DM has a "Barney Fife" Moment

[Happy2BMe]

Did several boat dives last week in Grand Cayman. On the last dive, my buddy and I swam past the DM at about 50', who was showing some other divers some critters he had found. We weren't interested, so we swam on by. Back on the boat later, he asked us, "Didn't you guys hear the loud noise right after you swam past me?" We hadn't, and he told us that his inflater hose had "burst" suddenly, venting all the air from his tank. He and his buddy did a shared-air ascent, and all was well.

As I got off the boat at the end of the excursion, I noticed his reg hanging there, so I took a look at the "burst" hose. The edges were very clean - in fact, they looked more "cut" than "burst." As it happened, there was a videographer on the dive, and when we watched the video later, we noticed that our DM had been wearing his dive knife on his BC on his upper left chest RIGHT NEXT to his inflator hose. My buddy said she noticed that he had his knife out a lot during our dives throughout the day...

big ego...dumb mistake...happy ending...

 

[Jeff Toorish]

"Andy...can I have my bullet back?"

ROFL.

Great story. And another reason not to wear a knife near a hose.

JT

 

[Jason Ooi]

No tragedy happy ending .......

 

[Kim]

Those Razorfish are damned dangerous!

 

[Jason Ooi]

Poisonous.....

Those Razorfish are damned dangerous!

 

[Diver0001]

big ego...dumb mistake...happy ending...[/FONT]

If I were the DM I would just tell people what happened. But I think you would need to have a pretty thick skin to do that. You're already calling it a big ego and a dumb mistake without even really knowing what happened.....

Last December I was in Egypt and a diveguide had a major problem with his regulator and bugged out to the surface from 15 metres. For *days* afterward a group of other divers moaned about the DM's failure to handle is problem the way they thought was appropriate. I think they even went to the guy's boss about it. In fact they put the poor guy under *so* much pressure that he came to me one afternoon to talk it through. He was looking for my opinion because I was one of the few who said nothing about it other than to go to him after the dive and ask if he was ok.

Basically what happened is that his 2nd stage literally blew off the end of the hose. I think either the 2nd stage housing snapped off or the hose crimp snapped off but I didn't see it. What ensued was an enormous jacuzzi. The hose was wipping around in circles and he couldn't see anyone else. He tried to grab the hose but wasn't able and after a few seconds decided to bug out. And yet they moaned about but it because he did'nt shut down the tank and then swim to one of his clients to share air during the ascent instead of bugging out on his own octopus. I don't know how, but they somehow convinced themselves that going to the surface was the wrong thing to do in response to a catastrophic regulator failure.

I told him that people who have never had something like this happen are always the ones with the biggest mouths. I also told him that I would probably have done the same thing because as a DM guiding other divers (something else the big-mouthed group had no notion of) you never know if you can trust your clients to assist you and for your own safety it's better if you act as if you are solo.

So, even though this situation is very different than what you write about, the point is, no matter what you do as DM there will always be someone playing the armchair quarterback and making big statements about your performance based on little or no information and practically no experience dealing with similar situations.

So with that in mind, it's possible that your DM decided to keep quiet about it, and if he has had similar experiences to the above, he may have had good reason to.

R..

 

[grazie42]

Without having tried to, I´d imagine that it takes quite a bit of effort cleanly cut a pressurized hose uw...I have a hard time seing how someone could do that without trying...if it happend to me I´d propably blame my buddy...his fault for being so close that I cut my hose, instead of his, which would propably be what I was aiming for...

 

[dbg40]

The whole thing sounds suspect to me. I can't see any way that a knife being slid in and out of a a sheath could possibly make a clean cut in the same spot right through a hose. Hmm.

 

[scubadobadoo]

The whole thing sounds suspect to me. I can't see any way that a knife being slid in and out of a a sheath could possibly make a clean cut in the same spot right through a hose. Hmm.

That's exactly what I was thinking last night when I read this. I'm not saying anyone is fibbing mind you.

BTW, Diver0001, that was an excellent post above. For 7 years I worked as a tour guide in NYC and while I wasn't leading people underwater, I was leading them, and on almost every tour I would have to make some decision that would frequently make me look like a moron and I often chose not to share my reasons for my decisions with groups because they were on vacation and I wasn't.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Those airhose-cutting lobster are just evil... (According to my non-diving buddy, anyway)