assume "the boat crew" took care of. On some boats the crew sets up tanks and gear, and a new diver may not think to double check whether it was done 100% properly. Or maybe they feel timid about double-checking the work of someone they consider to be more experienced.

(2) The other thing that can happen is a new diver may be too embarrassed to inform the crew how new they actually are.... it will become apparent when they hit the water, but maybe not as they are gearing-up when everyone is busy getting ready themselves...

Anyway, thanks to the OP for posting this incident. Good topic.

Safe Diving!

 

[oly5050user]

[sorry I can't resist, this is not the first one of these I've read lately]

Do divers not know how to orally inflate a BC anymore???? What is going on with divers panicking or dieing because of one little button not working!?

this person who had the incident should NOT be diving -good example on why certification cards should really be earned-not just paid for...Most likely had too much weight on to begin with if she freaked on surface because of an inflator not being connnected.If weighed properly she would find it to be very easy to stay on surface and would not have even noticed that the inflator is not hooked up untill she descended a little bit and went to put a puff of air into bcd.At that point just reconnect it,its is so inconsequental that I would not even call it an incident.
Hell ,just to break ba*** I have had people jump off my boat with no mask or fins-do a dive ,and then when you asked them about missing gear they say"what missing gear".All the time trying not to laugh too much.
We were not there to even second guess why the captain returned at that time.Perhaps weather conditions went sour.Maybe the woman was with a group that sucked so bad that they all should not be diving.Discretion is the better part of valor.I applaud the captain for making the tough choice and returning to dock.

 

[divestoclimb]

The class I help with is at a college with one 1 1/2 hour pool session per week for about a month and a half. The students usually don't get to hook up the power inflator until the second to last week or so. I always thought this was overly draconian and even old-fashioned but now I'm thinking it's not such a bad idea compared to trying it once. This is a perfect example of how, in a stressful situation, poorly learned survival skills are the first thing to go. I can't imagine this happening to the students I've worked with and perhaps that's why I find this stuff so shocking.

I also suspect that if the diver involved panicked while on the surface that her kicking ability may be sub-par. A well-prepared diver should be able to keep herself on the surface long enough to diagnose the problem and correct it, even if overweighted a bit.

 

[tstormdiver]

Along with divers being able to orally inflate their BC's, Isn't another option to simply dump the weight system to become positively buoyant? I realize that when a diver panics, they can not & do not think rationally. That's where training & repetition comes into play. It truly sounds like this diver could have used a little more remedial work before given a C- card, but have also seen the pressure sometimes put on the instructor to "push" someone through, by family who have a diving vacation planned or such. Unfortunately as doesn't always happen, a diver should be at least reasonably comfortable in the water, if not completely comfortable. Hopefully this young lady is OK & hasn't been totally turned off from diving.

 

[Hetland]

WTH? I can't believe it took this long for someone to mention this (below). If it was your sister/daughter/mother/whatever, do you think it would be a good idea to have the rest of the boat dive for 30 minutes to an hour while she sat on the boat? She can be "fine" one second, and dead the next. Then either the divers get left behind, or the captain does cpr for 30 minutes and tries to call the Coast Guard. IMHO, the captain did the only reasonable thing, he erred on the side of caution.

Sure it sucks that the dive-day got screwed for everyone else, but that's part of the risk you run when you dive, especially when you dive on a charter full of people with random training and experience. You also can't blame the captain for doing the right thing (or even just covering his @$$). That said, I'd think a 50% refund or credit would be fair to all involved (with the exception of the victim, who, after all, got her @$$ saved for the price of a charter)

And the mate/dm did their jobs as well. I'd hate to part with the cash, but it's not like they sat on their butts the whole time.
Just my $0.02.

This is just a thought.

One possibility the captain may have been concerned about, and I think what nereas was thinking about when he mentioned pneumonia, and what scubajcf mentions as a post rescue concern, is secondary drowning. It can occur in victims who inhale water... they apparently do not have to have experience a near-drowning as I once thought was the case.

Water, regardless of its salt content, can damage the inside surface of the lung, collapse the alveoli and cause pulmonary edema with a reduced ability to exchange air. This may cause death up to 72 hours after a near drowning incident.

I read a very recent case of a boy who was found dead several hours after going to a public swimming pool. He did not have a near-drowning incident at the pool, he was however playing with his friends, inhaled some water, coughed it out, did not feel well and went home. He told he mom he felt tired, went to take a nap, and the mother found him dead several hours later. Autopsy confirmed secondary drowning.

So it is possible the captain was trying to be very cautious, but some of the other things the OP posted seem to contradict this, so who knows.

 

[Ayisha]

Do divers not know how to orally inflate a BC anymore???? What is going on with divers panicking or dieing because of one little button not working!?

Also, if a diver is not overweighted in the first place, a disconnected inflator hose, even with a temporarily lost reg could be a minor annoyance rather than a life-threatening issue.

As others said, some lessons to be thought about are:

Always check your own gear and your buddies and test everything (ex. check for complete and fully connected gear; inflate BC; see if it holds air; watch pressure as you inhale; breathe from your buddy's octopus) before you jump in.

Be completely familiar with all of your gear and what to do if it "fails".

Practice basic skills regularly.

Only dive if you are completely comfortable and experienced enough and qualified to do a particular dive.

Don't rush the pre-dive check, even if the "pool's open". If you need to check once more before jumping in to make sure, take the time.

When the $#!T hits the fan, remember to stay calm and stop and think about how to resolve the issue(s). Fall back on basic skills that should be routine.

 

[nereas]

Along with divers being able to orally inflate their BC's, Isn't another option to simply dump the weight system to become positively buoyant? I realize that when a diver panics, they can not & do not think rationally. That's where training & repetition comes into play. It truly sounds like this diver could have used a little more remedial work before given a C- card, but have also seen the pressure sometimes put on the instructor to "push" someone through, by family who have a diving vacation planned or such. Unfortunately as doesn't always happen, a diver should be at least reasonably comfortable in the water, if not completely comfortable. Hopefully this young lady is OK & hasn't been totally turned off from diving.

Actually, the inability of divers to dump their weight belts seems to be a major cause of deaths in scuba accidents. The failure analysis will normally note that the weight belt was still in position. Very unfortunate.

 

[nereas]

WTH? I can't believe it took this long for someone to mention this (below). If it was your sister/daughter/mother/whatever, do you think it would be a good idea to have the rest of the boat dive for 30 minutes to an hour while she sat on the boat? She can be "fine" one second, and dead the next. Then either the divers get left behind, or the captain does cpr for 30 minutes and tries to call the Coast Guard. IMHO, the captain did the only reasonable thing, he erred on the side of caution.

Sure it sucks that the dive-day got screwed for everyone else, but that's part of the risk you run when you dive, especially when you dive on a charter full of people with random training and experience. You also can't blame the captain for doing the right thing (or even just covering his @$$). That said, I'd think a 50% refund or credit would be fair to all involved (with the exception of the victim, who, after all, got her @$$ saved for the price of a charter)

And the mate/dm did their jobs as well. I'd hate to part with the cash, but it's not like they sat on their butts the whole time.
Just my $0.02.

If it was my girlfriend, then I would definitely want them to zip back to shore.

If it was my wife, then I would want to continue diving.