Lost Buddy, Low Visibility

[Nautical Dreamer]

My question is what is the proper procedure when you lose one of your buddies in low visibility. If I recall correctly from training, you are supposed to circle around, then ascend a few feet and look for bubbles and circle around again. Below is a description of a recent incident.

Recently I was doing a low visibility (5 ft) shore dive with two other buddies. Not an ideal situation but better than leaving some one behind. We were at 50 fsw, and traversing a fairly steep slope. I was leading the dive in a V formation. I felt like I was constantly looking back to keep an eye on every one.

I was inverted as I descended over a large rock looking for sea life. After not spotting any marine life I looked back at my two buddies, but there was only one. At this time my second buddy (A) looked at me and we both shrugged our shoulders for we had realized that we had lost our third buddy (B). We circled our immediately area for a minute or two with no success. At this time I removed my dive knife and began banging it on my tank, which I continued to do until we found the lost partner.

My next action is where I question my judgment. Instead of ascending and looking for bubbles as trained, Buddy (A) and I decided to first dive deeper. The lighting was fairly poor which compounded with the low visibility made it fairly dark. This made me think that it was possible that he may be just below us and we could not see him or his light. At the time I thought that if Buddy (B) was in trouble it would be a whole lot worse if he was below us rather then above us. So we had better search below first.

Buddy (A) and I staggered our searched at 55, and 60 feet traversing back along the slope. After a few more minutes we decided to head back up the slope to shallower water. Luckily at approximately 40 feet we found our third buddy (B) messing around with the dive float. We gave the ok sign and luckily returned the signal. The whole event lasted less then five minutes although it seemed like eternity. We aborted the dive and surfaced together. At the surface the third buddy (B) told us that he had become entangled in the dive float line and fell behind.

Besides looking back more frequently and maintaining better visible contact with both buddies, what should we have done differently?

P.S. Sorry I have not added more information to my dive profile. I currently am unable to update this feature.

 

[divingjd]

Glad to hear everything turned out OK. I think you are right to be concerned about departing from your training and searching deeper. That could have been the beginning of a bad story. Did you discuss lost buddy procedure with the entire team before you started the dive? If not, you probably should have and then stuck with the agreed procedure. If everybody follows the procedure, you should all meet up on the surface. If you don't, then you know you've got a problem and you are in an environment where you and your remaining buddy can devise a plan.

It is hard to say what else you could have done differently. Three-person buddy teams are difficult. When the instructors at our shop are at our most skeptical, we say that a three-person team is really three people diving solo. Three people in low viz is really tough. You might have had the person towing the float in the lead position, so that the other two would not have left him behind when he became entangled. With five foot viz, you practically have to be in physical contact to keep track of each other.

 

[pacificgal]

My dive plan with my buddy has always been to, if separated, to search for the other for 1 minute only, and if we can't find each other in 60 seconds, we surface find each other there and then go from there. It hasn't happened yet, but the plan is still there.

 

[Sasquatch]

It HAS happened to me a few times diving in low (0-5') viz. Here's a thing I learned: If you wait longer than a minute or two before ascending the divers can become seperated by quite a distance when meeting on the surface. Also, I experienced on one memorable occasion when I surfaced and waited for ten minutes for my party to surface. I nearly decided to drop and look for them when they surfaced. If I had descended we would have missed each other. Bad. As it was I had a nice relaxing bob on the surface wondering if they were in trouble.

 

[ChrisA]

My dive plan with my buddy has always been to, if separated, to search for the other for 1 minute only, and if we can't find each other in 60 seconds, we surface find each other there and then go from there. It hasn't happened yet, but the plan is still there.

That is the "standard plan". But I think it is OK to make a different plan in some condidtions. For example if the dive is to 120 feet you can't pop up to the surface and regroup. and even worse there is no option to go back down and hunt if the lost buddy does not pop up to the surface. At 120 feet I would us up most of my NDL time looking before I started my acent. I figure if heis at the surface, he might be OK but if he is underwater and in trouble he'll be dead if I surface.

I think the "standard PADI plan" works best in the condidtions they use in OW traiining: Decent vis, 40 feet and daylight.

I common dive for me is to about 75 feet in low viz at night. It's a shore dive on a steep slope. A common plan is to look for two minutes then swim up slope until the bottom is 40 feet then go straight up. Reason for this is the danger of a free acent from 75 feet in low viz dark conditions.

When looking, I will first look along the compass heading we were following and then make a 180 degree turn and back track slowly.
Mostly this works. 90 percent of the time one of the buddies simply stopped to take a photo or look and is found right on our line only 10 or 20 feet away. At night I will breifly cover my light and look for his light and then move my light around hpoinghe will spot it.

 

[TSandM]

Reason for this is the danger of a free acent from 75 feet in low viz dark conditions.

Why is this dangerous? Every time we boat dive in the PNW, we do free ascents in low viz dark conditions.

The OP's story highlights yet again the fact that diving trios in poor visibility requires discipline from the divers. This is also a place where high intensity lights are very useful, because they are visible further than the dim outline of a diver is. In visibility that poor, it takes only seconds to lose somebody, and as you found out, if someone has trouble and has to stop without alerting the other two divers, he's gone. It's actually amazing to me that you ever encountered him again before you were all on the surface.

What I see in the original scenario is 1) a V formation means both other divers are somewhat behind you and NOT visible unless you turn to look at them. You can only look one direction at a time, and during that time, the person on the other side is completely on his own. If you are up with one another at shoulder level, it only takes a tiny turn of the head to check, and you can do it far more quickly and more often. 2) The diver who ran into trouble either didn't have any way to signal the other two, or didn't use it. Where I've run into this a lot is diving with a photographer who decides to stop and take a picture but doesn't signal. Although I check every ten or fifteen seconds, that can open up enough distance to lose somebody in the murk if the viz is really bad. 3) It doesn't sound as though you guys had a "lost buddy" protocol in place. The risk of this is that, if the separated buddy had gone to the surface and you guys hadn't come up, he might have decided to descend again to find out, and then you all start playing "bob for divers". I've been sobered by how far apart two people can end up at the surface, even assuming they use the "wait one minute and surface" procedure.

Regarding the issue of losing someone at 120 feet -- if you can't find them in one minute of looking (and you are in ten foot viz or less), what is the likelihood that you are going to find them in two, or three? And then you are beginning your ascent three minutes later, and it's three minutes more before you can alert help to begin to search. And if the person is trapped at 120 feet, their gas supply is ticking away, and their no-deco time is very quickly gone. A direct ascent from 120 feet is possible if you are not under a deco obligation -- perhaps not wise, but possible. These are situations where sometimes all your choices are bad ones, and you are trying to find the least worst solution.

The best thing is not to get separated in the first place, which is where the discipline comes in.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Hasn't happened often, but I dive low vis quite a bit. The times it has happened I searched for a minute then surfaced, usually to find my buddy surfacing at the exact same time. Like TSandM says, what good will an extra minute or 2 of searching do? None. Stick to the plan if you get separated. Discipline helps prevent separation, but I've been diving in less than 2 ft of vis and all it takes is a second to move far enough away - 2.5 ft - to lose sight of each other.

 

[scuba.ie]

I was trained to search 360 degrees including above and below for 1 minute, and if still not found make your way to the surface, including any stops as needed.
I had an incident about a month ago. We were doing wreck penetration at about 33-35m. I was trying to get in through a hole between two rooms and at first thought I couldn't make it and backed away. Then I tried to get in and managed it. When I was clear in the room I looked around and couldn't see my buddy. I covered my torch to see if I could see his and couldn't. I checked the dive time (17mins) and exited the way I had come in. I searched for 1 minute and then made my way to the shot line. By this time it was 23 mins into the dive. I started my ascent and did my deep stops. My last deep stop was at 11m, where I met my buddy! We laughed so much I spat my reg out, and chatted about it on the boat. We both followed procedure, but decided to communicate better underwater in future.

 

[Rick Murchison]

What to do in the case of a lost buddy is to follow the lost buddy plan.
You do have a lost buddy plan every time you jump in the water, right?
If you haven't in the past, you will from now on, right?
The specifics of the plan are far less important than having a plan in the first place - one that everyone on the team knows, has agreed to, and follows.
"If we loose track of each other, we'll..."
Make it a part of every single pre-dive brief.
Rick

 

[ClayJar]

I was diving a quarry with a buddy recently. At the beginning of the dive, the vis was something under 2', I'd say, and I spent most of that part of the dive watching my buddy's dive light like it was about to sprout wings and start bubbling the Ave Maria. There is *no* way I could've kept up with a third person -- looking holes through the murk toward my buddy's light took almost all my attention, with just enough left to watch out for entanglements on the submerged object we were on.

By about half an hour into the dive and a nice fin away from the silted start, the vis was probably more like 10'. I could see someone trying to dive a trio there, but I wouldn't want to. After a few more minutes, when my buddy started having gear-related buoyancy issues, having a third diver would've been quite taxing, again.

As it was, it appeared my buddy had everything under adequate control, and we were around 15-20' or so, so I wasn't too concerned (I figured if we had to call the dive, he'd already basically done a safety stop). We were checking out the remains of a Christmas tree, when I looked left and saw... water. I started the lost-buddy procedure, set myself upright, and spun around a couple times, looking out, down, and up. After a minute of being a human top and seeing no buddy, no bubbles, and no man-eating quarry sharks, I was just about to ascend to the surface when a hand appeared from above and my buddy reappeared. I asked if he was okay, and he signaled "no, gear problem, safety stop for 5 minutes, ascend." Apparently, his dry suit developed issues and took him for a ride (thankfully, we were shallow already), which obviously thumbed the dive for us.