Long hose in panic situation?

[Hobbs]

Originally posted by Uncle Pug
I will try to catch you both with one post...

Why are you guys diving with the panic prone?
How deep are you diving with the panic prone?
Have you ever tried to control an actual OOA panic stricken diver?
How was your buoyancy control while wrestling a panic stricken Diver who is desperately finning for the surface?
Just how do you *control* them.... how do you stop them from finning up... how do you *hold them down*...
I've seen this is action and it is fun to watch.
It is boring to watch Shane and I do a Shared air ascent on the long hose.
You might say, "Well sure, that is you and Shane but what would do if a panic striken OOA swam up to you at 160'"
I take great care to insure that that can't happen but if it did I would politely extend the long hose, make sure that I wasn't *grabbed* and back away. If the OOA was pleased to stay with me in a controlled ascent with stops then all would be fine. If not then I would let them go their way.

ok first of all to the best of my knowledge diving with a panic prone ?,
well thats not the point at all, you are missing the real reason for the answer (atleast for my part).
a panic stricken diver wont go for his buddy at all times ! the panicked stricken diver will come up to you (with murphys law of justice, and most naturally you wont know what happened until he/shes all over you !)
so the question you should have asked is is anyone diving here today a panic prone person ? and how deep will that person go ?
is that person diving with an equally panic prone diver ?
does that spell disaster to you ? what can you do to prevent it.

so most of your questions are for this once totally irrelevant, you are missing the point, its not your buddy maybe its a total stranger!

and as far to have i ever done that ?
sort of, I have had a diver come up to me (wich infact was my buddy) scared ****less and just wanted to bolt for the surface
when we discussed it afterwards he told me he almost just filled his gear and bolted out of there. but since i turned around and was 3C he could take some of my nerves and didnt go all the way to panic. and we did a nice controlled ascent togeather.
(the reason was mindghosts)

How was my control, well as all edvidence is stated is you cant control a PNICKED diver but what you can do is slow em down to the point where they will need med evac, but not a bodybag ! when is that point reached ? noone knows until afterwards!

I think the real question one would have to ask oneself is
"am I willing to put my life on the line for a total stranger ?"
and as far as recreational diving goes, yes I am ! (easy to state here ! but harder to do in reality!)
as for you pug you are not. but the good part is that you will be alive longer and well you might be the one giving the call to the medics when there are two divers in need of medical attention instead of one diver in need of a bodybag.

as for fun to watch ? yes afterwards one can state that it was funny, but at the time, well thats just not true, funny someone is fighting for their life ? not to me it isnt anyhow.
booring to watch you and shane ? well that is good then isnt it ?
but what do you do when the near panic stricken diver gets a hold of you, gets your manifold system or whatever part that is pretty darn necesarry and hard to be without? do you kill him instantly with the vulcan mind blow technice or just stun him unconcious with the vulcan thumb grip ? or pull out a handgrenade and blow you both away (togeather with all the other divers in the near vincinity ?) no it wont be an easy thing to work with and the best thing you can do is get close and try to help fight of the panic. if panick is already there it nothing more to do then get away from him/her and salvage the body when that time comes and try to medevac asap. if you can, try to grab a hold of that persons leg or something and make yourself heavy.
this atleast slows down the ascent. but it makes you of risk of DCS. This is ofcourse not sopposed to be used in techdiving. or a dive with a logical roof (deco) this is recreational diving.

Point is that a diver on the brink of panic can be calmed down and an incident thus avoided.
a diver already panicking wont see or hear you/reason for another halfhour whatever you do. so you can just hang on for the ride and do your best to avoid getting him/her/you killed or let go.
Darn its so easy to just let go, but would you want to live with the knowledge that maybe you could have saved that person. compared to the knowledge that he/she nearly killed you.
since we all have our "own" believes on what happens after death, ill leave that part to the "eye of the beholder"

Down there it is practice, practice and practice again when the sh*t hits the fan there is no time to start thinking it has to be a reflex.
you have to have decided on what to do already before you hit the water.

This is just my own 2 cents

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by Hobbs
so most of your questions are for this once totally irrelevant, you are missing the point, its not your buddy maybe its a total stranger!

Nah.... I didn't miss the point... I was just too circumstpect again.

Hobbs you got to keep yourself from getting into the situation in the first place.

On any dive where it would really matter there just isn't going to be any panic stricken diver grabbing me.

On any dive where there is a chance of a panic stricken diver grabbing me it won't matter but I still will keep it from happening if at all possible.

I don't dive in clusters where *someone* can sneak up on me from behind and go berserk.

If someone wants to bolt for the surface I'll wave bye-bye and do my ascent normally.... that way if they need assistence someone will be in good enough shape to give it.

Read my post and you post again and think about how you could solve the problem before it happens.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Answers to your queries:
Diving with panic prone: The majority of my diving is done with OW students and while we try very hard to show them in the pool how to deal with the situations we will encounter in OW you can't trust them their first few times out.

How deep: Shallow, very shallow. First day out is 18-20 feet.

Control OOA: The only student I ever had panic and flee on me was in the pool when he put the octopus in his mouth upside down with no mask on and the exhaust bubbles were shooting up his nose. Freaked him out so bad he ditched his buddies reg and bolted and wouldn't take my reg on the way up. Would I call that a controlled ascent? NOPE. Did I get a lecture from the instructor who was monitoring me? YEP.

Control: I was taught to gain control before the diver is overcome by their panic. Having experienced panic myself on my checkout dives (though not OOA) I know you can calm someone down when all they want to do is bolt for the surface. My training and the calm touch of the instructor with me were the only things that kept me from violating my ascent rate on that aborted dive. I agree once they are finning hard for the surface they go alone but I would still have to make the attempt to calm them (provide air then get eye contact and give a firm "OK", touch them so they know someone is with them to help) if they came to me.

It's boring to watch my buddies and I do our training ascents too. OOA signal, provide air, grab hold, establish breathing rhythm and initiate "up" with a tug on the bc. Dump air from bc as you ascend. Do I dive in overhead environments? No. I realize the long hose is the only way in some places.

I don't dive new places with buddies I don't know unless it's a shallow easy dive so we can get accustomed to one another. I plan my dives and dive my plan and do a thorough buddy check/orientation on the surface. Any time I see a buddy pair that I feel isn't staying close enough together or a solo diver I keep an eye on them while they are in my vicinity so I can offer help rather than be asked for it in the event of an emergency. I believe that can put the control odds in your favor. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Now for the other question I asked. When do you start teaching them not to hold on to you? We don't have the luxury of long hoses in our classes so what do you then?

Respectfully picking up new ideas with an open mind,
Ber

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by Ber Rabbit
Now for the other question I asked. When do you start teaching them not to hold on to you? We don't have the luxury of long hoses in our classes so what do you then?
Ber

Ber,
Your situation diving with students is very different from what I was thinking in my post. I agree with you that in your training without the long hose you would have greater potential for grabbing onto each other and that is exactly what most agengies prefer and teach.

The idea of providing air and eye contact is very important. A properly trained DIR diver will have the regulator in your face faster than you can ask for air... I have surprised other divers who come up behind me and grab my fin wanting to show me something... I turn around abruptly with regulator extended to them.

On the other hand many times I have seen divers first look at you like "You're kidding!?" when you give them the O.O.A. signal and I even had one guy shake his head no. Do you ever pull O.O.A. senarios on your buddies?

Your practice of watching out for solodivers and seperated buddy pairs is also very good. To anticipate the problem and provide the solution before panic arises is the essence of what I was getting at.

As to your question above... I am not an instructor but I do dive with new divers on occassion and start with helping them achieve proper trim and buoyancy control. If they are someone I am going to continue diving with we will also work on shared air ascents using the long hose and only maintaining proximity not contact.

I know of one shop that teaches buoyancy, trim, long hose ect. from the beginning but I also know that it is not the norm.


Back to the original posting...
Brandon's question brings up the fact that many folks who are going to the long hose do not understand everything that goes with it. One of the chief advantages of the long hose is precisely the thing that was of concern to Brandon. The long hose allows buddies to independently control their own buoyancy.

Sorry for rambling all over here.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Thanks for the info!

We don't do OOA in open water (except for the buddy check topside) but we're in the pool almost every week with OW students and we do practice there. The procedure has become second nature like mask clearing, I don't even think about it any more, I just do it.

Maybe now I too, am ready to graduate to the long hose.
Ber

 

[VTWarrenG]

Ber,

I don't think "graduation" is the right term. Using a long hose is actually (IMO) much easier than using a short one. "Graduating" from short to long is like "graduating" from an F1 car to a Pinto.

Give it a shot -- it's easy, and you'll love it.

- Warren

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by Ber Rabbit
Maybe now I too, am ready to graduate to the long hose.
Ber

It is just a tool Ber... and really doesn't become functional without an understanding of how to use it properly... if you have opportunity to take a DIRF class in your area then that would be the best... if not then you can certainly ask questions here on scuba board about the correct use of the long hose for the kind of diving you do.

Since you are a tiny Ber and are probably not diving a cannister light... you would want to get a 5' hose.


Another key ingredient in the use of the long hose is a similarly equipped & trained dive partner (this is actually the most important core premise of DIR IMO.)

 

[roakey]

I’ve never understood what all the hand wringing is about with the long hose. We’ve never said “give the long hose to the OOA diver and turn them lose.” You evaluate the situation and act accordingly. If the diver is panicked, you can hold them just as closely with a long hose as with a short. If they’re not panicked or get over their panic, you can cut them lose on the ascent and both have some elbow room.

That’s the point, it offers you more options than the look-like-you’re-mating-with-the-OOA-diver-because-the-octo-hose-is-so-short method (OK, so this not a bad idea if the OOA diver is Lauren Hutton ). The long hose also helps calm a stressed out diver because the regulator is not pulling like it’s going to be yanked out of their mouth if they make one false move.

The necklace isn’t a problem because a panicked diver’s not going to go for it and if it gets caught on something, the necklace will break or at worst the mouthpiece will pull off the reg (you can still breathe off of it).

The long hose is more streamlined, donating from one’s mouth is more consistent and the long hose puts more arrows in your quiver to solve a problem. It’s a win-win situation. The ONLY reason I can figure out why it’s resisted so much is that it’s not taught by the mainstream training agencies. When someone who’s been trained by one of them sees a long hose, they try and dream up [non-existent] problems for the configurations because, well, if my agency didn’t teach me that way, there must be SOMETHING wrong with it!

Interesting story, I’ve been diving the long hose for probably three or four years now, but I have to use aquarium equipment when I dive the exhibits so I’ve been bouncing back and forth between configurations for over a year now and don’t think about it much anymore. Scubaturek has been diving a long hose for about two years and just got checked out in “my” exhibit this last Saturday. For some background, they’re some tight spots you have to maneuver through here and there in the exhibit with fragile artificial coral all around you.

We got together after his checkout for lunch. After babbling like a gradeschool kid about how neat it was (not that I was any different after my checkout ). His first and only critical comment was “that blasted primary hose kept getting hooked on stuff!” People think the 7’ hose is an entanglement hazard, but it lies along your body for its entire length. A “normal” primary hose however is a huge loop sticking out just wating to slip over stuff.

But that’s right, if the short hose primary, octo stuffed in a pocket gathering silt and sand is taught by the mainstream agencies, there can’t possibly be anything wrong with it!

Roak

Ps. Warren's right, you don't “graduate” to a long hose, you “simplify” to it.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by roakey
Ps. UP's right, you don't “graduate” to a long hose, you “simplify” to it.

Credit where credit is due... that was Warren....
I was the one trying to *sell* a DIRF class ...

 

[roakey]

Originally posted by Uncle Pug
Credit where credit is due... that was Warren....

Race condition, I just changed my post only to discover this reply!

Roak