I recently witnessed a diver getting separated from his group in Cenote Chac-Mool in Playa Del Carmen. The incident was resolved quickly and without anyone being lost or hurt, but there are some lessons to be learned. Unknown what dive op the separated diver was with, so I can't speak to who his guide was or what operator had responsibility for this incident. I was with a guide named Felipe with Cenote Xperience who assisted in resolution of the incident and I'm happy to report all went well. Details below.
First off, a huge credit to Felipe, our guide. He gave us detailed, clear instructions during the briefing on how were going to operate the dive, what we were going to see, what he was expecting of us, what could go wrong, and what we were going to do if things did go wrong. While he wasn't trying to scare anyone, he certainly injected a level of seriousness and a touch of fear of what could go wrong and how none of us wanted that.
Once on the dive, he had just led my son and I to the Air Dome inside of Cenote Chac-Mool. After spending some time there, examining the beauty of that cavern, chatting, and joking around, we started to descend and head back. There's a fairly large cavern that you have to transit to get to the Air Dome, maybe 40 feet or so across I'd guess, and as we were leaving the air dome behind on the right side of this large room, another group was heading toward the air dome on our left. There were only three of us in our group, Felipe leading, my son in the middle, and I was at the back. I wasn't counting the number in the other group, however, but I fully witnessed one of their divers get distracted and separated from his group, and come across the room toward us. I watched that diver realize he was lost and speed toward the closest set of flashlights he saw, which was us, with Felipe at the front. When he sees that Felipe is not his dive guide, his eyes got huge which told me that panic had just set in. He makes the sign that he's headed out and and boom! takes off by himself. Felipe booked it after him and grabbed him and stopped him, knowing that if this guy makes one wrong turn he could get lost and then we'd have a real problem. As per the briefing he gave us the signs that were changing the order of divers and that we were heading out. We then calmly headed to the nearest exit. In my mind: diver secure, everyone safe, emergency averted.
Felipe on the other hand is still time-critical problem solving. He asks the diver who his guide is. Diver gives him the name, to which Felipe responds "Okay, I know him, he's probably having a heart attack right now knowing that he's missing a diver." Felipe needed to find the other guide and let him know, which wouldn't be hard since we knew exactly where they were. He tells the three of us to stay put, and not leave under any circumstances, and then he turns to me, pointing at our found diver, and says, "He doesn't go anywhere, you understand?" "Got it Felipe, we will be here."
While Felipe was gone, the diver was still a little tense, considering he was panicked and lost in a cave less than 5 minutes ago. I introduced myself and my son, calmed him a little bit with some conversation, asked him where he was from, "Originally Boston, but I just recently moved to Florida." How long have you been diving? "I just got certified! This is my first dive trip." Yup, that makes sense. "That's great! Isn't it beautiful here?" etc.
A few minutes later Felipe and the other dive group return. While the other dive guide was greatly relieved to see his lost diver, it was the WIFE of that diver that was a real mess. Swinging between tremendous relief, then a little anger at him, but then joy that he was okay. Having reunited the group it was time for Felipe, my son and I to continue on our own tour and back to our own exit.
Felipe and I had a lengthy discussion about this later, but there are a few lessons here. First, Felipe told me that while he knew the other dive guide and they were friends, he could guarantee that the briefing the other group received was not as detailed about expectations, dive plan, or contingency as his was. While the importance of a good dive briefing, dive plan, and contingency is always important in a situation like this, Felipe's technique of injecting a little fear there to underscore the importance of that briefing prodded us as divers to listen up and pay attention. While our lost diver in this story could well have been one of those "special" clients that doesn't follow instructions, or maybe was just distracted during the briefing, a really solid briefing with clear instructions and contingency plans could probably have avoided this situation completely.
A lesson for me was that just because we got that diver out, the emergency wasn't necessarily over, since Felipe needed to go get that other guide's attention to let him know what was up. Something to think about in other similar lost diver situations.
