Incident, panic and rapid ascent from 20 meters. Q&A

[Peter69_56]

If you and I were buddied on a boat in your home waters, I'd probably be guilty of #5, 6 and perhaps even 7 although I consider myself rather calm, collected and safety-conscious for the level of experience I'm at. Why? Because almost all of my dives are local, shore dives with my club or private diving from my own small boat, and I don't know any local "rules" for behavior on a boat in your waters. On the commercial boat outings arranged by one of the local LDSs here, you're expected to be fully suited up even before the boat leaves the harbor, so unless I were looking at the people around me to see how they did it, I'd probably do the same thing when abroad.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm a disproportionately unsafe diver when I'm in the water, though. I'm more than old enough to fully realize that I'm mortal...

I understand what you are saying and agree its not an absolute. The example I use in relation to suiting up is where there is say an hour trip to the dive site, normally most people suit up 10 min before the boat anchors up. But you are right, customs in one area are not a custom necessarily in another. If you did that here or the tropics, you would probably be dead from dehydration or heatstroke before you got to the site. That's where a good dive brief tells everyone how it is at that site. We have one site here, a boat dive, but if you aren't dressed ready before the boat leaves, you will miss the dive, as its only about 200 m from the pier. So yes I do understand and appreciate your point.

I guess its more putting all the bits together when watching divers. Its not usually just one thing that sets off warning bells, its a combination. If a diver has only a few dives under their belt, its a normal reaction as becoming better at diving takes time, and generally they will exhibit a combination of small things that show their inexperience. An "experienced" diver who is crowing about how great he/she is and has "apparently" done many dives, and then exhibits these signs would be a huge red flag to me. I still remember all the things I did and didn't do when I first became a diver, and I appreciated all the help I was given to assist me. Time usually makes us better at what we do. For some however their arrogance/ego and personality prevent them from learning.


Arrogance and overconfidence however I do not tolerate. In saying that, I have buddied up to one of these egotistical divers on occasions, simply to ensure that a beginner is not going to be stuck with them due to being the odd one out and thus potentially exposed to a high risk of the divers stupidity. Best handled by someone more experienced, however my preference would be to take on the beginner and help them relax and enjoy, even if it does shorten my dive time. I feel then I have given something back to a sport I love.

Just because someone is loud doesn't make them a bad diver or rude, its just the way some are. Same with quiet people, doesn't make them inexperienced. Its the total package that tells the story.

 

[TSandM]

Your buddy may have been experiencing what is called a "reverse block". Not being able to equalize on the way down is bad enough, but you can always go up and abort the dive. When you can't get air OUT of your ears, or your sinuses, it can cause pretty horrific pain -- my one experience with a reverse sinus block felt like someone had fired a nail gun into the front of my head. I could easily see someone deciding to get the heck out of the water in the face of that kind of pain, even though the likelihood is that you are going to damage something if you bolt.

I think the SB audience has been quite harsh with you about agreeing to dive with this fellow. It sounds as though the dive you guys contemplated was a very simple one, well within the capacity of an Open Water diver, and although I might have asked the fellow about his most recent diving experience, if I'd seen him around the dive shop a bunch of times, I probably would have assumed he was reasonable active. You guys stayed together (until you concluded it was unsafe to do so) and he did communicate with you that he had a problem and needed to go. The only real fault was that his ascent was too rapid. I would have debriefed the dive with the diver, made sure he was all right (not having nasal bleeding or vertigo or anything of that sort) and put the dive behind me as an experience.

I've had new divers lose buoyancy control and end up on the surface a number of times. So long as everyone has been well within NDLs, and everybody keeps breathing, it all turns out find. I DO hurry my ascent in that case, because you never know what the condition of the diver on the surface is, and I'd hate to slow my own ascent only to find, on the surface, that someone was drowning.

 

[Peter69_56]

I DO hurry my ascent in that case, because you never know what the condition of the diver on the surface is, and I'd hate to slow my own ascent only to find, on the surface, that someone was drowning.

Yes I agree, however we should differentiate (for new divers better understanding) between hurrying (quick ascent and no safety stop), and excessive haste or extreme ascent which exceeds all reasonable ascent rates and puts you at significant risk too. Hurrying is what I have done and in the situation I described to ensure all was well (and from the high speed wake in the water heading to the dive boat one could only assume if he could swim that fast he was reasonably ok and not drowning but perhaps panicking, yet in sufficient control to ensure he didn't drown).

To chose to place ones self at risk by an excessive ascent is something not done lightly. I would perhaps, if I really thought it was the difference between life and death, and I had no serious deco obligations, however if I had serious deco time, it would have to be someone close to me before I would even consider taking that serious risk.