Missing diver - How long to wait before notifying authorities?

[Kilili]

How about nipping the problem in the bud and discussing it before the dive? Like, if we're separated, the protocol is such and such, e.g., "I come up and if you don't show in 5 minutes, I'm going for the authorities", or whatever.

Consequently, if he's in trouble, you've done your best to bail him out. If he isn't in trouble, the outcome, e.g., unnecessary worry and anxiety caused, is his fault, not yours for "overreacting".

Not a professional rescuer...

 

[Sas]

What do charter boats usually do? How long do they wait past run time?

Just curious as me and my buddy were not found by the boat on one dive for over three hours and the Coastguard was never called.

 

[vladimir]

What do charter boats usually do? How long do they wait past run time?

Just curious as me and my buddy were not found by the boat on one dive for over three hours and the Coastguard was never called.

It depends on the divers who were lost. If the captain considers them annoying or dispensable for other reasons, a 3-hour delay is appropriate.





:joke:

 

[Cave Diver]

What do charter boats usually do? How long do they wait past run time?

Just curious as me and my buddy were not found by the boat on one dive for over three hours and the Coastguard was never called.

That's kinda where I was going with the second part of my question.

What repercussions (if any) are there from mobilizing a search for a missing diver if it turns out diver 2 decided to just finish their dive, assuming their buddy was safe on the surface?

I wonder if the failure for your boat to call for help was because they were concerned about personal consequences?

 

[Sas]

I wonder if the failure for your boat to call for help was because they were concerned about personal consequences?

They 'didn't want to bother them' as they might be 'annoyed' if they showed up and we had been found already. We were 45 nautical miles from shore so it would have been quite an involved search and rescue according to a Coastguard I talked to after and I guess they were worried about wasting the Coastguard's time. The Coastguard I spoke to said that they do not mind *at all* if this happens (and noted he'd been stood down three times already that week) and said the failure to call after hours of us missing was unforgivable.

I do take responsibility in this in that we did not discuss missing diver procedures before our diving and they had no set guidelines to follow. I just never thought that if we went missing that the boat would not call the coastguard! Bad assumption on my part as it turns out.

So anyway, I advise anyone to always discuss what the boat will do if you do not turn up at your runtime and even better, get a personal EPIRB. And if you are the one on the boat have a procedure to follow in the event of a missing diver.

 

[theduckguru]

The bigger question might be should a diver who is waiting on the surface and is comfortable doing so go back down while there is till a chance to find the other diver alive rather than getting out of the water and calling 911.

Why call for help and delay giving help yourself (when this is the only option)? If someone already on shore can call 911 then both options remain open of course. I understand the concept of not having two bodies to recover but many divers are quite capable of dive solo with becoming another body to recover. As a matter of fact calling 911 doesn't always end up with suited up divers responding.

If it's going to be so easy in finding him, how did you become separated in the first place?

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

Our procedures: If a diver surfaces after losing his/her buddy, they wave down the captain, he does a recall, and starts looking for bubbles, if the diver is not found or resurface within 10 -15 minutes, the Coast guard is called. We are good with this wait, because a Coast Guard boat is at every island we dive, and if not there, they are stationed about 10 minutes out. We have had missing divers. Every one has been a jackass who left his/her buddy and kept right on tooling along. Out captain always had eyes on our bubbles. he is amazing and could show us their movement. A dm would go get them and bring their now, never diving with us again, butt back. Of course we still ran the full rescue procedure anyway.

We have a different procedure for drift dives. We are always spotting the smb's but if one gets pulled out or around the island, we give a 30 minute search window and then call in the other boats. They don't drag a float, just deploy upon ascent. We have never had to call anyone in. We did hit a 20 minute search mark, once, but we knew where they had to be, we just had to slowly get them. They were happy and fine and watched us in between waves coming toward them.

 

[gcbryan]

If it's going to be so easy in finding him, how did you become separated in the first place?

I didn't mean to imply that it's necessarily easy. What is the alternative? Get out of the water and wait for an ambulance/boat or whatever to arrive? Then what? In many cases their air would be used up by then...so it's a body recovery. That being the case does it really have to be "easy" in order to try?

 

[Cave Diver]

I didn't mean to imply that it's necessarily easy. What is the alternative? Get out of the water and wait for an ambulance/boat or whatever to arrive? Then what? In many cases their air would be used up by then...so it's a body recovery. That being the case does it really have to be "easy" in order to try?

Get out, call the authorities, then resume your search until they arrive?

 

[theduckguru]

I didn't mean to imply that it's necessarily easy. What is the alternative? Get out of the water and wait for an ambulance/boat or whatever to arrive? Then what? In many cases their air would be used up by then...so it's a body recovery. That being the case does it really have to be "easy" in order to try?

The standard rescue recommendation is to activate EMS and get at least one other to assist you prior to attempting a rescue.

I don't think you'll find many diving fatalities attributed to the failure of immediate rescue efforts by the deceased's dive buddy. Inhalation of water is called drowning.