Fyi

[Genesis]

my g/f, who has had problems with breathing without her mask on and clearing, is not yet certified.

There are a few skills - and this is one of them - that you absolutely must be able to handle. If not, this is one of the possible results.

 

[sheck33]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


I disagree with all my being!

Three divers seperated before she reaches 5 ft of depth!

One? goes back up to look for her? While the other does what?

The second goes up? He releases her weights and blows up her bc while she is tangled. Well that should tighten things up really well. Anyway she knockes his mask off and he needs to surface to breath?

Heck at 5 ft she had enough gas for a week. She could have waited for some one with some brains to happen by.

I think they should add a line in the OW manual that tells people that ascents and descents are among the times when there are most likely to be problems and that's when divers need to be the MOST alert.

I too feel horrible for the family.

I feel horrible for all the other divers who are going to die because of such blatant stupidity and incompetance.

I also feel horrible for those of you who don't read this stuff and feel slaped in the face with the glaringly obvious issues

Yes what's done is done and we're going to keep doing it aren't we? What will make it better? or don't we want to?

Holly molly!

amen to that Mike.......

 

[norcaldiver]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...

Three divers seperated before she reaches 5 ft of depth!

Completely common in heavy kelp. Everyone drops thru and regroups under the canopy.

One? goes back up to look for her? While the other does what?

Waits on the bottom. Did it today. 3 of of out there, #1 disappears in the 5 foot viz. One stays put incase #3 finds his way back from whatever little excusion he went on. #2 accends to look for #3 on the surface or #3's bubbles.

The second goes up? He releases her weights and blows up her bc while she is tangled. Well that should tighten things up really well.

Right. That's one option(it should have been the last, but it is an option) Plus I'm pretty sure that in an emergency when all else fails, what's the first thing you do? Establish bouyancy. I'm sure the buddy was doing what he was tought,or at least what he remembered from some class, so good for him.
Now easily said from my desk here, what should have been done is this: Get under or near and behind the victim and freeflow your reg to blow a hole in the canopy. Then drop under the person and snap/cut the kelp that they are hung up in. Keep the hole open by freeflowing more if you have to, once the person is free(free from the kepl attaching them to the bottom, they may still have pounds of kelp on them) they should rise, if not, drop their weights.

[sarcasm]
Anyone else that doesn't dive kelp regularly want to chime in?
[/sarcasm]

 

[MikeFerrara]

norcaldiver,

You are correct that I don't dive in kelp. However I do know that, kelp or no kelp, during descent, ascents and other dynamic times during the dive are when problems usually happen. This is when you need to be ready.

I also know than an advantage of a three man team is that it leaves two to help the one with problems. However, if all three seperate all you have is a giant cluster in which nobody knows what any one else is doing.

If the methods employed by these three divers is SOP in kelp country (which I doubt), I'll take this story as testimony as to the effectiveness of these ill conceived practices. The article does state that the kelp has been a factor in other accidents. I am of the opinion that it's just a complication in the presance of already poor practices. I think these divers are going to get nailed by whatever hazards exist wherever they're diving and there is some kind of hazard almost everywhere you dive.

While getting buoyant is always a good option when having problems at the surface it's rarely a good idea at depth especially when tangled. It is however often the response of a paniced diver who hasn't a clue. Minimizing movement (including in the up direction) will avoid making things worse.

Don't get seperated on descent. The more hazards or the worse the vis, ect, the more important it is to be alert.

 

[divemed06]

Do you think it would be a good idea to practice some of the emergency skills in a more realistic, yet still very controlled way, during an OW class? I found that some of the skills done in the OW class didn't represent realistic situations (ie. entanglement). Any ideas on how these sort of things can be practiced in a controlled environement?

 

[Genesis]

is DO NOT THRASH OR PULL!

Figure out WHERE you're entangled and deal with it. When you first sense it, its ALL STOP!

If you do that, then look or feel for the entanglement, you almost always can easily get out of it.

If you ball yourself up the odds go down exponentially with the amount of fighting/thrashing you do.

I dive all the time near severe entanglement risks on and around wrecks - cables, fishing lines, steel leader (particularly nasty!), etc. I feel something hang up once in a while. The trick to not making it worse is to stop and figure out exactly where and how you're caught - as long as you have breathing gas the immediate issue is not an emergency. You can make it one if you damage your gas, your vision, or your ability to get out of whatever snarled you - but the original entanglement is rarely very dangerous all on its own.

 

[norcaldiver]

divemed06 once bubbled...
Do you think it would be a good idea to practice some of the emergency skills in a more realistic, yet still very controlled way, during an OW class? I found that some of the skills done in the OW class didn't represent realistic situations (ie. entanglement). Any ideas on how these sort of things can be practiced in a controlled environement?

Yes, and every class I've helped with has gone over the kep issue here. Infact, they take you thru the kelp and make you do the kelp crawl. They also show you and make you break the kelp, by bending it so it snaps, not by pulling it-which is impossible to do. But that doesn't mean that everyone will remember it 5 minutes after they get done with their 1st dive...sad
Mike's right above in that bad practice proved this one a bad deal. It could have been 1 fishing line rather than a buch of kelp and the diver outcome would have been near the same thing. She paniced, the buddies freaked and didn't think.
It is way too easy to sit here and speculate, because I might have freaked out too. I can only say what I would have done while thinking back on it.

 

[Diver0001]

norcaldiver once bubbled...

<snip>
[sarcasm]
Anyone else that doesn't dive kelp regularly want to chime in?
[/sarcasm]

Yes, me. I actually do have experience in kelp beds but ok, the questoin about kelp-protocol aside I have a couple of comments to make.

A diver panics in 5ft of water because of getting entangled in some kelp. Kelp that they knew was there, that they could see from the surface before the descent started, kelp that was so thick that they clearly should have known--all of them--that this could happen. Probably if this was a local dive for them then they were even trained for this but even assuming that the "training" was lacking or overlooked then it still seems to me if you dive in kelp then you need to accept the fact that you're going to get entangled sometimes; so I don't understand (a) why this diver was in panic; shallow, with lots of air and with a buddy there to help her and (b) why on God's green earth they were descending through a kelp canopy in the first place when this diver was obviously not comfortable about it and/or competent to dive in these conditions. I'd be willing to bet my testicles that they didn't discuss the possibility of getting tangled in the kelp before they started their dive. I wonder how things would have gone if they had..... I'd also be willing to bet my testicles that they didn't discuss getting out of it either.

Second comment is about a diver who needs to surface because his mask got dislodged. Hmmm. I think just saying it speaks volumes about the experience/skill level (cq quality of training) of the divers in question. I don't know who certified him but it seems to me that he shouldn't have been in the water at all if he had this problem.

R..

 

[Phish-phood]

Sad story, condolences to the family!

I used to think I was being a paranoid newbie by insisting that on free descents my buddy and I either wore a buddy line or were facing each other and holding hands so that we didn't get seperated but when I here stories like this it makes me more inclined to continue with this practice.

On some of my dives I have been worried about entanglements which is why I makes sure my gear is as close to me as possible, my dive knife is readily available and I dive with a buddy who keeps an eye out for me.

 

[diverjed]

Genesis once bubbled...
is DO NOT THRASH OR PULL!

Figure out WHERE you're entangled and deal with it. When you first sense it, its ALL STOP!

If you do that, then look or feel for the entanglement, you almost always can easily get out of it.

If you ball yourself up the odds go down exponentially with the amount of fighting/thrashing you do.

I dive all the time near severe entanglement risks on and around wrecks - cables, fishing lines, steel leader (particularly nasty!), etc. I feel something hang up once in a while. The trick to not making it worse is to stop and figure out exactly where and how you're caught - as long as you have breathing gas the immediate issue is not an emergency. You can make it one if you damage your gas, your vision, or your ability to get out of whatever snarled you - but the original entanglement is rarely very dangerous all on its own.

Amen to Genesis. DON'T PANIC! Reason things out as best AS possible. I have to ask why the buddies upon approaching the scene didn't cut her out?? Calm her down and cut. Seems the most logical approach to a kelp situation.

Just so happens I was diving in California this past weekend and got tangled up in some kelp, maybe not as severe as her situation but I just took my time and cut it out.