Diving "Etiquette" and the lack thereof

[ScubaSteve]

My significant other, Lee, and I just returned from drift diving in the waters off Jupiter, Florida. Lee is a Master Diver with over 200 dives under his belt. In his entire diving career he has never had a major incident underwater... until yesterday. Upon descent, his BCD inflator hose gave way. He heard a pop as he tried to discharge the air from his BC.

I would personally think that somebody who has gone through and successfully finished all of the training required to call themselves a "Master Diver" would have not necessarily considered this an emergency. I am all on board with calling a dive when equipment malfunctions (even if it is NOT an emergency because it is just one on top of many possible malfunctions that when compounded....can be dangerous. However, I do not think anybody has asked if you guys (being the seasoned and independant divers that you are) performed a simple Buddy Check. I would expect that this answer is no but this may problem have been found out on the surface where a fix could have been done so a full dive could have been done.

He sensed that something was wrong but his descent continued until he landed on the bottom on his knees with 80 feet of water above him. He then tried to inflate with no lift response. Little did he know but his bladder was quickly filling with water. One of the other divers on the drift dive saw what happened and came over to show Lee that his inflator hose was detached and broken. And then the diver swam away and continued with his dive.

I would think that it should be more than "Sensing" something is wrong. As you sink (uncontrollably as I interperet from your description), you feel the pressure, should be watching your guages and buddy, should be watching your surroundings for anything odd.....and a runaway descent qualifies as odd IMO).

If the other diver did not sense that Lee was in any danger or thought he looked like he had it under control, then they did the right thing and went back to their buddy....after all their dive buddy was their responsibility. Lee was YOURS.

Yes, you read this right... the diver saw a fellow diver in distress and he swam off and left the distressed diver! Nice diving "etiquette." (Good thing Lee didn't tell me this while we were on the boat or I would have had some choice words for this idiot.)

See previous note

But I digress...Lee then decided he had to bale out on the dive due to the emergency situation. He made an attempt to swim to the surface. But his weights and lack of buoyancy worked against him. He decided to drop his weights and slowly swam to the surface.

Again, I do not hold the fact that he called the dive against Lee or yourself. I would have done the same likely. I also question whether this qualifies as an emergency (I say it does not but if he had been in 3000 feet of water and performed the same way.....well that would have been an emergency.

The good news is my seasoned and smart diver-love, Lee, was able to keep from panicking and did an emergency swim to the surface with his tank still attached. But what if he hadn't been able to do that. What if panic had set in as the other selfish diver left him there to figure out what to do? What if Lee had not been able to get out of this and had - - oh, I don't know - - died? How would that non-caring individual have felt for leaving a distressed diver behind?!

Again, Lee was your responsibility and you are assuming that Lee appropriately expressed to the other diver that he felt that he was in an emergency situation. However, since the ocean bottom was there to stop him due to his inability to swim up (overweighted likely), then I would stronly urge you guys to stay in calm clear waters practicing your skills (including situational awareness) so that you are both able to handle reasonably minor issues as they come up in more complex surroundings.

I guess my expectations that others would want to help their fellow divers are just too high. But come on people, diving is such a wonderful sport and there are so few of us that know, love and appreciate what the underwater world has to offer. We really must have high expectations that we will help each other in times of need. Don'tcha think?! I know I do.

See previous note.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My comment was partly based on the statement he did a CESA. That indicates a loss of gas. An broken bc inflator will not account for this. What would is if he dropped his weights and his gear. Then he would need to do a CESA. As it is he dropped his weights and swam the rig up as was later made clear. That he was unable to swim it up in the first place would indicate he was overweighted to begin with.

And Walter is correct. I don't play nice when it comes to safety. Nice doesn't always get through and as a result people get hurt or die. I'd rather piss somebody off and have them remember the lesson, advice, or comment and as a result live through the next issue than have them forget it and die a horrible death as their lungs fill with water and they know they are not going to survive. I can easily live with that.

And once again we have a situation where proper training would not have necessarily prevented this, but would have resulted in a diver with a problem having a buddy around to assist. Keep dumbing down the courses. Gonna be lots more of these types of issues.

 

[ScubaSteve]

And once again we have a situation where proper training would not have necessarily prevented this, but would have resulted in a diver with a problem having a buddy around to assist. Keep dumbing down the courses. Gonna be lots more of these types of issues.

But the buddy was not around. This is part of the problem. The buddy skills were not present on this dive which, had this been a serious problem, could have proven fatal. This is one of many things the OP and Lee need to work on...for both their safety.

 

[ScubaJoy65]

To those who think it is their privileged to "piss" people off, I must quote the lyrics from a song that definitely applies here by artist Lily Allen...

"Look inside
Look inside your tiny mind
Now look a bit harder
Cause we're so uninspired, so sick and tired of all the hatred you harbor

Do you
Do you really enjoy living a life that's so hateful?
Cause there's a hole where your soul should be
Your losing control of it and it's really distasteful"

Life it too short to be surrounded by those who force feed you their opinions just because they can...

 

[Thalassamania]

You folks have a potentially serious problem. It appears that your significant other does not have a realistic understanding of his abilities, and that you appear to be reinforcing his misjudgment. I recommend to you both to back down a bit and work very hard on your basic skills. Taking an Intro to Tech class or maybe even a Fundies class might save one or both of your lives,

 

[SelkieDVM]

Hatred? No hatred here, just trying to provide some thoughts on a situation as it was presented to me. I am happy to admit that I have a lot to learn. Perhaps you and your friend should also turn things around and look inward for some degree of fallacy as well.

 

[Firefyter]

Life it too short to be surrounded by those who force feed you their opinions just because they can...

You asked for their opinions, you weren't force fed anything. You've gotten a lot of great advice from the posters here, and from very experienced divers and instructors. Just because you don't like the taste of the medicine doesn't mean it's not good for you. Please take it to heart.

 

[300bar]

Good info was given indeed.
But the way of delivery.

SB is intended to be a userfriendly board,can't say the friendly part comes up sofar.

 

[Walter]

Yes, I'm a fairly new diver with close to 40 dives under my belt. What I guess I'm not is thick-skinned enough to deal with argumentative comments.

There's been a tad of argument, but not directed toward you. Comments and questions indicating the problem lies with your (and your buddy's) diving practices are not argumentative. They may not make you feel warm and fuzzy, but warm and fuzzy won't save your life.

I want to learn as I love the sport. But I'd prefer to learn without people being mean in how they "teach" me with their commentary and prose.

Would you prefer to learn without warm and fuzzy or would you prefer to never learn? It's your choice and it will only affect you.

Don't get me wrong, some of the comments have been quite insightful

I'm glad to hear you've learned something from this, please let us know what it was.

while others have been downright combative. Those types of comments make me wish I never posted my comments.

No one like to make mistakes. No one likes to have them pointed out to us, especially in public. We all make mistakes. We make fewer of them when we learn what those mistakes were. That saves us from repeating them in the future. When they're diving mistakes, correcting them can save our lives.

FYI - to those who've asked - while Lee was descending due to equipment failure that I was unaware of, I was on the surface struggling to get down.

Lee deserted you. You were not there to assist because you weren't able to be there. He should have waited and descended with you.

By the time I got to the bottom, I assumed the current had taken him on with the group and I quickly tried to catch up and find him. Perhaps I should have stated that from the beginning of my post but I did not see it to be relevant.

Very relevant and an excellent assumption on your part. On the other hand, how do you handle buddy separation? When you reached the group and found he wasn't there, you should have made a safe ascent to locate him on the surface.

Apparently no matter how I would state it, some of you lofty, more experienced divers would find a problem with what is written and a way to poke holes in it. Cest la vie...

It's not about poking holes, it's about learning and becoming a better, safer diver.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

But the buddy was not around. This is part of the problem. The buddy skills were not present on this dive which, had this been a serious problem, could have proven fatal. This is one of many things the OP and Lee need to work on...for both their safety.

Correct! Proper training to begin with would have insured that the buddy was there. Not only her training but his as well. A true Master Diver would not have descended with out his buddy and a thorough gear check COULD have revealed a bad inflator connection. No mention if it was his gear or rental but in any case another lesson. Inspect your gear thoroughly before you dive. Can it still happen? Yes but how long does it take to double check anyway. And another reason I don't dive pull dump inflators in open water.

And who the hell is Lily Allen? One of those bubblegum singer types? I prefer David Allen Coe, Johnny Cash, George Jones, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Ozzie, Ray Charles, and the King( cause everybody's got a little Elvis in em!).