Dropped weight belt - how to react

[mattiedread]

More often than not my buddy is my wife, so I absolutely would have done everything in my power to prevent a rapid ascent. I only have 90 something dives, and would probably step in front of a bus to push my wife out of the way so take what I say lightly.

 

[Conor]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...


How far up in the water column would you say you went to retrieve your buddy? Did your buddy start out right away pointing toward the bottom and finning for his weight? Or was he struggling for a few moments (while rising rapidly) to figure out how to let air out? If in fact you ascended a number of meters chasing after your buddy ... the DMs advice was completely sound - about putting yourself in jeopardy.

You said you were new but being AOW and having 20 dives, it might be appropriate for me to ask if you own your equipment. Then if yes, did the alarm on your dive computer go off? Do you have PC download capability - care to share your profile?

Unfortunately I don't have a computer yet, but I'll do my best to describe the incident.

I was able to grab my buddies ankle from the horizontal position and was essentially pulled into a vertical position by the time I had dumped my air. This bought my buddy a couple of seconds and reminded him to dump his air, during which time I was pulled up by at most a meter over about 5 seconds. it was lucky that we were turning at the time and so were within reach of eachother. After dumping his air we had neutral or very slightly negative bouyancy (which shows I was over weighted, which is a symptom of getting shop weghts which increase in 4lb increments), we stayed there for 10 or 20 seconds before he realised he could fin down.

I think my buddy was a bit confused at the time he started to ascend, he had only done five dives in the preceding days after a gap of a year and was at least a little over weighted 20lbs instead of the 17lbs he was using the day before (the inflexibility of rental weights). If I had been unable to slow things down I don't know how much he would have been able to control his ascent, it may have been fine in which case at least we got an extra 15 mins in the water.

ERP - I agree with you, if you know your buddy is safe at the surface and isn't going to get swept away by the current then you should do the safety stop, if he/she in in distress or danger then I guess continue the ascent, missing a safety stop isn't as bad as surfacing 3 minutes too late to save your buddy.

 

[Texass]

You may have only 20 dives so far, but that will change. What you appear to have already is the ability to think quickly and rationally. That's a skill some people never aquire.

 

[Big-t-2538]

You knew that you had to let-go if you were ascending too quickly. The fact that you were able to maintain control and prevent a potentially more hazardous situation is what you should focus on here. I personally have never had weights fall off, nor has anyone I've dove with. I've seen people forget to take their belt on a dive, but in a cold water wetsuit...he realized it when he couldn't get below 5 feet. MY suggestion for future dives would be to figure out a way of securing all of your weight, and seeing if you can't have some un-ditchable lead on your rig.

 

[Norda]

First, let me say that this board is great, what a wealth of information!

Now, with that out of the way... I have had the exact same question after having a very similar incident. My buddy and I were taking our first OW class for drysuit training. Anyone that has dived with a drysuit knows that you have to practically relearn your bouancy skills. While we were only in 20 fsw, she had her feet go up which caused her to begin ascending. As taught she did the quick sommersault to regain control, but at this depth she was clearly headed for the surface. Both the instructor and I grabbed her at the same time, which made me feel better that I did react properly in stopping her because I did have second thoughts.

Afterwards, I thought much about whether this was really the right thing to do. Here is my question... what if your buddy was really trying to perform an emergency ascent and you actually grab them and slow down their ascent? Depending on the issue, it seems this would be the wrong reaction? Aside from needing to make this decision based upon injurying yourself, is there any protocol for determining whether your actions may further injury your buddy? It seems to me that you don't have much time to analyze the situation. Just curious on what you all think.

 

[jepuskar]

Ok, let me be the one to throw a fork in this.

Lets say I ditched some weight intentionally for the sole purpose of making to the surface ASAP. I certainly would not want someone grabbing my ankles keeping me from getting to the surface...this would probably cause me to PANIC, as I probably already near that mode.

Now, if my weights came off unintentionally, thats a different story, but if your not looking how do you know? I guess if the person is looking up that could be a sign that they want to get to the surface, but if they are looking around for something/someone to grab on too then thats a sign they dont want to get to the surface.

I think I read in Rodales Scuba Diving magazine that a fast ascent is not that much of a problem. Let me search thru the last 2 issues to support this before you guys jump all over me...so relax until then.

Jason

p.s. Sorry Norda, just read your last post....seemed I repeated what you said.

 

[Big-t-2538]

Norda once bubbled...
First, let me say that this board is great, what a wealth of information!

Here is my question... what if your buddy was really trying to perform an emergency ascent and you actually grab them and slow down their ascent? Depending on the issue, it seems this would be the wrong reaction? Aside from needing to make this decision based upon injurying yourself, is there any protocol for determining whether your actions may further injury your buddy? It seems to me that you don't have much time to analyze the situation. Just curious on what you all think.

Here's my 2 cents.....If for some reason, your buddy WANTS to do an emergency ascent, there is obiviously something seriously wrong. A pre-dive session with your buddy going over Out-Of-Air Situations/gear malfunctions/etc. should be part of your routine. Obviously if your buddy hasn't told you that he's doing an emergency ascent, there would have had to be a communication break-down somewhere. This procedure should be an absolute last resort and should be something that only has to happen if there is no buddy around. Proper planning and preparation is a big key to preventing u/w incidents, plus it is a big key to stress handling an unforseen situation if you have gone over procedures with your buddy.

Personal experience would be this....during my NAUI master diver class, we (I've been diving with the same buddy for almost a year) began to work with a reel and overhead environments. We tied off at approx 65 feet where viz was approx 15ft. (we're in Ohio). We headed down into an old rock wrushing tower in a quarry and as soon as we hit 75 ft. the water was pitch black. What was really wierd was this...as soon as we hit that black water, As I was reaching over for my buddy's shoulder, he grabbed my shoulder at the same time. This was something we discussed on the surface, not to mention reviewing all of our u/w communication skills for zero viz. Had we not done that, I don't know how we would have handled the situation, let alone what might have happened if we had a gear malfunction or an OOA emergency. Anyway, we completed our dive and enjoyed our experience, not to mention learned a lot about how important a pre-dive discussion was.

I guess my response to your question is, the proper reaction will be triggered by what the situation is, how you have pre-determined to handle it, and stress-managment plus sound decision making.

 

[Conor]

I guess when I think of why would anyone want to deliberately think of ditching the weights and heading up I am thinking out-of-air etc leading to emergency swimming ascent, which I guess would mean a couple of indicators.

Someone swimming to the surface would be finning, someone unexpectantly being lifted to the surface would not. Maybe this could be extended to where you are looking, I would expect to be looking up during a CESA, but looking down after dropping my belt.

10M down a CESA is an option (at which depth I may well have let him go, his rate of acceleration would be higher I expect and the risk associated with rapid depth changes to us both is greater I believe), at 20M surely if your buddy is close enough to grab your ankle you would rather grab his octopus than ditch your belt and start swimming up ( I could be wrong, but I only see a CESA as the first out-of-air option at shallow depths).

As I said before I am only a newby, but these would be my gut feelings.

I guess the question is 'What are the reasons for ditching a weight belt ?' followed by ' What should a buddy do ?'

 

[DivePartner1]

tampascott once bubbled...

Even with worn velcro and no snapping buckle system, it would be a lot harder for weights to fall out of a weight integrated BC.

The prime culprit I’ve seen are ScubaPro BC’s before they added buckles, particularly if they’re heavily laden. Horizontal swimming has gravity working against the Velcro.

QUOTE]tampascott once bubbled...

Do you agree with proper weighting you should be able to kick down and get your weights? [/QUOTE]

That depends on where you lose them, near the bottom or over the reef wall.

 

[Genesis]

for an intentional ditch at depth is as a LAST RESORT if you are OOA and have no buddy within vision.

Just about ANY other scenario is probably an accidental ditch.

If we see each other and are in fact being buddies (close enough that I can count the distance between us in feet on my fingers), then OOA is not an emergency. Its inconvenient, but I simply hand you my primary and breathe off my backup. If I'm OOA for some reason you give me whichever reg you prefer (and if you don't hand me something, I'm going to TAKE something, and the something will probably be what's bubbling! I expect the same!)

If someone is bolting for the surface as a result of panic then stopping them, IF YOU SAFELY CAN, is almost certainly going to save them from injury or worse.

The key here is that the original poster was well-aware of the risk of attempting the stop AND WAS PREPARED TO LET GO IF THEY COULDN'T ARREST THE ASCENT.

The FIRST rule of rescuing someone, no matter what kind of rescue it is (land, water, etc) is not to create TWO victims out of a situation where there is already one!

As for being able to kick down and get them, much depends on where you are and what you're wearing. In a light wetsuit or drysuit, yes, if you are properly weighted. In a HEAVY wetsuit at depth, yes as well, provided you dump the BC's air first (and can do so quickly enough to prevent the runaway from getting going) In that same heavy wetsuit within 30' of the surface? Quite possibly not.

This assumes there is a floor at a reasonable depth, of course