Drowning

[gaeke]

After reading the story about saving the diver, I decided it was time to share my story. I was diving in St. Thomas and came as close to drowning as I ever want to come. I have only been diving for about six months and this happened on my 14th dive. I have been taking courses during that time and this was my first dive without an instructor in the water. A lot of mistakes were made by everyone involved, but I accept full responsibility as any diver should. I only share this because it may help someone else. So here it goes.

I was just passing through St. Thomas and it was the only opportunity I would have to dive, so I rented the equipment from a PADI certified dive shop and went out on their boat. There were two dive master/instructors in the water and 5 divers. I, of course was the odd man. The other divers were a man and his son, and a woman and her husband. He was doing his certification dives so I buddied up with the wife. On the first dive she had weight problems and we didn't get to take full advantage of the dive. My problem occured on the second dive.

The husband finished his certification shortly after the second dive started so she left me for him. I moved over to tag along with the father/son team. But before that, something else happened. After I got in the water and was beginning my descent, I realized that my secondary was freeflowing. I tried to stop it and the divemaster tried but it wouldn't stop. So I went back up to the boat. I sat down with the tanks and he replaced my regulator. I went back in the water and descended and caught up with the father/son. I don't know where the divemaster went. I followed them through the barge wreck that was the focus of the dive. When I came out the other side I started running out of air. I had been down maybe 10 minutes at around 40 feet. For those who have never experienced losing air, it is like sucking on a straw in a thick milkshake. I managed to get some air in my lungs, signaled to the father that I was out of air and started to go up. I dropped my weight belt, and exhaled on the way up. We were in rough seas with a 20 knot steady wind. When I cleared the surface and took that first big gulp of air, I got seawater instead. I started choking and gasping for air. I tried putting my face down and breathing through my snorkel but water also came in it. Now I am really having trouble breathing. I had very little air in my BCD because I am so buoyant, that it was bobbing in the swells. That meant that at the bottom of the swell, it would actually take me under the water. I was breathing to fast from choking to manually inflate it. At this point, I knew I was in big trouble and I knew that drowning was possible. I made a concious decision that I was not going to drown while I was on vacation in St. Thomas. I know at this point in writing this that any experienced diver reading this is making a mental list the the mistakes made. Anyhow, back to the story. I am about a hundred yards from the dive boat, but the remaining crew member is standing on the stern looking towards the bow and cannot see me. I can't use the whistle and he can't hear me yell. Because it is pulling me under, I have discarded the BCD. I see a mooring buoy about 50 yards away and by using a side stroke, manage to get to it. I somehow managed to get my arms around the top portion enough to lock my fingers. Of course it rolled over but my head stayed above water. Finally one of the dive masters popped up about 50 or so yards away and eventully saw me. At that point I was relaxed and breathing somewhat normally. He came over and retrieved me and the story has a happy ending.

At this point I was going to list all the mistakes made, but I believe it will be more interesting and instructional to read the feedback. I will add the following:
I did not take safety seriously enough. I did not go over the equipment with my buddy. The boat driver/equipment guy had a habit of putting the air/depth gauge under one of the BCD straps so that it wouldn't get caught on something while diving and get damaged. When I got my requlator changed, I didn't think about how much air was lost and he didn't change the tank. I DID NOT CHECK MY AIR GAUGE. My new buddy did not offer me his secondary and I was only thinking about getting to the surface. At that point I was not overly alarmed and made the surface in a relaxed state of mind.

So there you have it. I can only say to the other new divers that the limited training you get in your certification course will not prepare you for the real thing. It is one thing to do it in calm water with an instructor watching you and another thing doing it in adverse conditions with drowning as an option. Take the time to practice safety and don't rely on dive shop divemasters to protect you. That is not a slam on the divemasters. As we are taught, you the diver are responsible for yourself and your buddy. You risk your lives if you don't take it seriously.

On a positive note, I am leaving next week on a week long live aboard dive trip. It is the first time since the above that I will dive. I am looking forward to it. I will take with me the manuals for my next classes. I plan to become a Master Diver.

Safe diving to everyone.

 

[ShakaZulu]

Thanks for posting your experience....you learned a lot and will be a safer diver in the future. In aviation there is a "Death Zone" between 50 and 350 hours as a Private Pilot. I wonder how this reflects in diving. You get your certification, you think you know what you are doing, but you have to gain experience. Unfortunately experience gives you the test first and the lesson after

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Thanks for sharing your story, gaeke. For post-dive analysis, I think you should know that there were several things that you did correctly. You did signal to your buddy team that you were out of air. When you decided to ascend, you exhaled on the way up so as to avoid arterial gas embolism. At some point you decided that you needed to make a buoyant emergency ascent, so you dropped your weights. Once on the surface, your survival instincts kicked in. You did some problem-solving and realized that getting the attention of the crew member on-board was not possible given the conditions. You were able to locate the buoy, swim over to it, and use it to keep your head out of the water. Pat yourself on your back. You survived.

Now for the learning portion of our program. So what things could you have done differently?

Buddy Teams - Diving in a 3-man buddy team can be challenging. Making it work takes a concerted effort from everyone involved and requires excellent communication (during the dive and even before getting wet). It's no fun playing monkey-in-the-middle with one buddy swimming one way and the other buddy swimming in the opposite direction. When you decided to "tag along" with the father-son team, were they aware that you had just formed a 3-man buddy team with them? If so, at a minimum, there should have been prior discussions during the pre-dive briefing regarding air-sharing procedures, gas planning, lost diver protocol, etc. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that the DM who fixed your reg didn't offer to buddy up with you for the remainder of Dive #2.

Gas Planning - Be aware of your remaining gas at all times. No exceptions. Also, what turnaround pressure had your buddy team agreed upon? Are you aware of how much reserve gas you would need to make a safe, controlled ascent from a given depth if you needed to share your air source with your dive buddy? If you can't answer this question, please read Bob Bailey's excellent, free online article on Gas Management. Read the Gas Management article in its entirety. Take some time to understand the calculations. Heck, read all of his articles posted on his website. You'll be glad you did.

Air Sharing - When you found that you were nearly out of air, you gave the OOA signal to the father in your buddy team. Assuming that you were close enough to him at the time, you could have grabbed his octopus and shared air. (You were only a few feet away from him, right?) Sharing air is a basic skill that any dive buddy should be able to do. As you gain more experience in the sport, you'll learn to anticipate emergency scenarios. As you swim over to a diver (perhaps your buddy) who might be having gas issues, you should already be presenting your octo to him/her. Plan to take a Rescue Diver course with a good instructor in the future.

Safety Gear - Always have the appropriate safety gear for a dive. For a boat dive like the one you described, at a minimum, I would recommend a good quality whistle, a brightly colored safety sausage, and a signal mirror (Divers Alert Network sells a nice one that's integrated with their DAN tag). Consider getting a Dive-Alert air horn. Understand that if you don't have any gas in your tank, then the air horn won't work.

Overhead Environments - You state that you went "through" the barge/wreck. I understand that wreck diving sounds like a great time, but you haven't been trained for diving in such an environment. Make the right choice next time and don't do a dive for which you aren't trained. Discuss this with your buddy team and the DM prior to the dive. One aspect of being a safe diver is having the courage to say "No" to a dive.

Hurrying - When you rush things, you make mistakes. While reading your account of the on-the-spot reg repair, I got the impression that you were in a big rush to get back in the water. Slow down. Take the time to do a full head-to-toe pre-dive check before every dive. And another thing. Don't let anyone else rush you either.

I'll stop there and allow others to chime in on other learning points.

Have fun and dive safe.

Once again, thanks for sharing your story...and welcome to ScubaBoard.

 

[Unibrook]

Thanks for posting your experience....you learned a lot and will be a safer diver in the future. In aviation there is a "Death Zone" between 50 and 350 hours as a Private Pilot. I wonder how this reflects in diving. You get your certification, you think you know what you are doing, but you have to gain experience. Unfortunately experience gives you the test first and the lesson after

good point. This is another reference to the Complacency Kills theory. Often, newly minted divers/drivers/flyers are VERY careful and avoid obvious mistakes by carefully following protocol. Often, it is the complacent, EXPERIENCED person who skips the checklist or whatever and gets into trouble. People would be well-served to ponder this in all of life's endeavors. Remember that KLM pilot in the Canaries...complacency kills.

 

[wve]

gaeke: It is pretty easy to play Monday Morning Quarterback, but it does help to experience some of these events vicariously so that we remind ourselves that, "Yes, it CAN happen to me." Obviously, checking the SPG would have helped, but you did not panic, and you did enough right that you survived without injury.

I guess I am a little more bothered by the divemaster's actions, and I hope that this was a learning experience for him, too.

Granted, certified divers are ultimately responsible for their own safety. But professionals, such as divemasters, are supposed to anticipate and help to prevent problems like this.

It was nice of him to replace your regulator, but knowing that a free flow can empty a tank in mere minutes, he should have made sure that he did not hook the regulator up to a near-empty tank!

Next, he should have wondered where your buddy was, and if possible, should have offered to accompany you until you could hook back up with him/her. He surely should not have sent you back down to dive solo.

Finally, before you went into the water, he should have at least helped you do a pre-dive check to make sure you were truly okay to return to the water.

It is easy for newer divers to become distracted by gear malfunction. When these things occur, it is easy to get knocked out of your groove. In such cases, there is an inherent tendency to trust the more experienced diver, especially if he is a professional who is ostensibly there to look out for you. If he tells you, "There, I fixed it," you tend to believe him.

Now you know that you can't always.

So I am wondering whether there was any more discussion among the group AFTER the dive, and whether the divemaster realized he might have hooked you up to a near-empty tank?

 

[tstormdiver]

Air Sharing - When you found that you were nearly out of air, you gave the OOA signal to the father in your buddy team. Assuming that you were close enough to him at the time, you could have grabbed his octopus and shared air. (You were only a few feet away from him, right?) Sharing air is a basic skill that any dive buddy should be able to do. As you gain more experience in the sport, you'll learn to anticipate emergency scenarios. As you swim over to a diver (perhaps your buddy) who might be having gas issues, you should already be presenting your octo to him/her. Plan to take a Rescue Diver course with a good instructor in the future.

One thing I stress to the students I teach is if they see the OOA hand signal (slash across the throat), they should consider it an emergency situation & share air,.... regardless who the OOA diver is (buddy or another diver). Not that it is a situation to panic about, but it should be treated very seriously. If it is someone drilling them (which in that case it should have been at least said that it would occur during the dive- how tacky of them, if they do not) The mock OOA diver will exchange regs back & signal all is OK. If it is the real thing then the dive is over.... Period. If it is your buddy, then you ascend slowly & safely. If it another diver, then get the attention of your buddy if at all possible, signal the end of the dive, & then begin the ascent. Questions can be asked once safely on the boat or shore. I basically stress to the students that the OOA signal from any diver is not to be ignored, unless there is an extreme reason (which there should never, if ever be) it may cause harm to themselves.

 

[aascubagirl]

Thanks for sharing. I, too, am curious as to what discussion took place once everyone was safely back on board. Did the dm or the "dive buddies" have anything to offer?

 

[Darnold9999]

In a whole host of things that went wrong the glaring issue to me is that you surfaced alone and nobody followed you up. You gave the OOA signal to another diver, that diver should have at a minimum followed you up and made sure you were OK. Buddy or not. Going OOA, to me anyway, is a serious issue. Most divers no matter what their experience level will be having it happen for the first time and will be close to panic. To not donate a reg and/or follow them to the surface (safely) or make sure someone else is following them up - is just hard to understand, even if it is a stranger.

Second most glaring issue is "I didn't check my spg". That a certified diver would enter the water without knowing how much air was in their tank is stunning. Checking my SPG and breathing my regs is the last thing I do just before entering the water - every time no matter what. (with the only exception being a dive in cold weather entering cold water - but that is a special case that calls for a different protocol) It prevents me going in with my air turned off, it together with a knowledge of my tank size and planned depth tells me how long the dive will be. You had a freeflow, left the water and changed regs. You now have no idea how much air or even if there is any significant amount of air in your tank.

Almost any problem underwater can be solved if you have air. Conversly almost no problems underwater can be solved if you are out of air. I am incredibly absent minded so have managed to forget almost everything a diver could forget when entering the water. Mask, fins, weights, computer for example. Because I know this limitation I have a checklist that has exactly one thing on it before every dive. DO I HAVE AIR. Everything else can be solved on the fly.

Obviously you now know this, but what were you thinking????

 

[openmindOW]

Thank you very much, gaeke, for sharing your story with ScubaBoard. Other divers can learn a lot from reading about your experience.

You deserve some praise. First, I admire the fact that you are going diving again. That's great.

Second, I admire the fact that you exhaled on the way to the surface. That action may have saved you from a serious injury.

Third, you kept a clear head and you were rational. You were scared, but you did not panic.

My take on this is that several people failed to serve you properly.

First, it sounds as if your "dive buddy" left you to dive with her husband. If that's true, she failed you. Your dive buddy was with her Intructor when that happened, correct? Did the Instructor realize that yoiu were being abandoned by your buddy?

Second, your "new dive buddies" saw that you were in distress and that you bolted to the surface. They should have taken steps to come to your aid.

I do have several questions:

1) You wrote that you were out of air. Do you know that because you looked at your SPG and it read zero psi? Or, rather, did you feel that your tank was out of air? I wonder if you were hyperventilating. That's a normal condition that can make a diver feel as if he is not getting enough air even if his reg is providing sufficient air.

2) Did you attempt to power-inflate your BCD when you arrived on the surface? (Obviously, if you were truly out-of-air, the power-inflate would not succeed.)

3) You ditched your BCD/tank. Was the SCUBA unit ever recovered?

4) At the time of the incident, how much dive experience did you have?

5) How much time had elapsed between the dive in which you had your emeregency and the completion of your Open Water training class?

6) Where did you get your dive training? Was it all in St. Thomas? Did you do your pool/academic work in Georgia or in St. Thomas?

7) If I may ask, how old are you? You handled things with a clear had, so my take on this is that you have some life experience.

Thanks again for sharing your story.

 

[gaeke]

The response is pretty much as I had hoped. I am printing off the replies and will answer your questions later as best I can. A couple of quick answers first. I am 64 years old. I hunt and fish so I have had other experiences that put me at risk. We did not recover the BCD and the only discussion on the boat afterwards was to point out that I should not have discarded my BCD. I was just happy to be back on the boat alive and did not try to defend myself. Honestly, I was embarrassed by the whole thing. I will post more tomorrow. It is almost 1 am now. I will just add that I am not trying to defend anything that I did. I only offer this story so that someone may benefit from my mistakes.