Accident analysis

[paulthenurse]

Thanks for posting this. I agree that the hindsight is 20/20. You did look for Frank and you made an effort not to abandon Lou.~~ Regardless, don't be too hard on yourself- use it as a learning experience.

FWIW, I'm really not beating myself up about this. I posted this for a couple of reasons. Chief amongst them is I hope that someone else can learn from this. I've learned a boatload by reading. It's not the same as time underwater, but at 4 am and the ER is empty except for a couple of drunks sleeping it off, and the intenet is there waiting with the collected wisdom of anyone with a computer, it ain't bad. (Lets just forget that any knucklehead can have a computer and pass himself off as a knowledgeable diver... Hell, I'm a knucklehead with a computer...)

Frank and I have talked about this a bunch since it happened and decided early on to bring this to a public forum. One thing I didn't do until just a half hour ago was bring this to Lenny. (Lou's name is really Lenny. Len say's it's ok if I use his real name, but seemed miffed that I called him a whack job. "I could say the same about you." "I know. That's why we make a good buddy team. Besides, I said you are a "whack job in a good way!)"
Obviously Len and I have talked about what happened but not to the extent that Frank and I did. I guess that because Frank and I had the Scubaboard relationship
it seemed natural to discuss it here. (BTW, Frank is on ANOTHER vacation and isn't currently available to chime in here, but will when he gets back. We agreed that I would write the initial post and he would come back later and correct my grammer, punctuation and any other misconceptions and halftruths I might write.) One thing that Lenny brought up just now (Lenny is upstairs remodeling the bathroom and just read this for the first time.) is that we both messed up by not marking the place where we thought Frank should be. I have a reel and SMB on one side of my BP, and a spool on teh other. "JHC, I never thought to shoot the bag to mark someone ELSE'S position!!!!" I think about shooting a bag to mark MY position. I've never shot a bag that wasn't just me goofing around. JHC!!! Every time I think I'm getting proficient at this diving thing, I find something else I should have done differently. I hope I don't f'ing kill someone mastering my learning curve.
Ok, NOW I'm starting to beat myself up. I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

 

[ScubaSarus]

The problem was with the diver himself. He should have tested his gear in a shallow shore dive to get the weighting proper. Before going down it should be known if you have enough weight or not on how easy you go down but double alums it like +12lb bouyancy when empty and for this reason I dont like the idea of double alums. You did the right thing to go get the other buddy as you were ready to end the dive with all 3 together not knowing what his problem was in detail. Someone elses miscalculations are not your fault and we all make miscalcs at one time or another (I know I have).

Let me add that all I did was put on an extra sweater under my undergarment for the second dive yesterday and I was a bit underweighted so its really hard to calculating weighting on a new gear set up without trial and error. I was fortunate to just be only diving on the edgs of the coves looking for tropicals.

Thankfully all is well with your buddy and no embolism or bends occured.

 

[STOGEY]

That is one reason why I'll stick with steel and a wet suit. I'm not ready to fix things if it aint broke.

 

[TheRedHead]

Before I got to the end of the story, I understood what Frank's hand signal meant so perhaps it was a failure to go over signals? Perhaps in the future when diving in situations where a weight change it required, it would be best to discuss the signals for weighting woes. Frank may have been too worried about maintaining his horizontal position and not finning down at the safety stop which is a sure sign of an underweighted diver.

 

[Ken abucs]

Something to keep in mind is that you might not have been able to help Frank anyway. When I'm weighted right, I'm not going to be able to hold down a diver that is 3-5 pounds light at the end of a dive. I'm going to be pretty close to neutral, so I'd be going for a ride up with him.

If you used your option 4. "I should have grabbed him and not let go." you could well have created 2 victims. The only advantage you'd have had is knowing where he went. You are responisble to help your buddy, but not at the risk of injuring yourself.

Another thing to consider is that if Lou was part of a 3 man buddy team, you should not have had to go looking for him. "If we’re doing something unusual we make it a point to stick together." If diving in a strange location, with a new buddy with unfamiliar equipment and a guestimate of weighting doesn't count as "something unusual", I'm not sure what would.

Just to be clear, I'm not pointing fingers, I just want to point out another way this situation could have been avoided.

 

[Jeff Toorish]

First of all, I believe you handled yourself well and I appreciate your bringing this to the forum for discussion. This is how we all learn.

I have to agree with whoever wrote that Frank had at least a little air in his dry suit. As we all know, it does not take much air at 65' to become a problem at 30'. The fact that his ascent was inverted reinforces the air in the suit conclusion. It has happened to me in a dry suit, start to ascend, the suit seems to be inflating and you can't vent it fast enough, you're upside down and finning madly to slow the ascent. Fortunately, he seems to be not much worse for the wear.

Three divers is a team, and clearly the rules are dramatically different than with two buddies diving. It could be argued that a three member team is the most difficult configuration to dive. It requires an exponentially greater awareness and in low vis, that is often impossible.

Although keeping contact with Frank would have been ideal, it may not have been practical. You wanted to keep Lou in the loop and when you lost Frank, you made the absolutely defendable decision to search for him deeper. Personally, I don't see any error there, just a decision that later proved incorrect.

In aviation, there is a saying that crashes are caused by decisions made on the ground long before the flight. That theory may apply here. In situations like the one you described, I have a rule of thumb. If any diver on the team is "lost," everyone count to 30 and then surface (assuming that is practical). That way, especially when there are three members or more on the team, everyone pretty much surfaces within a minute or two. Usually that helps. In this case, you would have gone up and found Frank on the surface and not been at depth, putting yourself at greater risk. Lou would have surfaced as well.

This is, of course, "more of a guideline." It is clearly not practical in all situations.

Nothing I have written should be taken as any criticism. Personally, I believe you made proper decisions and clearly your overriding consideration was the welfare of a team member.

Jeff

 

[Charlie99]

Although keeping contact with Frank would have been ideal, it may not have been practical. You wanted to keep Lou in the loop and when you lost Frank, you made the absolutely defendable decision to search for him deeper. Personally, I don't see any error there, just a decision that later proved incorrect.

I see things quite differently. Diver C/Frank had an unknown problem. It turns out it was weighting. In a 70 year old guy, it could also have been medical. He might have required assistance to surface, or assistance on the surface.

IMO, leaving Frank to go get Lou is NOT the best action to take. Lou should know where he last saw Paul and Frank and can turn around and retrace his path. At worst, Lou continues on for a while, comes back, looks around, and then executes whatever lost contact procedures they have agreed upon.

IMO, the #1 priority is staying with the guy that has shown some sort of distress or something unusual going on.

 

[ScubaSarus]

You bring up a good point and if Frank was in immediate danger he would have given the thumbs up for an immediate ascent instead of grabbing his weight belt. Then he would have escorted Frank to the surface and then gone back to retrieve the other diver if the diver did not need attention on the surface. Its debateable I know and for that reason diving in threes is frowned upon. When didving in threes I usually tell the other 2 divers they they should take care of themselves and I take care of myself. If I need medical care I myself would make it quite clear with some non conventional hand signals that would be hard not to understand. The other diver could have ascended after not seeing the buddies for a few minutes or could have carried on diving thinking all is well and there is just a normal brief seperation as a lot of divers do on wrecks. Its almost a catch 22 given that the communication were not 100% interpreted and thats why dive slates are a good thing. Im going to bring my slate with me more often because of this incident.

 

[TheRedHead]

I see things quite differently. Diver C/Frank had an unknown problem. It turns out it was weighting. In a 70 year old guy, it could also have been medical. He might have required assistance to surface, or assistance on the surface.

I sort of emphasize with Frank and his weight problem (not that I'm 70 and male ) but I do travel and have to deal with differing conditions and sometimes unfamiliar equipment. I think it is important to understand that when a diver is above you and pointing to the weightbelt, he is making a signal that he is light. Understanding that signal would have alieviated the worry that Frank was having a medical problem.

And I agree that the team should have stayed together and the diver with any problem takes priority over the other team members.

 

[wreckedinri]

IMHO, one thing that PTN's "accident" clearly illustrates is the inherent difficulty in managing (for lack of a better word) a three person dive team. Two person teams are not without their challenges. The addition of one more diver can be said to increase the challenges exponentially.


I'm NOT saying that it (3 person teams) should not be done. But, many "rules" that we may take for granted as second nature or understood with a two diver team, ie; staying with your partner, surfacing if separated or calling a dive, become muddied with the addition of a 3rd party. Paul's sharing of his episode should give one pause when entering into a three diver team. Just as it is important with a normal team - it is perhaps more crucial when diving as a group of three - that we should clearly lay out and review actions to be taken in various scenarios that a three person team may encounter.

OMG - this from someone that prefers to dive alone.

Be Safe and Have Fun!
Dennis