Can I really cut myself out?

[redacted]

I'd put my money on the net every time.
!

Well, that does sound like a tough one. Even a bad buddy should provide some risk reduction on that one. But a good solo diver knows to stay with known sites and avoid those with adverse risk factors. It's not an immunity to accidents, but it helps. I did run in to a net in a lake once while snorkeling. It gets real interesting when that bass lure has one hook in your hand and another in the net and your snorkle is still a few inches below the surface. Hurts like hell.

I figure I take some risk every time I enter the water. But I do my risk assessments and my risk management planning. The knife & shears are always in the rig & I add diagonal cutters when looking for fishing gear. I think I'll take another look at a Z-knife.

I'm still going to enjoy solo diving on occasion and, thanks to folks like you and snowbear, I'll be more careful about entanglements. But those motorcycles still look too dangerous to me!

 

[Seabear70]

Recently a fully certified Belgian diver drowned in the Oosterschelde estuary after getting entangled in a gill net.

She and her instructor buddy swam into the net in low viz circumstances at 24 meters depth. Even though she had logged some 390 dives she panicked, struggled violently and reduced visiblity to zero in the process. The instructor couldn't calm her and had to go to the surface for help. Back down they found she had taken off her entangled gear and headed for the surface, only to be snagged again by the knife attached to her leg.

Without getting into all the other aspects of this tragic accident: this goes to show the INCREDIBLE treacherousness of monofilament nets. The things are pure evil.

In the words of the Late Great Douglas Adams, "Don't Panic."

If I may quote my self, "Go ahead and Pee your pants now kid, I probably will before we're done. But if you're gonna flake out on me, can you wait until we're finished here?"

 

[Kim]

UP - I understand what you are saying but a couple of points.
In Japan there is suspicion between the fishermen and divers. Fishermen stop people diving in areas where they fish - and they are very active in this. This has led to a situation that divers are only allowed into areas that aren't fished - and are often quite shallow, around 30-40ft. Visibility is normally very good - the worst I've seen at our local dive spot was around 15ft - and that's in the last 5 years. In that period I have never seen a net where we dive. The site is used by all the dive schools in Fukuoka everyday that the weather permits. On an average day more than 30 people will dive the site during the day. A net put down in this area would be criminal - and if it happened and someone died because they got caught in it there would be prosecutions of those responsible. As fishing areas are controlled everywhere in Japan, the police would always know who was responsible.
This is the kind of site that I am referring to. This site is as safe as a swimming pool - you can't get any deeper than around 30 ft (depending on the tide) - there is never a current to speak of, just occasional gentle surge.
Like I said - it all depends where you are - and what you know about the site.

 

[Snowbear]

Knew that's what you were saying. So, UP, bottom line, solo diver+gillnet=sure death. No way out. No options. Correct?

Well, Pug actually came out and said it, but the whole point of this was that sometimes there is no way to know what's down there and if you find it, no way to save yourself. That's why I said in the first post:

...know the risks and be willing to accept the consequences of not being able to help yourself.

Sometimes knowing the risk means knowing that you DON'T know the risk......

 

[pipedope]

Anecdote:
Years ago we anchored the boat in 20' of water just outside the mouth of the river to have lunch with my family. When we were ready to go I tried to pull the anchor but it seemed to be hung up on something. So I got on my scuba rig and went down to check it out... solo. The viz was <1' and when I got close to the end of the anchor chain I could feel the mass of an abandoned gillnet. I carefully backup up the anchor rode and returned to the boat. We worked together and with great effort were able to pull the anchor up until it broke the surface of the water where we could begin cutting the gillnet off of it.

If I had become entangled in that net not only would I have died but my family would have been left in a nightmare situation as from the bow of the boat they watched my bubbles eventually stop.

So did you pull the net out of the water or at least bouy it so that someone else could?

We really need to get these things out of the water as much as we can.

I would rate the chances of a solo diver cutting themselves out of a gillnet as about the same as the early hard hat divers who tried to cut themselves out of their dress. Some survived but many more died.

 

[Uncle Pug]

No Michael... I didn't remove it, we could barely pull enough of it up to cut our anchor out... it was very heavy due to all the dead scuba divers tangled in it.

Just kidding... I didn't find any dead scuba divers in the part I could see.

 

[pipedope]

I understand, I have hooked a few things with the anchor in my time.

I don't know when that happened, in the past, 'out of sight, out of mind' was the rule but more recently there are resources to get these things removed. A marker bouy makes finding it easier for the salvage people to find.

Maybe someday we humans will learn to be responsible for our junk. :11:

 

[Uncle Pug]

Here in Washington State we have an abandon net reporting program now... but that doesn't mean that they remove them... the State doesn't seem to have the resources to do anything.

Back when that incident happened there wasn't even a reporting program. To buoy the net would have been a meaningless gesture and I did not have the resources at the time to remove it myself.

 

[android]

A question on the previously mentioned fin entanglement.

After the air got too low, why wouldn't you just abandon fins and booties?

 

[The Kraken]

Fitzy, you make an excellent point!!!
I have 1 B/C and 2 B/P-wings setups.
Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, I've experienced 2 entanglements in my diving career, and both involved monofiliment line.

The first time was in a weight intergrated B/C. I had to doff the B/C to remove the entanglement. I was diving a 6.5mm farmer john/jacket. It almost turned into a nightmare. Lesson learned.

The second time it happened I was diving a B/P-wing and weight belt with the 6.5 doubled up. Totally different scenario with respect to removing the entanglement.