What would I have done?
1. Adequate pre-dive planning, including the order in which the divers would proceed, a discussion of signals, turn pressures, identification of the person who would "direct" the dive, separation procedures, light signals, goals/objectives, planned run times, etc....
2. Adequate equipment. Personally, I like can lights because they allow you to stay in passive communication with your buddies. With regard to the pony issue, I carry one also. Its banded to my primary, has a manifold connection, and is exactly the same size. Its heavy, but it provides redundancy that a pony lacks.
3. Adequate training. Team skills are particularly important when diving as a trio because you've complicated the situation by adding another person. If everyone is not ready to operate in a trio, thumb the dive.
4. Rather than writing "stay close" on your slate, discuss what you mean by this term. Is it 10 feet, 5 feet or touch contact. Do the same thing with turn pressures. If the buddies don't agree, don't dive with them. If they don't adhere to procedures, thumb the dive before they compromise safety.
5. Once you're back on the surface, stay there. Look for bubbles. Conduct a surface search. But descending, thereby creating a significant risk of a second victim, doesn't help anyone. In addition, consider this. You had a nearly empty 80 and a 19 with a single reg. What exactly would you have done if you had found your buddy? You could not have effectively shared air anyway.
6. Check surface support to determine whether the buddy had surfaced. If not, activate the emergency system and notify the people in charge of the area (if any). Let other divers, who may have actually bothered to get rescue certified, know so that they can help.
The failure cascade on this dive put you at risk. The risk could have been reduced with proper planning and execution.
With regard to rescue as a pre-requisite for "tech" training, whether its a required or not, its a very good idea because it teaches you to manage stressful situations encountered while diving and allows you to provide aid to a buddy. Personally, I wouldn't even consider a tech dive unless my buddy was certified in rescue and first aid.
More importantly for the purposes of the present discussion, a decent rescue class would have taught you some of the skills needed to handle the situation.
1. Adequate pre-dive planning, including the order in which the divers would proceed, a discussion of signals, turn pressures, identification of the person who would "direct" the dive, separation procedures, light signals, goals/objectives, planned run times, etc....
2. Adequate equipment. Personally, I like can lights because they allow you to stay in passive communication with your buddies. With regard to the pony issue, I carry one also. Its banded to my primary, has a manifold connection, and is exactly the same size. Its heavy, but it provides redundancy that a pony lacks.
3. Adequate training. Team skills are particularly important when diving as a trio because you've complicated the situation by adding another person. If everyone is not ready to operate in a trio, thumb the dive.
4. Rather than writing "stay close" on your slate, discuss what you mean by this term. Is it 10 feet, 5 feet or touch contact. Do the same thing with turn pressures. If the buddies don't agree, don't dive with them. If they don't adhere to procedures, thumb the dive before they compromise safety.
5. Once you're back on the surface, stay there. Look for bubbles. Conduct a surface search. But descending, thereby creating a significant risk of a second victim, doesn't help anyone. In addition, consider this. You had a nearly empty 80 and a 19 with a single reg. What exactly would you have done if you had found your buddy? You could not have effectively shared air anyway.
6. Check surface support to determine whether the buddy had surfaced. If not, activate the emergency system and notify the people in charge of the area (if any). Let other divers, who may have actually bothered to get rescue certified, know so that they can help.
The failure cascade on this dive put you at risk. The risk could have been reduced with proper planning and execution.
With regard to rescue as a pre-requisite for "tech" training, whether its a required or not, its a very good idea because it teaches you to manage stressful situations encountered while diving and allows you to provide aid to a buddy. Personally, I wouldn't even consider a tech dive unless my buddy was certified in rescue and first aid.
More importantly for the purposes of the present discussion, a decent rescue class would have taught you some of the skills needed to handle the situation.
I have discussed Rescue training with my Instructor, but while we agreed then that it did not sound like the appropriate step in my desire to become a better diver, I will discuss it again when he's available following his recent leg surgery. I had no desire to be a rescue diver that day, but it seemed like the thing to do at that moment. The missing diver's crippled wife was waiting in their car, and with that in mind - I made the wrong decision.
