Buddy got bent, sort of...

[rawls]

I was diving with a new diver to cold water, he'd only done warm waters at this point. We did our dive plan and discussed various things. We hop in the water and down he goes, faster and faster. I tried to keep up, I'm on Nitrox with a mod of I think around 80 feet. We discussed the MOD, he was on air. He knew my max depth

I've had Air diving buddies go below my 1.6 MOD while I was on Nitrox - one of several reasons I don't like that combination. I advise them of my 1.4 MOD and my 1.6 MOD in advance, warn them I'm not going below 1.6 for anything, then don't - even when they do. Those are rare cases, but that's my stand.

The honor of buddy diving does not require forfeiting your safety to save one from stupidity. You do what you can, but that's' beyond the call of duty.

I don't know what EAN you were using...If you calculated your MOD at 1.4 then you would have been diving about EAN40 and at 1.6 about an EAN45...At 123 diving EAN40 you would have been pushing about 1.9ppO2. If using EAN45 you would have been around a 2.1ppO2. Oxygen toxicity risks are based on a time dose relationship. I don't know what your exposure time limits are on 1.9 or 2.1 ppO2. NOAA only goes to 1.6 with a 45 minute single dive exposure limit. Obviously you ended up ok, but if you look at the difference between a 1.6 exposure limit and a 1.4, the differences are substantial. I would assume going above 1.6ppO2 would further substantially decrease exposure times. You definitely overdosed yourself but obviously didn't hit the time limit for your body; or you were just lucky...Plus you were in cold water...BRRR
Your buddy would have been ok diving with air at 123 ft, but IMHO you put yourself at great risk going after him and could have ended up making yourself a victim.
I totally agree with Don...I wouldn't have gone after him as long as he was ok. If he wasn't...I couldn't answer that question. It would be dependent on the risk. But it is a VERY hard call when you have a friend in distress.

As far as waving you to the surface Shannon...If a new diver was diving with me because he or she wanted to be with a more experienced diver, I would NEVER wave them to the surface...When it was time for them to go up, eg, low on air, the dive would be over.

 

[BubblesUp]

Every one of us has to construct a paradigm, or an ethos of diving, that works for us.

Well said, TSandM!

I became acutely aware of the whole ethos of diving last summer during a dive on the Spiegel Grove. My assigned buddy and I were more than halfway through our dive at about 100' when I noticed a lone diver about 10 yards away. His body language and fixation on his console seemed to say "I'm low on air, approaching my NDL and/or don't know where the mooring line is," so I waved my buddy to follow me to check things out. Turns out all three were true, so we called our dive, took him to the line, and ascended with him to the boat.

I was expecting high fives all around, but once on board, I took quite a tongue lashing from my assigned buddy for having made the decision to cut our dive short. While, it had never occurred to me to do anything other than get the guy safely to the surface, Buddy felt our only obligation was to point him in the direction of the line before going back about our merry way. (Hunh?!)

Well, Buddy and I opted to seek other buddies before the second dive, but for weeks afterward I pondered the situation and tried to see it from his perspective. This led me to struggle with the question of responsibility to one's buddy and to other divers, and I began second-guessing my own actions. In the end, I just counted myself lucky that Buddy was more opposed to continuing alone than he was to calling the dive. If not and I had been forced to choose between the two, I'm pretty darn sure I would have stuck with the low on air diver.

 

[cummings66]

Meanwhile, I'm dying to know...what did you SAY to him afterwards???

Not much, he knew he screwed up and he knew he owed his life to me. He said so in fact and thanked me.

I explained the dangers of what he almost did and what I risked for him, I think he understood it wasn't a minor matter and that it was extremely serious. I was determined to do something to help him and I'd had enough of a chat with him during our SI that I felt he might have learned something. I like to think he took something home from the vacation he had here.

There's so many things about diving that's hard to judge until you're there. It's easy to say stick to a buddy, don't dive, etc. In general what I believe is that the trust me dives are dangerous, the sending to the surface a buddy while the other stays down is dangerous. I saw both types of this in the thread here, and I'm sad to say I've been there myself. I learned from it, not the hard way fortunately.

I'm lucky and have only had one lesson driven home the hard way, my goal now is to learn from others as much as I can. I believe the OP is here to do the same based on this post.

Diving like life isn't written in concrete, be careful. If this BF of yours isn't perfect as a dive buddy I'll tell you this much, you can not change him for the better. Additionally we humans are what we are, if you have a snot now he'll be a snot 20 years from now. If he's a decent guy now he will be 20 years from now as well. Choose well in buddies, BF's and mates. Life is too short to be miserable.

 

[cummings66]

I don't know what EAN you were using...If you calculated your MOD at 1.4 then you would have been diving about EAN40 and at 1.6 about an EAN45...At 123 diving EAN40 you would have been pushing about 1.9ppO2.

It was EAN 40 or close to it as I recall. I don't know the exact values without looking at my logs, those are close figures however. The buddy to be honest looked like he was going to keep going down, he also couldn't navigate at all. I had to grab him and show him the contour to get him going towards shore. He seemed like he was narc'd down deep as well by his odd behavior once I stopped him. I had to physically manhandle him until we got above 100 feet.

I honestly believe he would have kept going down following the ground deeper and deeper, he never once stopped or slowed until he had to move around a tree. I believe he would have dove until he run out of air, as was he came very close to that on our ascent which I made him do right now. The bottom by the way can hit over 200 feet in places. He had an AL80 on and a 3mm wetsuit. It was 40 degree's bottom temp, the plan initially was to not go deep so he'd stay warm. I told him of my mod (1.4) so he knew that and the fact that we were not going to go deeper than 40 feet.

To be honest I believe I was lucky and the only thing in my favor was it was the first dive of the day for me. I do SAR work, I know the rules about not becoming a second victim and all. But it's very hard to say I'd allow somebody to die and I honestly believe he would have had I not risked my neck for him. When we got back to the surface he had no idea how deep we went until I showed him. He really thought he was less than 40 feet deep and that amount of darkness was normal for a cold water lake.

I know I knew where I was in regards to mod's, depth, and substantial risk. I was hoping I would be ok and I rationalized that if I could catch him quick enough and turn him I'd be ok. I had hoped that even though I worked hard to get there I'd be able to do it fast enough. There was a lot of hoping and also the thought that my buddies going to kill me which upset me. I was MAD at the situation I was in, I was mad I was trying to save him, I even thought he deserved what he got if I didn't try. I had even given him the speech about the symptoms of toxing and what to do about it during our dive brief and explained how important it is to not exceed it and that made me that much angrier. Yet I had met his wife and told her I'd take care of him because he was my buddy. I never expected his actions, not in my wildest dream could I believe I would be facing what I was with a diver who claimed to have as many dives as he said he did. I was determined to give it my best shot, and to be honest he had 7 more feet to go before I would head up. I just don't know for 100% if I would have turned. I know that during all the thoughts going through my head about buddies, my responsibilities, my family, that I did come to a decision that 130 feet was my limit of responsibility. At that point I decided the risk was too great and I'd stop trying.

However, consider I knowingly busted my mod pretty badly knowing full well the outcome (Padi pretty much says you'll die if you tox), would I have stopped? I'll never know. What I do know is that there are limits to buddies, I will not I hope follow them to the ends of the Earth. I make it plain to new buddies my limits and what I won't do, and I hope they don't test me on it.

For the OP the risks of bad buddies are great. You can't always tell a bad one on the surface, you have to dive with them and size them up. A controlled environment is best for the first dive. I now use a shallow quarry if I can for the first few dives with a new buddy. We can work out the bugs there.

 

[cummings66]

In the end, I just counted myself lucky that Buddy was more opposed to continuing alone than he was to calling the dive. If not and I had been forced to choose between the two, I'm pretty darn sure I would have stuck with the low on air diver.

I'd suggest that as long as a buddy doesn't try to kill you that you stay by them. If you have radically different ideas of what's acceptable then choose another buddy. For me I used to just talk about diving, if they seemed to know the answers I assumed they were fine. That's not so.

Now I talk to them about life, what they do and what they think about things. Find out if you can what they think is risky in life and if it's compatible with your outlook then go for it.

One of my best buddies has a saying, I was there in case you decided to do something incompatible with life. Remember that one.

 

[DandyDon]

Originally Posted by DandyDon
The honor of buddy diving does not require forfeiting your safety to save one from stupidity. You do what you can, but that's' beyond the call of duty.

While I still stand by this as a truth, I have done it, and I imagine I will again if the apparent need arises.

But it's very hard to say I'd allow somebody to die and I honestly believe he would have had I not risked my neck for him.

It's good to have personal guidelines, but at the moment - you call the ball where it's played. I have stopped at 1.6 to watch a diver descend on a deep bounce - waiting for him to come back in case he needed air - hoping he would (he did), and other times I've done what I'd never ask anyone else to do. But then, I live alone - a little easier to risk.

Well said, TSandM!

I became acutely aware of the whole ethos of diving last summer during a dive on the Spiegel Grove. My assigned buddy and I were more than halfway through our dive at about 100' when I noticed a lone diver about 10 yards away. His body language and fixation on his console seemed to say "I'm low on air, approaching my NDL and/or don't know where the mooring line is," so I waved my buddy to follow me to check things out. Turns out all three were true, so we called our dive, took him to the line, and ascended with him to the boat.

I was expecting high fives all around, but once on board, I took quite a tongue lashing from my assigned buddy for having made the decision to cut our dive short. While, it had never occurred to me to do anything other than get the guy safely to the surface, Buddy felt our only obligation was to point him in the direction of the line before going back about our merry way. (Hunh?!)

Well, Buddy and I opted to seek other buddies before the second dive, but for weeks afterward I pondered the situation and tried to see it from his perspective. This led me to struggle with the question of responsibility to one's buddy and to other divers, and I began second-guessing my own actions. In the end, I just counted myself lucky that Buddy was more opposed to continuing alone than he was to calling the dive. If not and I had been forced to choose between the two, I'm pretty darn sure I would have stuck with the low on air diver.

I can't say there's a right or wrong there, either. What you did was generous, forfeiting your dives to save his sorry butt. He could have done an open water ascent and picked up later drifting in the current, but I think I would have done the same as you. Or maybe not? Danger was not immediate, depending on his next move - which should have been the open water ascent. You do what you thinks best at the moment at times...

 

[BubblesUp]

I'm interested in what others think, so here are a couple of additional details that may or may not make a difference:

- Everyone on the boat started out with a buddy, so LOA guy wasn't intentionally a solo diver
- When we found him at 100', LOA guy had ~400 psi, Buddy a few minutes before had 1000, I had 1200

Part of my thought process was that a diver who had lost his buddy, lost the ascent line and run low on air probably wasn't going to make a safe, controlled, ascent from 100', whether on a line or in open water. I was also concerned about LOA becomming OOA on the way up.

I followed my ethos as a diver (and a human being) and am comfortable with the decision that led the three of us to ascend together. Still some doubt on the "what if" scenario...

 

[cummings66]

You don't say what size tank you had, but IMO at your depth if it was an AL80 you guys were ready to come up anyways and you did not cut your buddies dive short. I'll say this because you should have no doubt that you did the right thing, you were right on purpose and accident.

When I dive with buddies one of my criteria is that I come up with enough air to support both of us in case one runs out due to something going wrong, free flow, etc. I started diving that way when I helped a buddy who went OOA and at the time I had 1600 psi. We made it back and used somewhere around 1100 psi to do it, from a depth of 40 feet. There are other options of course, but it does illustrate how much air a panicked diver can consume. I believe it's even more important for a new diver with high consumption rates to do this air planning with reserves for the buddy figured in. The lesson I learned that day is I won't trust a new instabuddy to tell me their pressure, I will monitor it myself.

You can see in the OP's thread that this didn't happen to her, she got sent up without a buddy. What if she had a free flow, or her BC malfunctioned, or something else that caused her remaining air to dwindle. As a newer diver at the time it could have ended badly, that's why I never allow somebody to end a dive solo if they're my buddy. Around here more than 10 to 30 feet away and you can't even tell they're there, usually past 15 feet and it's like they never existed. We can't see the boat bottom from the safety stop, so in our waters it's risky to be solo at the end of a dive. Things can and do happen, you'll hear of divers who surface and for some reason descend again never to be found. Wouldn't happen if they had a buddy next to them.

You can never tell what a new buddy is going to do, so minimize the risks by taking them on a shallow safer dive, a confined water body so to speak. See firsthand how they behave.

 

[DandyDon]

I'm interested in what others think, so here are a couple of additional details that may or may not make a difference:

- Everyone on the boat started out with a buddy, so LOA guy wasn't intentionally a solo diver
- When we found him at 100', LOA guy had ~400 psi, Buddy a few minutes before had 1000, I had 1200

Part of my thought process was that a diver who had lost his buddy, lost the ascent line and run low on air probably wasn't going to make a safe, controlled, ascent from 100', whether on a line or in open water. I was also concerned about LOA becomming OOA on the way up.

I followed my ethos as a diver (and a human being) and am comfortable with the decision that led the three of us to ascend together. Still some doubt on the "what if" scenario...

Ok that gives your story a diffent view. The LOA diver was indeed in trouble - he was already overdue for ascent, and you were at ascend pressure anyway. Surprised your buddy got upset...?

 

[octoeight]

As you describe the story it sounds like the doctors weren't convinced your bf had DCS. Maybe he did, maybe he had some other problem.

If he had DCS the root of it may be in what you did the day and night before. Were you drinking alcohol the previous day and night? Alcohol is a dehydrator and can cause a person to still be dehydrated the following morning even though they drink a normally adequate amount liquids before diving. Were you up late the previous night? Lack of adequate rest is another possible cause.

At this point no one can tell you if he had DCS or why. The chamber doc's will tell you that a goodly number of the people who have it do so for no apparent reason.

You did the right thing by seeking medical help.

You're not responsible for your bf's decisions, no matter how much you pressured him. He's a grown man and responsible for his own decisions.

Advice: Forget about diving with your bf. Find a local dive club, join it and go diving with people who like to dive.