How to ascend with an unresponsive diver??

[Don Burke]

I respectfully disagree - removing a reg from an unconscious divers mouth and replacing it with another is likely to a) allow water into the divers mouth where the original reg may have prevented it, and b) possibly force that water into the divers lungs if/when the purge is pressed. This is particularly true if the diver is unconscious but breathing (exhaust bubbles).

My bust. I only put my regulator in front of him if his is out. I would not take a regulator out of someone's mouth even if he was not breathing.

Good catch.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

As one who's been in a situation where it was "surface with unconscious buddy and probably get bent badly" as one of the options, here's what I did: <good stuff snipped> (Victim suffered some cardiac event at depth, but was lucky and both resussitated and decompressed succesfully. He's no longer doing deco-diving, though....)

Voop, Just wanted to thank you for an excellent post. Very informative, and illustrates perfectly the way that that sort of problem might best be handled under those particular circumstances. Bravo Zulu.

Doc

 

[Rick Inman]

Why? won't the reg pop out on it's own if a negatively buoyant rescuer is using a positively buoyant victim's BC as the only source of positive buoyancy and loses control? I don't think my teeth are strong enough to prevent this from happening..... are yours?

I don't know. I've never kept my mouth shut long enough to find out.... have you?

Actually, what I meant was that whether you pop it out or it comes out on it's own doesn't matter. I was suggesting that either way, using the diver's own reg might mean the reg would remain in his/her mouth all the way up, where as if you use the LH, it would come out if you had to release the diver. Not saying one is right or wrong, just saying...

 

[scubatwinned]

(Victim suffered some cardiac event at depth, but was lucky and both resussitated and decompressed succesfully. He's no longer doing deco-diving, though....)

Couldn't say it better than Doc Intrepid. It is what I thought I would hope to do in that situation.

 

[Hank49]

Not directed at you, Hank, but that'd be really really bad dive-planning anyways: to have loads of hang-time and no surface support.

If the boat has disappeared while submerged, then unless you've got really really good vertical viz, how will you know at depth that the boat is "nowhere in sight"? And even if you get to the surface with the victim and possibly yourself bent, what good is that going to do either of you? Nada.

.)

I was creating a hypothetical situation as to when it would not be wise to go straight to the surface. Obviously if you had 45 minutes deco to do and you hadn't found the anchor line of your boat (assuming vis is not good and this is the only reference you have as to the boat's location), or you had been blown down current with a fast tidal change etc...as you said, it would do no good to hurry the victim to the surface if you may have to wait there 20 more minutes, or more, for the boat to find you. (with no problem you would send up a balloon and hang while doing your deco and the boat would come to you) And it would be bad for you, being most likely bent and getting worse as you would be no help to the victim. And even if you GET to the boat, how far is it to the deco chamber? My point was, as Bob pointed out, that there is no blanket statement as to how to deal with it. It's a case by case call. It's a noble gesture to say you will get the victim to the surface right away no matter what but what if he/she can't be saved anyway, and you kill yourself trying to fix what can't be fixed? And to all who say this is a crazy way to dive, perhaps there is a better example, but that's not the point.

 

[scububa]

Doc, voop, DeepSeaDan, et. al.

posts like these really remind me of how little I know, how much I have to learn and make this a great board...

Thanks gentlemen