A total noob question that I should know the answer too but...

[ADeadlierSnake]

Right, well like i said, the example was very cheesy. I think youre taking it a bit too literally. It doesnt have to be because they saw a shark, although i completely agree with the part about not diving with a person like that to 100 ft anyways. It is only an example after all. True that there are varying degrees of DCS. I have never been bent before, nor do i plan to be. So i have no way of knowing what level of being bent is "acceptable" if it means getting to my buddy slightly faster. Who says it has to be a full 3 minutes though? What about just staying for 1 minute?

 

[Quero]

What about just staying for 1 minute?

No. You've witnessed an emergency ascent. You are doing no-decompression diving, which by definition allows a direct ascent to the surface (no stops). Your obligation as a buddy is then to go to your buddy and rescue him.

 

[ADeadlierSnake]

Hmm.... I guess a dive of that profile just seems pretty deep to me for not stopping. Like I said, I've never tried it/had to do it though

 

[Quero]

Hmm.... I guess a dive of that profile just seems pretty deep to me for not stopping. Like I said, I've never tried it/had to do it though

Do you have your tables handy? You will see that under normal circumstances the table (at least the PADI table) shows all dives to 100 feet in grey, indicating "safety stop required." However, it also shows grey regardless of the run time of the dive--meaning that if your buddy rocketed to the surface after just 3 minutes, resulting in a nitrogen loading of pressure group A (not enough to pose a serious risk of a bend--certainly nowhere near saturation), it would still tell you that a safety stop was required. Additionally, the same table allows for a dive to 100 feet for a maximum of 20 minutes, putting the diver into pressure group O and yet requiring the same 3-minute safety stop.

Anyway, the key thing to remember is that you are doing "no-stop diving" in which the purpose of the safety stop is to slow your total ascent time. If you know that your buddy is in trouble, you skip the safety stop during a no-decompression dive.

 

[highdesert]

Recreational divers are not trained to do planned deco stops. Unplanned deco stops should ocurr so rarely in recreational diving that the idea of blowing them off over a lost buddy is moot. You may, in fact, have to seperate from your buddy intentionally over an unplanned deco stop if he/she is low on air. In the case of tech diving, it is generally not a matter of decompression sickness risk. Rather it is a certainty that if you blow off a decompression stop, you will get DCS. Tech divers accept more risk.They mitigate this risk by being more skilled and more trained, but it is still there.

Thank you ... a point I understand, which is why I posed the question.

 

[ianr33]

Keep in mind that there are degrees of decompression sickness and if you unexplained dcs is usually the mildest.

Do you have any evidence to back up the second part of that statement ?

Guess you haven't been around long enough to remember Kimber?
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/diving-medicine/185861-my-accident-why-happened.html

I'm sure there are others.

 

[windapp]

Do you have any evidence to back up the second part of that statement ?

Guess you haven't been around long enough to remember Kimber?
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/diving-medicine/185861-my-accident-why-happened.html

I'm sure there are others.

The case you cited was fully explained by the PFO. Interesting that you would choose a thread that contains "why it happened" in the title in order to cite unexplained DCS.

 

[ianr33]

Explaining DCS after the fact isn't very helpful though. Is it?

 

[windapp]

Explaining DCS after the fact isn't very helpful though. Is it?

Neither is explaining your buddy's death to his family after you insisted on taking a 3 minute safety stop instead of surfacing to see if he was OK.