Is there a standard "Emergency" signal?

[MrChen]

My ow instructor said not to put it on our foreheads because a diver not in distress, shouldn't remove their mask when surfacing. Makes sense to me, if I haven't gotten on the boat yet, then I'm still potentially going to have water in my face.

The not losing it part makes sense too!

 

[BuiltLikeABulldog]

With even a modicum of dive buddy awareness, if you're in serious trouble they will know about it. Normal people while confronted with an emergency generally don't carry on as if it's a perfect dive.

 

[novasquid]

i'm thinking worst case scenarios, e.g. i'm leading a dive with my wife, and she gets tangled up on a line or her tank o-ring blows out and no one is aware until it's too late. we practice situational awareness, but reality is that we don't have eyeballs on the back of our heads. to me, having a tank banger for emergency use only is like having an octo, you may go years never having to use it but it's nice knowing it's there when needed.

 

[robertarak]

You should never go years without practicing with any piece of equipment. Welcome to scuba diving and scubaboard. Have fun, learn as much as you can and take advise from the wealth of experience here.

 

[novasquid]

i try to practice at least one emergency drill each time we're out diving. but yeah, hearing loud "bongs" each time we're diving in our local quarry would get pretty annoying.

 

[TSandM]

we practice situational awareness, but reality is that we don't have eyeballs on the back of our heads

Nobody does! And the sentence itself should tell you what the solutions are: Either don't dive one behind the other, or don't go very far or very long without checking behind you.

One of the things we try to impress on our students is how much a mask reduces your peripheral vision, and what that means for buddy positioning when diving. When you are moving over a spread-out structure, diving shoulder-to-shoulder (not necessarily that CLOSE, but even with one another) will allow each buddy to check on the other with a very minor head movement. When you are diving along a wall or the hull of a wreck, you may not want to do that, but in that case, it's important to stay close, check frequently (no less than every 30 seconds) and if possible, use dive lights to communicate.

Other than a cardiac arrest, for which you can do little or nothing in the water, anyway, there is nothing that is going to kill you in under 30 seconds. Even running out of gas is something you can survive for that long.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If you need to have eyes in the back of your head to see your buddy, you were not taught or don't understand what diving with a buddy is. And what proper buddy position is. Not surprising as many OW instructors don't seem to have a clue. They must not or they would not lead divers single file.

If you are leading the dive your buddy is beside you. Not behind, in front, above, or below you.

 

[novasquid]

Roger that. Breaking formation is bad and shall be frowned upon.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

It's not bad. It's dangerous. I have an entire presentation devoted to the failure of the buddy system. Based on looking at over a dozen fatalities where a buddy was not in a position to help, did not know how to help, or panicked themselves and their buddy died. Now maybe in some of the cases a buddy would not have made a difference but at least they would have been able to get them to help. Instead in some cases others had to recover the bodies.

This activity will kill a diver. In some very nasty ways. Too bad that fact is not conveyed enough to new divers in the name of keeping profits flowing in.

 

[LottaBeachNoOcean]

I have an entire presentation devoted to the failure of the buddy system.

That was kinda' the thought behind my follow-up question of whether there were other signals I should establish with my buddy.