Ever been saved by your buddy?

[tstormdiver]

1. What is your total number of dives- 140

2. How many times have you or your buddy saved the other from a potentially lethal or serious injury situation.- 1

3. What were the circumstances surrounding the event.It was my first time diving my LP85 CF doubles, I had dove them as singles & finally put them together. I was not prepared for how negative they were. My buddies (a couple of cops & technical divers) & I jumped in. When it came time to submerge, I let all the air out of my wings. I immediately began to sink uncontrollably. Of course, as I sank, I became more & more negative. I became task overloaded trying to balance the tanks (didn't know to go down horizontally, was trying to go down feet first), fill the wings, take the squeeze off my drysuit & equalize my ears while dropping. My buddies followed as quickly as they could. I finally got myself stopped at 90ft (the bottom was 95ft). Needless to say, I was a tad freaked & my breathing was way out of whack. Unable to gain control of my breathing & near panic, my buddies helped to get me oriented properly & helped me to begin a slow ascent. We all made it back to the surface safely & I decided to sit out for a few hours. After collecting my composure, I then made a shallow dive in the doubles. Though it's been a slow & sometimes frustrating journey, I am finally finding myself doing much better in those doubles. If not for my buddies helping me get situated to surface after the free fall, I most likely would have panicked & bolted to the surface form 90ft (not a good thing to do). That episode has made me a much more cautious & better diver.

 

[PvtStash]

3. It was my first time diving my LP85 CF doubles, I had dove them as singles & finally put them together. I was not prepared for how negative they were. My buddies (a couple of cops & technical divers) & I jumped in. When it came time to submerge, I let all the air out of my wings. I immediately began to sink uncontrollably. Of course, as I sank, I became more & more negative. I became task overloaded trying to balance the tanks (didn't know to go down horizontally, was trying to go down feet first), fill the wings, take the squeeze off my drysuit & equalize my ears while dropping. My buddies followed as quickly as they could. I finally got myself stopped at 90ft (the bottom was 95ft). Needless to say, I was a tad freaked & my breathing was way out of whack. Unable to gain control of my breathing & near panic, my buddies helped to get me oriented properly & helped me to begin a slow ascent. We all made it back to the surface safely & I decided to sit out for a few hours. After collecting my composure, I then made a shallow dive in the doubles. Though it's been a slow & sometimes frustrating journey, I am finally finding myself doing much better in those doubles. If not for my buddies helping me get situated to surface after the free fall, I most likely would have panicked & bolted to the surface form 90ft (not a good thing to do). That episode has made me a much more cautious & better diver

What level of risk do you think it might have been? A quick descent to 90ft., bottom time of a handful of seconds and then an immediate surfacing? Do you think the risk would be increased any if this had been your 2nd dive of the day?

 

[robint]

1. currently 300+
2. happened on dive #9 for me, dive #15 for my buddy

My hubby and I had just gotten OW certified a few months earlier and he immediately did is AOW. I started my AOW the next month and he was buddied with me for the NIGHT dive. Water was freakin' 60 degrees, air temp maybe 40 degrees, and I had total "task-loading" issue. We decended and I was looking at my gauges, supposed to stop at 35' and level off. As soon as we got underwater I forgot everything I had been told about pointing my light at the gauge to read it!!!!!! LOL Not funny then, but I couldn't read my gauge and I didn't know what to do. All I could do was look at it and clear my ears, look at it and clear my ears... It never occurred to me that I was clearing my ears because we were freefalling to the bottom! My hubby stopped me at +60' and pointed his light at the gauge and added air to my BC to level me off. I realized what happened then and started adding air to my BC, but overcompensated and started rising, and rising, and rising..... He had to grab me and grab the wall to stop me at around 20' (losing skin and injuring his fingernails which he won't let me forget about to this day!). I finally got it together and finished the dive. The worst part of this is that my husband is now and instructor and tells every class he teaches about "task loading" and uses me as an example.
Now I LOVE night dives..... but that first one almost killed me! boy, did I learn alot that dive.

robin

 

[Pearldiver07]

1. What is your total number of dives

a bit over a 1000

2. How many times have you or your buddy saved the other from a potentially lethal or serious injury situation.

My buddy had to help me once several years ago. I suffered a minor barotrauma in the ear.

3. What were the circumstances surrounding the event.

Because we were at depth (80+), the changes are much more gradual. It was during a very cold dive when I hadn't noticed that my ears weren't clearing too well. When the ear finally cleared during ascent, I had a sudden and extreme case of vertigo. My buddy did exactly what he should have. When he saw the look in my eyes (or was it my eyes going goofy?), he asked if I was ok. I signaled problem so he grabbed me and we did a very controlled ascent to the surface while I fought back serious nausea.

Fun for all, but it verified my decision to have him as my buddy all these years.

 

[tstormdiver]

What level of risk do you think it might have been? A quick descent to 90ft., bottom time of a handful of seconds and then an immediate surfacing? Do you think the risk would be increased any if this had been your 2nd dive of the day?

I was certainly very lucky I didn't blow my eardrums on the way down. I was probably on the bottom in less than 2 min. (I don't really know how long it took to drop down, I was quite busy). With the troubles I was having balancing the tanks, If my buddies hadn't been there to help me get straightened out, in the state I was in, I would have certainly panicked & most likely bolted from 90ft. Even though I was at the bottom for less than 3 minutes, it's obviously still not a good idea to come up that quickly form that kind of depth. To come up too quickly from almost any depth can be dangerous, if not life threatening. I would also say that because of the speed of my drop, I was quite narc'd out of my mind (if I descend slowly, then narcosis is not such a problem), thus not thinking clearly & that was adding to the panicky feeling. My buddies kept a firm grip on me to keep me from rushing up too fast. Once I got to about 50ft, my head cleared & I was able to finish the ascent without immediate assistance. I would say the situation was potentially very dangerous form the inexperience I had with the doubles, the quick descent, the narcosis, the panic that was building. None of which is a good thing to have happen at 9ft, let alone 90ft. What should I have done? I should have dove very shallow & then worked my way to the deeps, as I became comfortable. As for whether there would have been more danger, should that have been my second dive,... well I would say most likely, yes it could have been more dangerous, considering that I would have most likely had some residual nitrogen in my system.

 

[Guba]

200 dives
Number of "serious" situations? About 2
The first was in the Gulf of Mexico. My buddy had an aneurism shortly after entering the water and I assisted him back to the boat, though he died in the water before we could get him aboard.
The second was off Playa del Carmen. I had a tank malfunction that drastically restricted the flow of air (won't use that charter again...they don't inspect their tanks near often enough!). My "instabuddy" was in clear sight but up-current, so I resorted to the nearest, most-experienced person around, the divemaster, who just happened to be directly under me. We made an uneventful ascent together.

 

[Papa_Bear]

Around 400 dives

Helped a few new divers in OOA situations or panics, and towed buddies back to boat on a couple of occasions, and helped get a bent buddy out of the water.

Have been saved from panic during a good lesson on why not to dive deep on air when I was very narked at 45m, and was recently rescued by a buddy when my regs seized up at 25m due to a tank rusting nitrous oxide and clogging my filter, causing a compete air blockage.

What are you talking about Nitrous Oxide? You sound like you dive with Laughing gas! In 400 dives you have had OOA's. panic's, and a Bent diver? You need to dive with a different group or take up checkers! It really sounds like a group of out of control untrained divers! I have seen very few OOA new divers because they are freaked about their air! Not saying it doesn't happen, but at the rate you are talking about, I would rethink something!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I've logged over 1,900 dives ... ranging from very simple dives with very new divers to very deep, complex dives with very experienced divers. I've never had to be rescued, and have been involved in a few incidents that I would prefer to think of as "actions that prevented the need for a rescue". I've brought three divers up on my air supply ... from depths ranging between 70 and 90 feet. In all three cases, they were not OOA, but rather were sufficiently low that they would not have been able to make a safe ascent without running out. Putting them on my air helped control the situation and prevent it from escalating to a crisis. In two of those cases, once we reached safety stop I helped them go back on their own air and complete the dive without incident.

I once had to deal with a student in full-blown panic ... that was probably the closest I've ever gotten to a serious incident. Fortunately, it ended without injury and the student decided on his own to quit diving (he was panic-prone and probably would've ended up hurting himself or someone else eventually).

I've arrested accidental ascents many times ... primarily because I dive with a lot of brand new divers who somehow managed to make it through OW class without ever figuring out that buoyancy control thing ... some of those people went on to become very proficient divers, with a little coaching and practice.

The point is, really, that if you maintain a good awareness of what's going on around you, you can usually spot an accident in progress, and take simple steps to prevent it from becoming an accident ... thereby eliminating the need to actually rescue anybody.

Stuff happens ... especially to newer divers who haven't yet acquired the knowledge and skills to know how to prevent it from happening. Most accidents start out as minor incidents that are easily remedied if caught at an early stage of development.

NAUI teaches the concept of self-rescue ... which basically means that the best accident is the one that you recognize in progress and take action to stop before it happens. All it requires is a reasonable level of awareness, and a willingness to be proactive ... then, when you reach the surface rather than having to call an ambulance, you get to call for a pizza and beer and talk about how to make sure it doesn't happen again ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ClayJar]

I was very narked at 45m, and was recently rescued by a buddy when my regs seized up at 25m due to a tank rusting nitrous oxide and clogging my filter, causing a compete air blockage.

What are you talking about Nitrous Oxide? You sound like you dive with Laughing gas!

Obviously, he was attempting to say that there was corrosion in the cylinder and that it accumulated on the sintered filter on his regulator's first stage, resulting in his regulator not being able to provide breathing gas at the required rate. The oxide was obviously not nitrous oxide but rather either aluminum oxide in an aluminum cylinder or plain old rust in a steel cylinder.

(Wouldn't it have been better to explain the mistakes instead of mocking them?)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

(Wouldn't it have been better to explain the mistakes instead of mocking them?)

The Raging Bear doesn't ever explain anything ... he just tells everybody else that they're wrong ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)