I need your opinion

[Klopo]

Self-reflection

I had a vacation about half a year ago and was in Thailand.
I had booked a dive with a company. The following situation had occurred :

I was insta buddy with someone . This woman just had her 6th dive after your OWD degree and already seemed very nervous on the boat.
In the water we should follow the dive guide to about 20 meters depth. Already while sinking I saw that my buddy had a lot of trouble with the buoyancy. At the end of the reef we had dived, there was a rocky abyss that had led to about 50m. Once there I saw my buddy about 5 meters to the right of me and about 2 meters away from the guide suddenly begin to sink quickly and reacted very panic. I approached her and wanted to help, but she lashed out and knocked my mask and regulator out of my face. When I was ready again, I went again to the woman and could calm her down finally however we were there already on approx. 35 meters. I held her by her BCD and took over her buoyancy control. At 5m we did the safety stop and I had set the buoy and we finally surfaced without the rest of the group.
The dive guide was just watching the whole time and didn't react he didn't even come closer. Now my question, am I responsible to help my buddy in such a situation or would that be the job of the dive guide ?


Best regards from Swiss
Pascal

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

I would see me as her buddy as the "first responder" in case something is going wrong. The guide watching may be a fair attitude as long as you have everything under control. Consider that he has the overall responsibillity for the whole group.
Stand to be corrected.
Question: did you comunicate with the guide or he with you to signal whether you need help or to inform that you are leaving the group and surfacing ?

 

[Klopo]

I would see me as her buddy as the "first responder" in case something is going wrong. The guide watching may be a fair attitude as long as you have everything under control. Consider that he has the overall responsibillity for the whole group.
Stand to be corrected.
Question: did you comunicate with the guide or he with you to signal whether you need help or to inform that you are leaving the group and surfacing ?

After i hat my mask back on i told him that i need help to calm her. As it was my 10th or so Dive at that time i was quite nervous myself. But he didnt react at all.
But on surface he told me he didnt understand my signs.
After i got her BCD i gave the Guide the sign that i and my buddy will abbort the dive and shoot a buoy at the surface because we were not near the boat.

 

[Wibble]

Firstly, very well done for performing a "rescue". Classic panic and you handled it very well for someone with only 10 dives. By your description, she appeared to be in a bad way and you may well have saved her life.


The first rule of rescue is there shouldn't be two casualties. You should do what you can, but not if it could harm yourself. Had you backed away when she knocked your mask off that seemed perfectly reasonable that you could have been hurt.


Seems the guide was as much use as diving with an accordion.


Well done for doing what you did.

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

ok, i just had a look at your number of dives.
I have to correct myself: the guide should have come to your help. If she had 6 and you had 10 dives, you were in the beginner range and he should had an eye on you. Esp. after seeing you went down to 35 m.
If he did not understand what you were communicating, this was one more reason to come and check/support you.
And adding to what @Wibble said: very good job, not to say impressive for someone with such few dives.

 

[MB NZ]

As a paying customer, you are not there to babysit new divers. No disrespect to new divers, we were all there once. There is a difference between lacking basic competency to dive and an unforeseen critical event. You did the right thing and considering it was only your tenth dive, very impressive, well done! That said, with 16 dives between you at that point, the outcome could have been far worse for both of you.

 

[ssssnake529]

That's awful.

Good for you for saving your buddy.

The more I dive the more convinced I am to never dive with an "insta-buddy."

 

[Belzelbub]

The dive guide was just watching the whole time and didn't react he didn't even come closer. Now my question, am I responsible to help my buddy in such a situation or would that be the job of the dive guide ?

Tough to say. From your description of your and your instabuddy's experience levels, I would most likely expect the dive guide to keep an eye on you, provided there weren't more inexperienced divers in the rest of the group.

Now, having the dive guide just look on, without intervening, may seem odd. I don't know what was going through the dive guide's mind, but it's possible he saw it, and saw that you had it handled. Maybe would have intervened if needed, but maybe not.

As far as responsibility goes, it's not quite as cut and dry. You don't have a responsibility to put yourself at risk in order to help another. That said, assuming aid can be provided safely, then the closest and first to react is who should provide the aid.

I think you did a great job in recognizing the problem, and taking care of the situation. You now have done this, so have a better feel should you have to do it again. While a Dive Guide or DM may be on dives in the future, you should recognize that you are solely responsible for your safety. Yes, they are getting paid to provide a safe experience, but ultimately the responsibility is with the individual divers.

 

[RobPNW]

Doesn't matter what your signals are, if the dive guide sees you grabbing the person and bringing them up, it's pretty obvious what's going on. And if you're in charge of a group, why in the world would you assume a customer has things "under control"? The guide Sounds incompetent to me.

 

[johndiver999]

Are you responsible for attempting to help your buddy? I would say yes, you have a strong ethical responsibility to attempt to help. I would have done the same thing you did.

I also would have undoubtedly had words with the dive guide and the captain of the boat over the apparent failure of the dive guide to notice. But it is possible the DM had other problems he was involved with, and your quick actions resolved the situation so quickly that his intervention was not needed.

You should feel fortunate that you were able to save a life!