Equipment Dive Knife in an emergency

[Trevor JC Brown]

Hello all, I was recently diving in Indonesia and my divemaster got hooked by a fisherman. He was carrying a line cutter but seemed to have a real hard time cutting the line with it.
I personally carry a serrated dive knife and had it out ready to help but he managed to cut free just as I reached him.
I know tech and cave divers swear by the line cutter but I think in this case the knife or scissors might have worked better.
Any thoughts? Anyone else have a similar experience?
I'd like to carry shears but they just rust immediately and don't seem to last very long.
I've seen people recommend garden shears and all types of implements but wanted to know if anyone else has a first hand account.

 

[davehicks]

ER Shears are better than a cutter or knife in some cases. Probably would have been better in this case. They can cut steel wire.

 

[BjörnBear]

Have you ever tried cutting a steel leader with ER shears? I think you’d be surprised at the results.

 

[Rilelen]

I carry a linecutter, plus safety shears in the cave, on different spots.

 

[divezonescuba]

A few years ago in Panama City Beach, I encountered a diver caught by a line with multiple leaders and hooks. The fisherman was attempting to pull him to the surface. One of the hooks was in the divers wetsuit arm. The diver either did not have a cutting tool or could not reach it as a result.

He used a light to signal a second diver who came to assist him. The second diver did not have a cutting tool either and came and found me. I used my tribolite to cut the diver loose. The diver immediately went to the ascent line.

It turns out that the line was actually from the dive boat that we had arrived on. When I got back on board the boat, the diver apparently had words with the person who had been fishing and everybody was quiet. I was surprised that the captain and the divemaster allowed that. Later, we told the dive shop manager that we would not book the boat in the future, if they booked any fishermen on the boat. It turns out that the fisherman was actually a guy who had just finished his dive.

A couple of things that I took away from the incident was always to have a light and a cutting tool and always position them where they can be reached by either hand.

I confess to having made a potentially serious mistake after I was signaled over by the second diver. I was too concerned about him not being pulled to the surface. I think the diver had dumped all the gas in his bladder, so the only thing that the fisherman could pull up was his arm. I should have stabilize the situation by first checking on the diver's gas status. Instead of doing that, I just immediately started cutting line. The last thing you need is someone out of gas, while you are cutting them loose. Perhaps that is why he made a bee line to the surface as soon as he was free.

 

[tursiops]

Thread 'Fishhook in Finger'

Jan 4, 2019

I encountered a piece of fishing line on the bottom while diving in Ambon Bay, Indonesia, on Dec 8, 2018. The water was a bit murky, and I could not see where the line went....which was to the surface. I tried to move it to take a picture of something, and the fisherman connected to the other end thought he had a big one, set the hook, and tried to reel me in via the hook in my little finger, left hand.

I'd just been at 104 ft, was at 50 ft at the time, and did not want to surface that quickly! I dropped my camera to hang from its tether, got my Trilobite off my chest strap, and cut the...

• tursiops
• Replies: 46
• Forum: Accidents, Incidents, & Near Misses

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[Waterwulf]

I always wear a RBFK (That's R for Really) on the inside of my left calf along with assorted line cutters and a smaller dive knife on my chest.

In the mid seventies, I was doing lite salvage work with my partner in local Florida marinas after storms would sink the moored boats. We'd retrieved items from inside the boats. I say boats but they were yachts. Most of the time, the items were legal. A few times, it was incriminating evidence of illicit relationships, other times valuable items like firearms or jewelry. The owners would tell us where to look and give us hatch keys, access codes and safe combinations. Once, the boat owner was a Cuban guy with Cuban body guards who hire us to get "the duffel bag from out of the wall over the seat after you unbolt the TV stand and then unscrew the wall panel. Don't look in the bag". (He paid extra!)

One time, we got into a rather large yacht and got the items the owner wanted. It was sunk in about twenty feet of water and a lot of it was still sticking out of the water. It was sitting pretty level and was still tied off to the dock. The lines were tight enough to play a tune on. We were on our way back out down a hallway type thing when the whole boat rolled over on it's side. We could hear stuff breaking off. Those basins where the marinas are located are mostly still water and that means lot's of silt.

We went from cruising with our lites on heading for the other half of our payment (COD) when our world rolled over and went so silty we could see maybe a foot with our lites on full power. Then we discovered the door out had closed and was jammed in the frame. No, it was not life or death. We could have felt our way back to a deck hatch and got out that way. But now, all kinds of stuff was stirred up and kept drifting into our faces. I for one wanted out now.

I took out my RBFK and stabbed it into edge of the door frame and pried the whole frame with the still jammed door in it out of it's mount. A little knife would not have worked. We surfaced and climbed out onto the dock. Then we got paid. Then we both laid into the owner big time for cutting one the mooring lines. It was an adrenaline release and we yelled at him until he ran to his car and drove off. No, we didn't tell him about his door.

That was the only time that I have used my knife for any emergency situation.

 

[elmo]

Line cutters are great for cutting line. Shears are great for cutting line really quickly. And reg hoses really quickly. And wings. And most other things. Knives, especially serrated ones cut most things too but not quite as quickly as shears. If you really need shears you need them, but be aware they can create an emergency when you’re trying to solve a problem.

 

[DCN]

As new divers, we have been quite careful of where we dive. Nevertheless, one of us managed to get entangled in some fishing line about 10 minutes into our dive yesterday. We have trilobite cutters, and got to use them for the first time.

Immediately, we thought "Oh, alright, we have a problem, we have to deal with it". We both stayed totally calm, we knew we had plenty of air and time since we had just started our dive. Fumbled a bit to get hold of the trilobite with thick drygloves, but we got the lines cut, and the problem was solved within a few minutes. We checked that everything was ok, and continued on with our dive and had a great time!

Valuable lesson learned: Always have a cutting tool, and just as important: Stay calm.

 

[LI-er]

My thoughts on cutting tools are that you need two, especially if you're solo diving or with unknown buddies or those who don't carry a knife. I do not carry a knife strapped to my leg for three reasons- 1) it's a snag/entanglement hazard 2) it's a bit of a reach and might not be available if you're really hung up, and 3) it's another thing that needs to be dealt with when gearing up and gearing off. Both of my cutting tools are attached to my BCD, one is a set of shears in a sheath ziptied to my corrugated BCD hose and the other is the XS Scuba combination knife/scissors in a sheath attached to grommets on my left BCD pocket.

I used the XS tool 3x in 700 dives. Once to free a fish stuck in a net, once to cut a broken thumbnail that I had snagged on a tank valve prior to the dive and one time once I got hung up on a bit of monofilament on a wreck in Miami, Florida.