Incidents compounded ... you ever have one of these dives?

[dpbishop]

This guy dove in 57 degree water without a hood? I think items 5 - 10 can be attributed to Brain Freeze!!

 

[lostplanetairman]

I agree with brain freeze.

Lets see, I have;

Forgot to turn on my air ( caught before entering the water )
Forgot to trim the stash causing mask leaks
Almost forgot the gloves
Forgot to turn on computer
Forgot how the dry suit inflator works
Tankus loosenupis
Swam so hard that both legs cramped at once
Didn't put the fin strap over the tab on the boot ( good thing mine float)
Under weighted, over weighted and everything in between
Where's that d#$m anchor line?
Clipped the dive light where I couldn't reach it
And other stuff I've forgot ( age related )

But never on the same dive, point is its usually not one error that gets ya.

 

[smokey braden]

lostplanetairman,
do you know bill kirchen?
regards,

 

[MikeFerrara]

I assume you have permission to "rescue" your buddies "uncomfortably" in such a situation.

No permission needed. Not responding to signals is a sure sign of some sort of distress possibly even passive panic or WORSE, total cluelessness.

When the patient is unresponsive permission to perform standard first aid life saving measures is implied and such action is protected under the good semaritan laws of most states.

The important thing, of course, is that learning takes place.

 

[TSandM]

When the patient is unresponsive permission to perform standard first aid life saving measures is implied

I'm really laughing envisioning this applied to the OPs situation.

As usual, a great post, Mike.

 

[DiverBuoy]

When a buddy doesn't respond to a light signal, rescue them whether they want it or not. Make it an uncomfortable rescue so the pay better attention next time. I don't wait until I get to the bottom to find out if a team member is paying attention/ok either. We descend face to face or shoulder to shoulder communicating throughout the descnt.

DB, did the 3 of you discuss the dive afterwards? After he surfaced in response to your light signal did you go over signal with him?

Not all dives go perfectly. There are equipment failures, misunderstanding in communication and who know what else. Before a dive we (Those I dive with and myself) take turnes each briefing the dive to make sure every one is on the same page. After the dive, we take turnes debriefing the dive so that every one gets to comment on the good and the bad. That way, good things are flaged so they can be repeated and problems or mistakes are flagged so they can be avoided in the future.

We were in about 15-18 feet of water when we encountered the dive light miscommunication. As I mentioned I'm to blame for not insisting on going remedial nightdiving 101. Especially with a new guy in the group. I made assumptions I should not have made, based on information from my bud. He told me about this guys experience in Laguna, and at this site, and about their experience diving together. Frankly, had this been anything but a wading pool dive, more complex in anyway I'd have insisted on remediation. I indicated a more rudementary ideal, decend together, once we get down, give the ok. This could certainly have been expanded on. Unfortunately, the real definition of assume came true. He certainly proved he knew one of the fundamental signals, by proving he could wave his light back and forth frantically to draw attention

We didn't wait till we were on shore to discuss the failure, since we were forced to end the first dive prematurely, we discussed it right then and there on the surface. Interestingly, when we were back down again, the reaction time was nearly instant to respond to my inquiry with the light circles on the sand and reef! A lesson to all to not take signal review for granted during briefings.

The briefing rotation idea works out nicely if you've been out with someone at least 2 times. First time dives, I usually just assert myself. In this case I knew his level of training and experience, so it seemed appropriate. No one gave me any awkward impressions. I also was looking for his coping skills with each failure, he adjusted well. Only that "last straw" with the fin seemed to push him over the top.

In comment to your approach to no response on the ok signal. Personally, I think the "embarrasment method" of enforcing proper signalling works perhaps for students, but must fit the circumstances. A good diver, especially a well trained one, should not simply rely on a single signal while diving. That he perhaps saw my signal, and all the rest of his body language indicated everything was ok, he was breathing calmly, was off the bottom with properly established buoyancy, was interacting with the environment, staying with us, etc ... all were satisfactory. Also the ok signal in the light was properly responded to several times during the dive. So why 48 minutes into the dive a circle on the sand caused an immediate abort ... <sigh>

 

[asp]

My first post cert dive was "one of those".
The water was fairly cold, 42 deg@60', so I was wearing a 7mil farmer john/jacket, hood, boots, 42# of lead on a belt, and my super new mask. I'm not exactly flexible at my age, so I felt a little like the kid in "Xmas Story", but it was the same as I wore in my OW dives, so I was comfy enough.
Being a gung ho guy I go first, rolling backwards off the boat with great style. I remember thinking "Why is there water in my nose? There should not be water in my nose". As I surface to give the OK signal, I hear yelling and everyone is pointing at the water. "Huh? No sharks in Lake Huron, Wise asses!". Finally I clue in and look down to watch $100 worth of mask and snorkel spiral slowly into the depths.
I learn quickly that you can't descend if your BC is 1/2 full. By then I decide that by the time I get my bc empty I'd be unwise to be charging solo down into 75' of unknown waters w/ no mask. The boat captain has a spare which he loans me.
My buddy rolls in and after a time check, we descend the line. Just as the wreck appears out of the murk, I realize that my weight belt is slowly sliding over my butt. Aha! This one I can fix, been there, done that. However I had put keepers on the belt, too close to the buckle, so it won't tighten. Buddy is waiting, so I pull the belt up into position and stay horizontal.
After about 17 minutes of hoovering away 2000# of air trying to guess what we're looking at in <5' vis, it is time to ascend. We come slowly up through the green into the clearer water for our safety stop. However I'm not horizontal anymore and my right hand is very busy yanking away trying to find a way to keep my weight belt above my knees. Suddenly it's getting green and I need to clear. "What the?" Looking up I see my buddy swimming down after me through a cloud of bubbles. I kick like mad, put some air back in the bc, got everything slowed down, stabilized and surfaced a hundred feet or so from the boat. Once on the surface he asked why I pulled my dump. It seems that I should have paid more attention to what my left hand was doing. I guess I jerked on it while struggling with the belt
My troubles weren't over yet. By the time we got to the boat, my belt was around my ankles and I was hanging on to it for dear life with one hand and the boat with other. Instead of trying to undo it, I pulled my right foot out of it, but try as I might, I couldn't get the left foot out without letting go and maybe watching it follow the mask. Let go of the boat you say? I might have if I'd thought of it, duh! Buddy to the rescue. He went down and grabbed it from below. Everything went smoothly after that. I removed 8# from the belt, left the keepers off. Did a quick weight check before the second dive, which by the way, was "by the book". I got 24 minutes, no problems, and felt I had redeemed myself... somewhat.
On the drive home my buddy pointed out that while it was embarassing, I did one thing right. I never panicked, did all those dumb things with a cool head. grrrr!

Yes he did dive with me again after that...surprised me too!

BTW, somewhere within a 200' radius of the Wexford there is a brand new technisub sphera mask complete with snorkel

 

[DiverBuoy]

Yup that most definitely should be classified as "one of those dives". Sorry you had to pay for the experience with a mask and snorkel, glad everything turned out alright.

 

[Iruka]

Well, there was the dive I did with my newly certified friend, who was borrowing gear she was unfamiliar with, where I spent over an hour swimming back and forth between water deep enough to descend and the shore (at this particular site, quite a distance), where I could pick up MORE weight to put on her.

Hi, TSandM,
I often take out divers who don't know how much weight they need....if I plan on entering (descending) and exiting at the same place, I'll just bring a little more weight than I think they need. Once they descend, if they have too much weight, I'll hide the extra weights there, and then pick them up on the way back. Or if I don't have extra weight, hope that the dive site has lots of baseball-sized rocks, ha ha.

Of course, doesn't work as well if you're planning to exit far from your entry point....and I hate swimming around with a bunch o' extra weight throughout the dive.

 

[Charlie99]

Of course, there is always the method of just giving them more and more of your weights until they have just enough weight to descend, then add on additional weight equal to the weight of the air in the tank. Then go back to shore and replenish your weights back up to the correct amount.

You'll have to go back, but only once.

Of course, it's a lot easier to think up a strategy after the fact than when you are bouncing around on the surface taking care of this sort of problem for the first time.