Did everything right ( I think) still, buddy got bent??

[pilot fish]

You keep referring to the other person as the bent diver. That bent diver is your son, correct? I can not comment on the science of all this, or with ANY technical expertise, I'm not qualified, but just from looking at this, I would say that your SI's were too short. It seems that you should have taken more time at the surface. I agree with the others in this thread, the "instructor" seemed to be unaware of what you guys were doing, he should have been more aware, or just didn't know what he was doing.

 

[DiverBizz]

"I'm human. I make mistakes. I will do my best to not lead you astray. But if you ever hear me tell you to do something that you know is wrong, call me on it. You are in charge of you on every dive. I'm here to guide you and give you the knowledge you need to dive safely, but to stay alive is your job and to be safe you need to make the right choices for yourself." Kingpatzer, I love this and think well all need to remember this. I would like to think that I would question my instructor if I thought something was wrong. But if one is so new to diving they may not know to question something.

 

[z3r0c00l]

Decompression class is not "so new" to diving, or should not be.

 

[OneBrightGator]

I guess being with an instructor i've used before and have come to trust I let my guard down, my bad. Lesson learned.

After reviewing some earlier posts, the problem is your instructors, at least back to Rescue and probably even to Open Water, have done you a great dissservice in not teaching you what you need to know. This is multiplied by the fact that they have done the same to your son and unfortunately this the result. Just like all of us when we're learning, you don't know what you don't know.

 

[z3r0c00l]

I think people should learn to dive tables for a while before they just grab a computer and trust everything it says. I only dive tables - I use a bottom timer and a watch and a modified navy table most of the time. That doesnt mean computers dont have a time and place, but when a guy gets a computer right away (I saw a guy once in Open water 1 how had $2,000 worth of gear that was sold to him when he signed up, including a computer and nitrox tank) he may not have the common sense needed to really plan a dive.

 

[Jim Kerr]

Hi everyone. I'm always learning from reading about what happens to others in this forum. I thought it was time to contribute something myself. I felt this would be good for the near miss section rather than the accident section mostly because we kinda dodged what could have been a fatal bullet.

Last weekend My son and I dove Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for an IANTD advanced nitrox/deco class.

Friday at 6:20pm we did a quick dive to 33 feet to calculate our sac rate. Dive lasted 24 minutes.

Saturday at 3:00 pm we did a dive to 108 feet averaging 65 feet for 35 minutes, a SI of 18 minutes and then a 2nd dive to 35 feet averaging 22 feet for 40 minutes.

Sunday at 5:00 pm we did a dive to 131 feet averaging 47 feet for 62 minutes, a SI of 11 minutes and then a dive to 57 feet averaging 27 feet for 25 minutes. After a SI of 5 minutes we went back down to 21 feet for about 3 minutes just to retrieve our deco bottles.

My son declined to mention that he experienced pain in the knee joints on the 2nd dive sunday which went away after we went down to 57 feet. Monday night he told me he had leg pain that was getting worse since Monday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon he was on his way to Orlando to do a 5 hour dive in the Chamber.

In the end I'm left to wonder why. We did everything by the book (except for the short SI's) we did deco stops using 50% EANx even though our computers said we didn't need to. The instructor and myself didn't bend? I just don't get it.

I really need to understand what happened here because I don't want this to happen again for obvious reasons. So far all I can come up with is that I need to do future deco dives and maybe even all future dives extremely conservative?

Some things I considered in trying to figure this out.
1. first deco dives we've ever done.
2. bent diver said he was cold at the end of the dive.
3. both buddy and I are a tad over weight (but fairly fit).
4. SI's were probably too short.
5. there was a lot of flucuation in depth on the 2nd dive Sunday.
6. should have brought the deco bottles up after the 2nd dive rather than going back down for them and doing what was essentially a bounce dive ??

thank you everybody in advance for your constructive criticisms

Dave.

C'mon now. None of these dives would require any deco time and you know darn well those SIs are waaaaay too short. An 18 min SI for a dive to 108 fsw and an 11 min SI for a dive to 131 fsw. You "think" the SIs were "probably" too short? In your basic OW course they teach you to do "at least" a 1 hour SI and you need to "figure out" what went wrong? And this was a class under the supervision of an IANTD instructor? Sorry pal, but I'm just not buying what you're trying to sell here.

 

[DiveBandit]

Sorry pal, but I'm just not buying what you're trying to sell here.

I'll never understand why people need to turn a civil discussion into a condescending discussion.

Does it make you feel good. Do you feel like a big man now? Good for you.

 

[nereas]

Here are some minimum surface interval times for your consideration in the future:

All NDL dives -- Min 1 hour SIT (It should have talked about this in your Basic Open Water manual when you took the class. If you kept the book, you might want to look it up again.)

Planned deco dives:

90-130 w/Nitrox
Min 2 hr SIT and max 3 dives/day

130-180 w/Trimix
Min 3hr SIT and max 2 dives/day

180fsw - 250 fsw w/ Trimix
Min 4 hr SIT and max 2 dives/day

> 250 fsw w/ Trimix
Max 1 dive/day

 

[diebeste]

Some comments on the profiles:
First, I am not a deco diver, neither do I have a lot of experience. I do however, tend to familiarize myself with my (electronic) equipment quite thoroughly. You are using your Suunto for deco diving, something it has not been designed to do. Also, you were warned on dives 3, 5 and 6 to increase your surface interval. i.e you dived three times despite your computer telling you to wait some more. (The diver attention symbol on your computer display, and at the start of those profiles). Your computer was telling you not to dive so soon, and you got away with it. (Unfortunately you son didn't).

 

[Jim Kerr]

I'll never understand why people need to turn a civil discussion into a condescending discussion.

Does it make you feel good. Do you feel like a big man now? Good for you.

No it does not, but it is a little hard for me to believe from looking at your profile with "all" those dives and "all" those certifications you have listed that you would "NOT" know what went wrong. Please!

EDIT:
Oh my! I skipped past the last page and did not see that you posted the computer profiles from your Suunto and was going off the general info that you gave in your OP so I appologize for saying you were trolling. I thouht you were feeding us all a line of BS as some like to do to stir things up.

You (your son) had between 4 - 8 alarms going off on every dive and from what it looks like they were primarily ascent rate alarms. So the computer was screamig at you (your son) to "sloooow" down. I also dive with a Suunto (Cobra) and they are very accurate being they are RGBM. With fast ascent rates and short SIs you were bound to take a hit. You admitted to going by the book "except" for the SIs so you knew full well you were pushing the envelope.