Incident Yesterday

[Uncle Pug]

Good job Lamont! Care to share the location?

 

[wcl]

Regardless, his buddies should not have left him...even on the surface. They should have followed him back regardless of what he said.

Hi,

For my part, I concur.

In my experience (and in all the first-aid and first-responder training I have received in other passtimes), people will all too often deny injury or distress when in fact they are in need of assistance.

As a NYC Auxilliary Police Officer and Sergeant, I have seen people bloody and barely able (or unable) to stand try to say they are fine, they don't need any help. Must be an evolutionary holdover (never show weakness, don't look like the slow gazelle for the lions ...).

In any event, I have learned to be skeptical of an aid candidate's attestations of health and wellbeing.

Additionally, once things have already gone wrong, I have found it wise not to be complacent that it's now only going to get better, but instead to deliberately refocus on a clean abort.

In skydiving (admittedly marginally less forgiving than scuba) we had a motto: "When in doubt, pull it out."

Better to be alive and well, embarrassed and having blown a jump/dive, than roll the dice on whether this time will be the one where someone doesn't make it back. If you went in with a buddy, you stay with them till they are all the way out safe so long as that choice is available.

Regards,
Walter

 

[lamont]

Anxiety as a result of poor training comes to mind first. As I see it, the poor training also resulted in him being overwieghted which caused him to over inflate his BC which as I have noticed on several occasions(since I wear a jacket BC) does reduce the ease of breathing. I think your assessment of the BC scenario is accurate. Curious to know if you released any air from his BC or released any buckles or the cumberbund?

No, I didn't really process that it might have been BC constriction that was causing his breathing issues while it was happening. I was more concerned at the moment that he wasn't having a heart attack and getting him to stop kicking and tow him back to shore.

 

[boomx5]

Better to be alive and well, embarrassed and having blown a jump/dive, than roll the dice on whether this time will be the one where someone doesn't make it back. If you went in with a buddy, you stay with them till they are all the way out safe so long as that choice is available.

Regards,
Walter

One of our rules is anybody can call a dive at anytime for any reason. I rather load up doubles, deco bottles, scooters and the rest of the gear, drive a couple hours to a dive site and have my buddy tell me he's not "feeling it" and call the diveand drive all the way home. I don't want to have to make that call to my buddies wife with the bad news theat something happened because he felt pressured to dive when he should have called it.

 

[ReefGuy]

In Bradenton recently, the same type of situation ended up with a dead diver.

It was a shore dive in easy water (15' depth, 200' from shore, no current, lots of people on the beach). A group of divers went on, and one came back (problems breathing). He had a heart attack and died 10' from shore.

Better safe than sorry.

 

[lamont]

In this story like so many others, it's easy to jump to conclusions and without hearing the other side of the story sometimes we fall into a trap.
How far from the beach were you? From what you indicated it was close.
You yourself said that there were no waves or current that his "buddies" could expect to make his return difficult.
Did he ask for any help before separating from his group?
Is it possible this is a regular occurence with this diver? Did he seem to be out of condition?
The only mitigating conditions I can think of are that this might have happened before, that they knew he was with a BC and an exposure suit and that technically the dive had not yet started.
I must admit I've seen a couple of incidents where a diver in a group has been unable to descend due to equalisation problems, a DM has accompanied them back to the surface, seen them OK and swimming in the direction of the boat, and then the DM descended and rejoined the group to continue the dive, leaving the diver alone at the surface.
If I was the DM I'd probably watch the guy all the way back to the boat. OTOH if I was the desisting diver I'd probably tell the DM to go ahead and descend so as not to shorten the dive for the waiting divers.
It all comes down to probable risk & liability evaluation at that moment. This can be very subjective.

Yeah, sure. I had sinus equalization problems on one dive and I left the group to exit the water on my own. It was, however, my choice, and when I told my buddies to head down without me and that I was fine to get out on my own I was doing mental risk calculations in my head. I knew that I was going to be 'solo diving' back to the beach and I paused and did a mental and physical assessment of how I felt before I agreed to separate. If the tables were turned I'd be happy to escort a buddy back to the shore if there was the slightest question. Any delay in starting my dive is more than offset by eliminating the risk of finding a drowned buddy when I surfaced (bad dive).

The guy was not excessively out of shape, he looked pretty average for an american (which isn't good, but he wasn't morbidly obese or anything). And even though it was calm and 'easy' you can still drown in inches of water and they were out in around 6 feet of water, which is more than enough. And it wasn't like they offered to escort him back and he refused. He turned back, complaining of shortness of breath, and they gave him crap about being a wuss and took off. I really can't excuse that -- even if the guy lacked the cardiovascular fitness to dive and had done this before, he was really getting into trouble and needed help and his 'buddies' bailed on him. Based on what I saw in this incident I don't see there's another side to it at all. In that situation the least you can do is escort the guy out of the water and then not invite him to go diving again if that's the issue.

 

[lamont]

For example, if the diver heading back, before getting panicky had muttered "you two go on, I'm heading back", and appeared to be in control of himself, would that change the situation or not?

Yeah, but at one point he was splashing around complaining "I can't breathe" and his buddies were swimming away. Maybe if they were both deaf and had hearing aids, I could understand it. They looked like late-20s, early-30s, so I doubt it.

 

[lamont]

Good job Lamont! Care to share the location?

Edmonds Underwater Park. Sunday, a bit before noon, maybe 10:30-11am when we were exiting.

Calm day. We did have some pretty ripping current for Edmonds earlier in the dive when we were near the south end of the park -- but when we were exiting this incident happened in the lee of the jetty.

Bob (NWGrateful) was diving there that day, but he was off on his dive when it happened (and coincidentally it was Bob's rescue course that I took a couple months back...)

 

[jbd]

No, I didn't really process that it might have been BC constriction that was causing his breathing issues while it was happening. I was more concerned at the moment that he wasn't having a heart attack and getting him to stop kicking and tow him back to shore.

I think you did the right things and you did it decisively. Good job!

To add to your bag of tricks, keep in mind the BC constriction issue. Even if he had been having a heart attack, anything that may make the patient feel like it is easier to breath is of some benefit although certainly not curative.

From the experience I noted in my first post I can say with out a doubt that releasing the buckle and the cumberbund does make it much easier to breath.

I think you were correct to be concerned about him possibly having a heart attack based on what you observed happening.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

For example, if the diver heading back, before getting panicky had muttered "you two go on, I'm heading back", and appeared to be in control of himself, would that change the situation or not?

To add to what others have said ... no, it wouldn't change the situation.

Denial is something that all humans are good at. In diving, it shows up often ... in people who are on the verge of panic, those who don't want to admit that perhaps today isn't a good day to dive, and all too often in those who are feeling symptoms of DCS or other dive maladies but don't want to appear to be a wimp.

As a dive buddy, there's no such thing as being "too careful" ... especially if your buddy is showing any signs of difficulty. People can drown, and have drowned, in five feet of water.

The location where this incident took place is a common site for mistakes like this one ... it's one of two places that most Seattle-area divers go to almost as soon as they receive their OW C-card. Fortunately, there are also lots of more-experienced divers there who are ready to lend a hand to keep these incidents from turning ugly. Lamont happened to be one of those yesterday.

My guess on the breathing difficulty is CO2 buildup brought on by a combination of exertion (from the surface swim) and anxiety. Lamont did exactly the right thing by talking to the guy and calming him down. That's probably all that was needed. Once the guy stopped thrashing around and let someone tow him in, my guess is that his breathing problems resolved themselves ... probably before his feet even touched the bottom.

You see these sorts of things all the time out there. Kudos to Lamont for taking care of this fellow ... this time no one had to call 911.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)