A sticky wicket...

[PerroneFord]

I'd like to present a scenario and get your thoughts on it.

Environment: Overhead. Good flow, sand bottom, consider unsiltable. Penetration distance less than 75 linear ft.
Team: Group of 3 (not team of 3)
Diver 1. Experienced, but not overhead trained
Diver 2. Overhead trained.
Diver 3. Relatively comfortable, not overhead trained.
Depth: ~40ft
Dive time: ~40 minutes

Scenario:

Group of three divers enter an overhead environment. Other divers are already in the overhead but are not with your group of 3. At approximately 40 minutes into the dive, diver 3 begins to exit the overhead as other teams are also leaving the environment. Diver 3 does not signal the group. Diver 2 recognizes that Diver 3 is leaving and attempts to signal Diver 1. Diver 1 is not prepared yet to leave. Diver 2 attempts to halt Diver 3, but Diver 3 is already swimming out and is in a group so can't be signaled.


Question:

As diver 2, what would you do now? Attempt to swim after Diver 3 and abandon Diver 1? Stay with Diver 1 in the overhead and hope that Diver 3 makes the exit and ascent safely? Something else?

And lets not get bogged down in what SHOULD have happened prior to this moment. I'd like to reserve comments to just what we know from this description.

Thanks

 

[JeffG]

Why is this in the DIR forum?

 

[MSilvia]

I don't see what the answer has to do with DIR. If DIR procedures were being adhered to, the situation would not occur in the first place.

 

[JeffG]

I don't see what the answer has to do with DIR. If DIR procedures were being adhered to, the situation would not occur in the first place.

Yea...What he said.

 

[PerroneFord]

The question is being posed because I am interested in how a DIR trained diver would handle the scenario. We, as DIR divers, are put into scenarios where we dive with non-dir divers. Whether it be on a shallow reef, or on a wreck penetration, or even just at someplace like Blue Grotto, where even going down to the rope at 50ft puts you in a cavern scenario.

Yes, I know that DIR pre-dive protocol and even before that, would have prevented this in the first place. I'm trying to get past that.

 

[jeckyll]

To me, thumbing the dive is thumbing the dive.

I wouldn't get into the water with anyone that didn't get that.

I think you can start going round and round in circles in the meantime about who to stay with, in the end, if you see diver three swim off and decide that he's uncomfortable and it's time to go, you go. Every one of you. If you turn to diver 1 and thumb the dive and he doesn't follow, diver 1 has broken one of the most important rules in diving IMO, that being that the thumb isn't a question. It doesn't need an OK, it is not a discussion, it's a command no matter whom in the 'buddy group' it comes from ...

So IMO, if diver 2 turns to diver 1 and thumbs the dive, the dive is over. If I was diver 2 and thumbed the dive and diver 1 knew that I thumbed it and didn't follow, I would go with diver 3.

 

[do it easy]

didn't notice the forum....

 

[PerroneFord]

No one thumbed the dive.

To me, thumbing the dive is thumbing the dive.

I wouldn't get into the water with anyone that didn't get that.

I think you can start going round and round in circles in the meantime about who to stay with, in the end, if you see diver three swim off and decide that he's uncomfortable and it's time to go, you go. Every one of you. If you turn to diver 1 and thumb the dive and he doesn't follow, diver 1 has broken one of the most important rules in diving IMO, that being that the thumb isn't a question. It doesn't need an OK, it is not a discussion, it's a command no matter whom in the 'buddy group' it comes from ...

So IMO, if diver 2 turns to diver 1 and thumbs the dive, the dive is over. If I was diver 2 and thumbed the dive and diver 1 knew that I thumbed it and didn't follow, I would go with diver 3.

 

[JeffG]

No one thumbed the dive.

diver 3 begins to exit the overhead

Kinda like a silent thumb, wouldn't you say?

 

[PerroneFord]

Kinda like a silent thumb, wouldn't you say?

Perhaps so.