amadeus00
Guest
On our last dive trip to Bali, my wife shot to the surface from 65'. We were about 20 min into our last dive for the entire trip and she had some ear problems. She signaled to me that here ear was "not ok" and she was going to "go up" a few feet. I gave the "OK" sign and watched her go up about 5', then 10' and then I saw here continue to rise. I immediately tried to swim up to grab her fins but only to fall short a couple of inches. I knew I had to let her go because it was an uncontrolled ascent. I really struggled in my decision to not pursue her rapid ascent and stayed down. The DM saw what was happening and motion to me to stay put while he went after her. He did his emergency ascent.
Another group of divers (3 including their DM) were in the near vicinity. The DMs were from the same shop and they had these rattlers they used to get your attention. They were communicating with these underwater. I could hear them rattling away in their own code. I had lost sight of my wife and my DM. I buddied up with the DM from the other group and stayed there with him. After a series of rattling, the DM pointed up to where my wife and DM was and signaled OK. After what seemed like an eternity, I saw my wife and DM coming back down.
We continued on with the dive for another 25 min and surfaced. I asked her what happened and she said it was a brain fart. She wanted to go up about 5-10' and was ready to let some air out but when she squeezed the release valve, her finger accidentally hit the inflator. She thought it was a BC malfunction and tried to pull the dump valve. The harder she tried to pull, the harder she squeezed, adding more air. I asked her to demonstrate her technique and sure enough her palm was on the inflator as she tugged away. She just didn't pull hard enough for the release. She said everything was in slow motion and it took forever to surface. She said she didnt panic and was more pissed at herself for a stupid mistake like that. I told her the next time she finds herself heading in a direction she doesnt want to be going, turn around and kick. She should have ducked her head down and kicked. That would have given me the couple of inched I needed to grab on to her.
The BC was a rental and she was not all that familiar with it. I bought her a Zena for our next trip, Cozumel. I'm thinking about making her wear her BC for an entire day to get her accustomed to it. You know, it's like making a football player carry around a football all day. She probably won't do it but I'm going to make sure I drill her on the new BC. Make sure she knows how to operate all the features.
Another group of divers (3 including their DM) were in the near vicinity. The DMs were from the same shop and they had these rattlers they used to get your attention. They were communicating with these underwater. I could hear them rattling away in their own code. I had lost sight of my wife and my DM. I buddied up with the DM from the other group and stayed there with him. After a series of rattling, the DM pointed up to where my wife and DM was and signaled OK. After what seemed like an eternity, I saw my wife and DM coming back down.
We continued on with the dive for another 25 min and surfaced. I asked her what happened and she said it was a brain fart. She wanted to go up about 5-10' and was ready to let some air out but when she squeezed the release valve, her finger accidentally hit the inflator. She thought it was a BC malfunction and tried to pull the dump valve. The harder she tried to pull, the harder she squeezed, adding more air. I asked her to demonstrate her technique and sure enough her palm was on the inflator as she tugged away. She just didn't pull hard enough for the release. She said everything was in slow motion and it took forever to surface. She said she didnt panic and was more pissed at herself for a stupid mistake like that. I told her the next time she finds herself heading in a direction she doesnt want to be going, turn around and kick. She should have ducked her head down and kicked. That would have given me the couple of inched I needed to grab on to her.
The BC was a rental and she was not all that familiar with it. I bought her a Zena for our next trip, Cozumel. I'm thinking about making her wear her BC for an entire day to get her accustomed to it. You know, it's like making a football player carry around a football all day. She probably won't do it but I'm going to make sure I drill her on the new BC. Make sure she knows how to operate all the features.
