Mandatory Safety Stop for Training Dives

[wscdive]

I noticed you are in the pacific northwest. If the water is cold there (and I assume it is, being north and all) I would question doing an unneeded stop in cold water. Hypothermia is also a consideration. We train alot of students in cold quarries and usually require saftey stops. If the depth is shallow I routinely have them stop, make sure they can maintain bouyancy etc, then signal them to surface. (If its a deep dive we do the whole stop) We also teach(suggest) deep stops.

 

[Gary D.]

I noticed you are in the pacific northwest. If the water is cold there (and I assume it is, being north and all) I would question doing an unneeded stop in cold water. Hypothermia is also a consideration. We train alot of students in cold quarries and usually require saftey stops. If the depth is shallow I routinely have them stop, make sure they can maintain bouyancy etc, then signal them to surface. (If its a deep dive we do the whole stop) We also teach(suggest) deep stops.

All over the Pacific Northwest we have both very warm and very cold water. "A LOT" of the PSD teams are diving dry so we don't have a lot of the wet suit issues.

This isn't an issue with making stops or not but an issue of "ALL" dives requiring a 5 minute stop at 15'. This thread is getting off track again.

There are some things you SHOULD do as a diver that don't get done as a PSD. The two just don't mix a lot of the time. "RESCUE" mode changes a lot of the rules.

Gary D.

 

[ColdH2Odvr]

Scubamoo,

Try to set up a training on dive fizzyology and decompression. I’m not talking about technical diving, just the basics. If you work from the historical evolution of Haldane/Buhlmann based dive tables (please excuse the spelling) to some of the newer multiphase theories like RGBM and how that applies to everyday diving (deep stops etc.) you might have a better chance of persuading your team members into thinking instead of just remembering.

Given your chosen avatar, I might suggest leading them to the answer and letting them discover it instead of locking horns.

As the only DIR diver on our team, I feel ya’. My advice: gather your facts, learn what you want to teach, peal the DIR sticker off the idea and maybe they’ll listen.

Or, you could just buy a dredge and do shallow water safety stop training. Dredging is a helluva lot of fun.

 

[emtdan]

I didn't see where he said anything about training dives. There has to be a seperation between actual RESCUE and Recovery or Training dives. Recoveries and Training are more closely related.

Gary D.

Read the subject of the topic.... make sense?

I think that the rule should be modified to say something like:

If a training dive over 40 feet, do a SS at 15-20ft for 3 min, if 40-10', 5 min at SS.

If a rescue below 40 feet, dont do a SS. If 40-100', SS for 3 min at 15-20 ft.
...etc.

 

[Gary D.]

Read the subject of the topic.... make sense?

I think that the rule should be modified to say something like:

If a training dive over 40 feet, do a SS at 15-20ft for 3 min, if 40-10', 5 min at SS.

If a rescue below 40 feet, dont do a SS. If 40-100', SS for 3 min at 15-20 ft.
...etc.

In the subject line he does say training. But in the text he went BOLD with "All" dives.

If we are still in the Golden Hour of a rescue I'll come straight up, hand off the victim and go back and relax for a few minutes if we don't have multiple victims. Most times that we have had multiple victims the second diver is in the water by the time the first one is recovered. He/She can go after #2 but it still may take several dives each. This is where a conservative computer plays a big part.

We have a lot of roadside water that is 70-90' deep right off the road. One section we have is 450' deep after a 400' trip to the surface. We clean those up with a dustpan but we have had survivors.

Gary D.

 

[Lonestar Diver]

There are more but here are two ways to look at it. If you are in “RESCUE” mode forget the safety stop. That 5 minutes is GOING to cut a big chunk out of the “GOLDEN HOUR” that nobody can afford.

Gary D.

I'm not a PSD myself but I have a thought here. How about having the diver actually performing the Rescue do the stop (as dictated by the dive) and a second diver come down to 15' at the appropriate time to take control of surfacing the victim.

I'm assuming tossing the victim into a chamber is not an issue here.

 

[Gary D.]

I'm not a PSD myself but I have a thought here. How about having the diver actually performing the Rescue do the stop (as dictated by the dive) and a second diver come down to 15' at the appropriate time to take control of surfacing the victim.

I'm assuming tossing the victim into a chamber is not an issue here.

This is where it gets sticky.

In an OW or AOW they teach plan your dive and dive your plan. As a PSD we don’t have that luxury. There is simply no time to plan anything. Everyone has to arrive and react and with enough training as a team it works well.

Take for instance that I’m the first one on scene to a location we can drive to. I get suited up in normally less than 3-5 minutes depending on the time of year and the weather. Now I have to wait for a second diver to get on scene.

When he/she does arrive and is ready they will yell “GO”. That assures me that they are ready to get MY butt should something go wrong. They aren’t suited yet but everything is in order and they are ready.

Should another diver arrive and say “Stand-by” or “Wait” they aren’t sure they are ready so I stand-by until they are.

Now by the time a third diver arrives on scene the recovery may have been made whether it be a single or multiple.

We just don’t have the time to plan what is going to happen in “RESCUE MODE”. Recovery is another ball game and you could do a hand off which we do from time to time.

Ice is another exception. The second diver is suited up and we have two tenders on scene prior to the first one going in. Only in an extreme emergency will the second diver get wet without a third being on scene and suited.

Getting a victim to a chamber is not an option. By the time they fly to the closest one our gear is mostly repacked and the suit is about half dry. All total we can figure on 3 to 4 hours to get to it 150 miles away by the time medical is done and a plane lined up.

Gary D.

 

[ColdH2Odvr]

I'm not a PSD myself but I have a thought here. How about having the diver actually performing the Rescue do the stop (as dictated by the dive) and a second diver come down to 15' at the appropriate time to take control of surfacing the victim.

I'm assuming tossing the victim into a chamber is not an issue here.

This may be a reasonable approach if personnel, planning and communications permit but with so many variables in rescue mode you really can’t count on the third body to be available to hit the water and relieve you of your recovery.

However, along a similar line of thought, how about surfacing, passing the football to the non-amphibious personnel, and heading back down. Deep sea divers used to be hauled onto deck in the bell, vented, hustled across the deck, shoved into the habitat and pressed back to dept (decanting). If you can do that to a saturation diver it seems a reasonable alternative to blowing off the stop completely.

Lets face it, if you’ve actually made a recovery while in rescue mode your profile is probably crap, a few minutes to let your body scrub bubbles is time well spent.

 

[bridgediver]

you really can’t count on the third body to be available to hit the water .

By this I would assume you mean a third diver.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a 3rd diver standing by ALL the time?

Let's say the 1st diver is searching and runs into some serious need-help-now type stuff. The second diver is completely rigged and ready to roll but as soon as he gets in the water he has a freeflow or he can't equalize maybe a mask strap breaks - stuff like this happens all the time but now the guy in trouble is on his own. If a third guy is partially suited up at least the first guy will have a chance if the second guy can't go.

But what are these safety stops really for in what a PSD rescue dive is? These should be short, shallow dives. If its deep it isn't going to be a rescue. Our dives are all limited to 50ft max for 20 min (25 min max). If you follow a good ascent rate no safety stop is needed. If you start doing longer bottom times the diver loses focus on the search and becomes less effective (just one reason)

 

[Gary D.]

By this I would assume you mean a third diver.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a 3rd diver standing by ALL the time?

Let's say the 1st diver is searching and runs into some serious need-help-now type stuff. The second diver is completely rigged and ready to roll but as soon as he gets in the water he has a freeflow or he can't equalize maybe a mask strap breaks - stuff like this happens all the time but now the guy in trouble is on his own. If a third guy is partially suited up at least the first guy will have a chance if the second guy can't go.

But what are these safety stops really for in what a PSD rescue dive is? These should be short, shallow dives. If its deep it isn't going to be a rescue. Our dives are all limited to 50ft max for 20 min (25 min max). If you follow a good ascent rate no safety stop is needed. If you start doing longer bottom times the diver loses focus on the search and becomes less effective (just one reason)

We could “What if” this forever, but as a PSD you should not have two of the three problems more common to sport diving.

Breaking a strap on a mask is no reason to abort a dive. Water pressure is a great strap. It will be an inconvenience but not that big of a deal.

Free flows are normally caused from poor maintenance or in some cases improper use.

Not being able to equalize can happen to anyone anytime going either direction.

We all train to basically take care of ourselves on the bottom. No different than solo diving. Our Policy is to have a Stand-by diver but in the real world that isn’t going to happen 100% of the time. 99% maybe but there has to be some flexibility in it.

I can’t remember in any of my training where a depth limit was set for it to no longer be a rescue. Time is critical but depth isn’t. Your Policy or SOP may say it but I don’t think there is an accepted depth standard established.

We have had a big percentage of our Rescue Dives over 100’. In our area we have water depths between 70 and over 100’ just a few feet out from the paved surface of the road.

One area, a major state highway, was responsible for so many accidents the state finally came in and put up a 5 mile “Beautification Project”. Don’t let them hear you call it a Guardrail, which it is, because the area is very unstable and the rail doesn’t meet guardrail standards.

That railing has eliminated the cars, pick-ups, campers, motorcycles, motorhome’s, and Semi’s from going swimming. It has also reduced our calls by a half a dozen a year. Minimum depth along that area is 70’.

We do, on a regular basis, hand off a victim and go back down to relax a little. There is enough adrenaline pumping during that “Golden Hour” the rest in nice.

OW and AOW rules go right out the window as a PSD during the golden hour. It all boils down to the old risk vs benefit.

If most of the newer sport diver saw the way we dove, which was by the book, just 20 years ago they would think we were trying to commit suicide. As a PSD we are just operating closer to those standards than modern day standards. Both are safe but the new standards are just safer.

Gary D.