Discussion topic - buddy separation protocol

[DaleC]

Here's a topic for discussion.

The question:

How to react to a buddy seperation situation when a safety stop is required?

Considerations:

a.) The PADI RDP states that a SS is required for dives deeper than 100' or that come within 3 pressure groups of the NDL.

b.) PADI protocol for buddy seperation is to search for 1 minute at depth and then surface.

Scenario:

If a diver finds themselves in situation (a.) when they are seperated from their buddy they face a difficult choice. Do they search for 1 minute and surface (negating their 3 minute SS obligation) or do they search for 1 minute and then spend 3 - 4 minutes ascending for a total of 4 - 5 minutes of buddy seperation.

Conclusion:

After some discussion, we decided the best course was to hold the SS's and shoot a bag so that the buddy could locate us on the surface. The buddy on the surface could jerk the bag to let the off gassing diver know he/she was there. This would necesitate divers carrying bags and spools/reels and a discussion of the proticol in the pre dive briefing (whatever that is).

I thought it was a good topic to raise as I couldn't remember discussing this in OW or AOW

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up.

My personal take on this: I would skip the safety stop and find the buddy. Safety stops are NOT mandatory; if they are, then they are deco stops. If you are within NDL, they are optional (a very good, strongly recommended procedure, but still optional).

Locating a lost and potentially in-trouble buddy is mandatory. The reason I look at it this way is that in time you are doing the safety stop, some really bad stuff could be happening to the lost diver. So yes, I'll take the VERY small risk of a DCS hit and surface immediately to find a lost buddy.

 

[shawrg]

DaleC,

My initial response would be that I would search for a minute and ascend without a safety stop. But, then I realized there might be other conditions to consider. For example dive profile, Viz, current, sea conditions, experience of buddy team, boat dive or shore dive. I could go on but I will wait for more details and maybe change my answer!

 

[ScubaDocER]

Here's a topic for discussion.

The question:

How to react to a buddy seperation situation when a safety stop is required?

Considerations:

a.) The PADI RDP states that a SS is required for dives deeper than 100' or that come within 3 pressure groups of the NDL.

b.) PADI protocol for buddy seperation is to search for 1 minute at depth and then surface.

Scenario:

If a diver finds themselves in situation (a.) when they are seperated from their buddy they face a difficult choice. Do they search for 1 minute and surface (negating their 3 minute SS obligation) or do they search for 1 minute and then spend 3 - 4 minutes ascending for a total of 4 - 5 minutes of buddy seperation.

Conclusion:

After some discussion, we decided the best course was to hold the SS's and shoot a bag so that the buddy could locate us on the surface. The buddy on the surface could jerk the bag to let the off gassing diver know he/she was there. This would necesitate divers carrying bags and spools/reels and a discussion of the proticol in the pre dive briefing (whatever that is).

I thought it was a good topic to raise as I couldn't remember discussing this in OW or AOW

The question states that a safety stop is required. That changes what I would suggest. Generally speaking, most safety stops are recommended in no decompression diving which is the staple of recreational diving. If you have entered into a diving situation in which you are required to make a safety stop, which would suggest you are now doing a decompression dive, then I would do the safety stop. Missing a deco stop increases your risk for DCS substantially. You could potentially turn one bad diving incident into two. Ultimately it is a choice that each diver may have to face. If the safety stop is optional, then I would search for a minute and then surface at the appropriate ascent rate.

I would focus as well on preventing the above scenario from occurring. Discuss on the surface prior to the dive what you and your buddy would do in the event of a lost diver situation, and what you would do if you incurred a mandatory decompression scenario. Remain focused on good buddysmanship throughout the dive. Stay within the limits of your training and consistent with the agreed upon dive plan. Consider surface markers in case you become separated and need to find one another at the surface. The best way to deal with a potential emergency is to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

 

[BDSC]

I'll second what LeadTurn SD said. Forget the safety stop and just surface. If you have been diving under normal rec diving conditions, a DCS hit should not occur.

I don't know that shooting a bag to the surface is ever going to be very practical. The chances are slim to none that everyone is going to go out and buy the needed equipment. I also don't think it really adds a whole lot of value to the situation. By the time you get out the bag and deploy it, you could almost be at the surface anyway or a least have a good start in that direction.

LeadTurn has the best answer I think.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Whichever way you go, the key thing is to discuss it with your dive buddy and agree to use the same protocol. That way you'll both be in the same frame of reference and should surface at roughly the same time anyway. Where you'll run into problems is if one buddy does the SS and the other doesn't. If there's current, chances for wider separation increase, due to the chances of different currents at depth and on the surface. Also, for the buddy on the surface, those few minutes waiting for your buddy to appear will seem like days ... and can lead to significant stress.

In my experience, people who make the effort to purchase and learn how to deploy DSMB's are generally the type of folks who also make the effort to learn effective buddy skills ... and are therefore unlikely to be faced with having to make that choice in the first place.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[knotical]

Good question. The PADI RDP does use the work “required”. But recall that the RDP is based on square profiles. If the dive or sequence of dives that got you into the situation was all square profiles, then there is some increased (but still small) risk of a DCS hit. I’d blow off the safety stop even with square profiles, and would be quite comfortable doing so in the typical recreational dives that aren’t square.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I think the key is to think about why you are doing what you are doing.

First off, when you get separated from your buddy, your primary goal is to reunite if at all possible. Your secondary goal is to recognize, fairly quickly, if your buddy is now not only separated, but in trouble. Your third goal, as always, is not to create a second victim.

If you are separated at 100 feet, it is by far the best thing to reunite where you are. It is a long way to the surface, and in any kind of moving water at all, you can do a lot of lateral movement while ascending. You cannot, whether you decide to omit the safety stop or not, ascend safely at an arbitrary rate of speed -- ascents must be controlled, so even if you suspect there is a problem and decide to use the old 60 fpm ascent rate, it's still almost two minutes to the surface, and that is a long time. In that circumstance, I would think very hard about where the missing buddy is LIKELY to be, and perhaps search even a little more than a minute in that direction.

If there is no sign of the missing buddy, shooting a bag during the ascent is a great idea, if you don't have to delay the ascent much to do it. This is a skill which needs periodic practice to stay sharp. I've actually had the experience of getting separated from a buddy who decided to shoot a bag to let me know where he was, to allow me to come over and descend and rejoin him. (We were only in 20 feet of water.) But this was when we were first learning, and it probably took him three or four minutes to get it done, time I spent on the surface getting progressively more worried about him. And then, when the bag came up, it wasn't inflated well enough to stand well, and I couldn't see it in the chop, so it didn't actually help any.

One thing to be aware of is that, if there is current, being attached to that bag may pull you further and faster than your bag-less buddy, thus increasing separation.

If you are late in the dive and have worked your way shallow before the separation occurs, it's probably a better idea to omit the safety stop and surface. If you have come up shallow, you have effectively done some of your deco already, and your chances of injury with surfacing are pretty low. And, if the water is reasonably still, you have a good chance of seeing your buddy's bubbles and locating him in shallow water, which is often not the case from 100 feet.

The key is to assess the situation for its unique characteristics, and do what makes sense. I'll give a personal example. I was diving along a wall in fairly poor visibility (maybe ten feet). There was a moderate current, and my husband and I were drifting the dive. We had gone off a charter boat, and a live boat pickup was the plan. We both had canister lights (which are a huge help in poor viz). I looked for my husband to my left (which is where he had been all along) and he was gone. First off, I knew he wasn't very far away, because it had been about thirty seconds since I had seen him. Second, I was fairly sure he wasn't to my right, because that would be into the current and would have involved passing me, and I probably would have noticed that, even while I was looking into the hole I was checking out when he disappeared. So I looking carefully to my left, while slowly swinging my light back and forth to make it easy to see. I didn't see him, or any light, so I checked below me and then above me. I swam a little further to my left, to see if the current had pushed him further. No sign of him. So I began an ascent along the wall, swimming a little to my left as I went. I knew I really wanted to find him underwater, because surface conditions were such that, if I got there, I was unlikely to see his bubbles and locate him that way. If he was in trouble underwater, the likelihood that anybody was going to find him quickly if I surfaced was very, very poor.

As I went up, I stopped every few feet to rescan my vicinity and to wave my light. About 20 feet above where I started, I saw the glow of a light above me and to my left. Turned out, my husband had gotten caught in an updraft and blown about 30 feet up the wall before he got out of it. Since he knew that I was below him and to his right, he had been working his way slowly up the wall and a little to his right, and we reunited underwater, which was a far better outcome.

Buddy separation CAN occur, even with good skills and good equipment, but thinking your way through how it could have occurred and what the best options are is better than any cookbook approach, I think -- although agreeing on a protocol is important. (I would not, for example, simply have continued my dive with my husband unaccounted for!)

 

[SDiggy]

Interesting points of discussion ...

As a newer diver, I know the "by the book" answer, but fortunately I haven't had experience in this type of scenario. I'm gonna keep an eye on this thread.

Relted questions:
How much personal risk should be taken to try to find the "missing" diver?

And how does the scenario change if you're separated because you're the "missing" diver?

 

[Sas]

Here's a topic for discussion.

The question:

How to react to a buddy seperation situation when a safety stop is required?

Considerations:

a.) The PADI RDP states that a SS is required for dives deeper than 100' or that come within 3 pressure groups of the NDL.

b.) PADI protocol for buddy seperation is to search for 1 minute at depth and then surface.

Scenario:

If a diver finds themselves in situation (a.) when they are seperated from their buddy they face a difficult choice. Do they search for 1 minute and surface (negating their 3 minute SS obligation) or do they search for 1 minute and then spend 3 - 4 minutes ascending for a total of 4 - 5 minutes of buddy seperation.

Conclusion:

After some discussion, we decided the best course was to hold the SS's and shoot a bag so that the buddy could locate us on the surface. The buddy on the surface could jerk the bag to let the off gassing diver know he/she was there. This would necessitate divers carrying bags and spools/reels and a discussion of the proticol in the pre dive briefing (whatever that is).

I thought it was a good topic to raise as I couldn't remember discussing this in OW or AOW

If you are talking about safety stops, well they are never required (whatever the PADI ERP might say) so I would ignore them if my buddy was lost and follow our usual agreed lost buddy procedure - look around for one minute and then ascend. We have agreed not to do safety stops in this scenario. Local charters actually discuss lost buddy procedures in the dive briefing and they strongly recommend doing a 1 minute search and then ascending without doing safety stops.

But if you want to do what you've described and everyone agrees to it, it's your call. I would say though, that I am surprised that you would need to comment on how everyone would need to be carrying bags and spools - I presume people will have these on local dives so I don't discuss it other than to perhaps ask who will send up the SMB (but if this isn't discussed I have never had anybody other than brand new divers not be able to do this if required). I see bags and spools/reels as essential pieces of gear for local diving but am not sure if it is common for people to carry these in other locations.

Also I am wondering why PADI requires "safety stops" for for dives deeper than 100' or that come within 3 pressure groups of the NDL? Don't they mean deco? I am not familiar with PADI so I am not sure why they consider safety stops to be required? Do they specify what safety stops to do in certain scenarios? If so, what are they?

*Deco* stops are another matter as they are required and whether I would skip deco, well, that would depend on many things so I could not answer it unless specific scenarios were given