A friend of my husband who dives quite a bit said that he saved his dive buddy by going after him to around 250 feet while he was sinking uncontrollably. Supposedly they were night diving and they started swimming over a hole without knowing it. His buddy started to sink and he said all he could see was his light as he sank. He went after him and was able to grab him and stop him from sinking. Neither were harmed from the experience. I was just wondering how people can sink uncontrollably especially that far? It seems the first thing you should do is put air in your BC, if after filling your BC with air you are still sinking then drop your weight belt. Are there diving deaths or accidents caused by uncontrollable sinking with no way of stopping it?
Bouyancy Question
- Thread starter H2odiving
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
A b.c failure with a big steel tank could be a problem.Or if the guy was diving double steel tanks no weight belt is needed and it would be impossible to swim them up.Having a dry suit for backup buancy,lift bag or dual bladder b.c[my choice] is a good idea.
More likely, I suspect, is that the person began to sink because he wasn't neutral to begin with, and narcosis kicked in and kept him from noticing until he was severely impaired.
If you are diving a gear configuration that can't get you neutral, you have very major problems to begin with. This could happen if you were diving a very thick wet suit, which requires a great deal of weight to sink, but loses much of its lift at depth, and your BC didn't have enough lift to compensate for this at depth. But that's a severe error in judgment in equipment choice. And even then, one would hope that you could swim up (that the disparity between lift and negative buoyancy would not be too great to allow you to do so).
If you are diving a gear configuration that can't get you neutral, you have very major problems to begin with. This could happen if you were diving a very thick wet suit, which requires a great deal of weight to sink, but loses much of its lift at depth, and your BC didn't have enough lift to compensate for this at depth. But that's a severe error in judgment in equipment choice. And even then, one would hope that you could swim up (that the disparity between lift and negative buoyancy would not be too great to allow you to do so).
I would say he simply did not know he was going down. Got narced and that mad matters worse. Did your husband inflate the fellow divers BC?
Inflating the BC is not always the answer. Simply swimming up will allow the wetsuit and the air in the bc or drysuit to expand providing more buoyancy.
Typically as we surface, we must release gas from the BC.
Inflating the BC is not always the answer. Simply swimming up will allow the wetsuit and the air in the bc or drysuit to expand providing more buoyancy.
Typically as we surface, we must release gas from the BC.
WillB
Registered
I wonder what the dive buddy had to say after your husband's friend saved him? Could give some isight on what happened.......
- Messages
- 6,921
- Reaction score
- 26
- # of dives
- I just don't log dives
If you're plummeting towards the bottom, inflating the BC is definitely the answer, along with possibly ditching weights if inflating the BC isn't helping.
A strong swimmer can swim up maybe 10 or 15 pounds for a short amount of time.
A good sized BC can generate 50 pounds of lift or more, indefinitely.
If you're flying down towards 250', you need a lot more than finning upwards and hoping your wetsuit expands.
Terry
Guba
Contributor
My guess is that something similar to vertigo had the diver confused, and he simply "flew" downward without realizing he was zooming toward the bottom. At night, in near darkness, with no reference points, and possibly with difficulty in checking gauges it's understandable how someone might lose their vertical bearings. As depth increases, narcosis can compound the problem. However, this is just a guess on my part. It would be interesting to learn what the diver and the rescuer could add in clearing up exactly what happened.
Apparently it was a good result for all, which is always a good thing.
Some thoughts when reading the details were;
- At night, following a light down into an Abyss ..... distance of a light source at night can be deceivingly hard to determine.
- Assuming they were on Air or Nitrox, 76 meters (250') is well outside the ppO2 limits, that could have been dangerous, chasing a light at night.
- There would have been some deco requirements after going down to 76m, I wonder how that (unplanned) part of the dive went in the dark.
It amazes me how, after the fact, one sees all the potential for things to have gone very far out of control.
Best Regards
Richard (Riger)
Some thoughts when reading the details were;
- At night, following a light down into an Abyss ..... distance of a light source at night can be deceivingly hard to determine.
- Assuming they were on Air or Nitrox, 76 meters (250') is well outside the ppO2 limits, that could have been dangerous, chasing a light at night.
- There would have been some deco requirements after going down to 76m, I wonder how that (unplanned) part of the dive went in the dark.
It amazes me how, after the fact, one sees all the potential for things to have gone very far out of control.
Best Regards
Richard (Riger)
on_two_wheels
Contributor
Just reading stories like this gives me the willies. I'm a relatively new diver so I'm completely paranoid about stuff like that. That's why I won't even consider an oil rig dive or something like that. Boat dives geared to all levels and shore dives are it for me for now.
Glad everything turned out okay.
Glad everything turned out okay.
When I heard this it gave me the willies too and I instantly started to think of ways to keep from plummeting to the depths of the ocean and certain death.
I wish I knew more about the story, I wasn't there when it was told to my husband. The way I understand it to happen was that the guy plummeting was totally out of control. My husband described it as the diver's light was spinning like he was falling end over end. The diver who saved him said he knew he was getting too deep to be safe, but he wasn't about to let him go. The friend didn't mention narcosis, but when the guy "fell" they were pretty shallow. I guess the narcosis could have set in pretty quickly not allowing the falling diver to think properly, but you would think that as soon as he started to plummet he would have started to try and stop it. I will try and see if I can get more details as this situation is worrying me somewhat. I would hate to think that I could be swimming along and then just start to plummet to depths unknown without be able to stop it.
Similar threads
