Lessons Most frightening moments

After seeing how the post I wrote about the reverse block resonated with people, I would like to make another post today, namely about the most frightening moments I've ever had.

It's easy, particularly for novice divers, to think that people like myself, with decades of experience, thousands of dives and a deck of c-cards have everything under control and nothing bad ever happens.

I wrote about the reverse block because of that. I wanted to show that I am still human and I can still make mistakes. On the internet there is a strong tendency for (technical) divers and instructors with a lot of experience to project an image of themselves as always solving problems correctly, always making the best decisions, and in the case of instructors in particular, having a monopoly on good ideas that lead to perfect students diving perfectly.

None of that, of course, reflects reality at all.

So I will start. I urge experienced divers to share their own stories.

-------
First
-------
1985. I was certified as AOW and we were making a deep dive along a wall. The bottom, for all intents and purposes, at the bottom of the wall was unsurvivable. A diver who diving with a group slightly ahead of us got caught in a large ball of discarded fishing line that he didn't see. He started sinking. The incident started at 42 meters. My buddy and I had just started our dive and we saw this happening. Nobody in his group did. We went after him. This was the first time I had dived deeper than 42 meters. I couldn't tell how deep we were when we caught him because the (analogue) depth gauge I was using was pinned at its maximum depth. This was also my first deco dive or at least my first dive where I was "off the tables" and unable to to know how to ascend. I was, at that time, unaware of oxygen toxicity, gas management and ascent protocols. We returned (at a rapid pace) to 30ft. (10m) and waited there until our tanks were empty on the assumption that any damage done by our deep incursion would be fixed by that. Upon surfacing we didn't know if we were going to get the bends or not. I was, frankly, scared. It still gives me the heebiejeebies to think about this incident more than 30 years later. We did something there that was completely out of control (also the rescue) and we got off easy.

-----------
Second
-----------
2002, I think. I was working as a DM. We temporarily lost a diver during a dive. The situation was that we were on a platform at 25m and doing some exercises for the AOW (deep) dive. A group of divers (maybe 6) descending LANDED on us and kicked up so much silt in their attempts to slow down before impacting the bottom that the visibility went from 5m to black-out in a matter of seconds. I grabbed the two divers right in front of me and dragged them out of the silt cloud. One of them turned out to be our diver and the other one turned out to be one of the idiots who landed on us. We were missing a diver. We surfaced. Naturally our divers were told to surface if they became separated but this diver did not. He remained where he was and waited to be rescued. On the surface we decided that I would search for the missing diver because I had the most experience of everyone (including the instructor). At that point I was a DM but I was already technically trained. I had very limited time. I went back down and eventually found him but it was luck. He survived and my beard got grayer overnight. If I couldn't have found him in the next 5 min his death would have been on my conscience until I died. This was so frightening to me that I nearly abandoned all plans I had to become an instructor.

-----------
Third
-----------
The accident. My team saved the life of a diver who ran out of air during an AOW training dive (by another group, not mine) and was left for dead on the bottom at 18m. We acted quickly and professionally and got him into the hands of paramedics within about 10 min. As an aside, the fact that the Dutch paramedics were able to be on scene so quickly was no small part of this! He looked dead when we retrieved him. He lay in coma for several weeks after the incident. Doctors had basically written him off when -- unexpectedly to all -- he woke up and subsequently made a reasonable (albeit not full) recovery.

The impact on myself and on the members of my team was substantial, particularly because of what we viewed as our 'mistakes'. One diver (the DM) stopped diving. He started hyperventilating during the descent to find the "body" and after that he started to hyperventilate on EVERY dive. He stopped diving.

To me it changed EVERYTHING about how I view training and my role as an instructor. I didn't organize things on the surface as well as I could have, if I had had a second run at it. Yes, I had the EMS on site in 10 min. Police, paramedics, trauma doctor, helicopter, fire department with a boat, a private boat.... all of that I had..... but I was overwhelmed and not communicating as well as I could.

Someone tried to chase my (uncertified) OW students into the water to go search. He didn't know that they were uncertified and I ripped him a new one in a way that I regret, giving in to the emotion. An NOB (CMAS) instructor showed me by example how to control the dive site in a way I had never learned, I missed seeing a diver (the DM who caused the accident) displaying passive panic. It only became apparent to me when they had to take him away by ambulance when he collapsed.... it was MUCH more messy scene than I had ever imagined and I was not in control as well as I would expect from myself. At one point, once the EMS had control of the surface situation I grabbed another diver (a DM) and went searching myself. This was a mistake. I can't get over the mind set that drove me to ACT when I SHOULD have been coordinating! I'm like the guy who charges into a burning building because I can't fight the urge to DO SOMETHING! I HATE that about myself.

Since that time (it's been years) I've been replaying that event in my mind and thinking, "if I had only done XXXX then YYYY". It drives me CRAZY to think that if we were sharper we could have found him 30 seconds or a minute earlier and his recovery could have been better. The fact that he survived is utterly astounding. These things never end like that.... but I feel responsible for the fact that it took so long.

This was a formative moment in my diving. I considered stopping as well but eventually decided not not to. To this day I cannot -- and will not -- teach or participate in the Rescue course, even though I may be the one instructor in my circle who is most qualified to talk about the differences between theory and practice. It's just too intimidating.

 

[The Chairman]

What sort of calculation is this diver doing underwater to recognize that these two divers going lower than him will be out of air in a few minutes?

When I buddy with a person, I check my air consumption after five minutes or so, and then peak at the other diver's SPG or ask them what their pressure is. If I used 100 and they used a 120 psi, I have a rough indication that they're using 20% more than me. If I want to ascend with 1000psi, I can surmise that they will only have 600at that point. Probably better for me to ask what their SPG reads when I hit 1400. This is a part of buddy awareness. After each dive, I will ask divers to tell me what their buddy's SPG reads without looking. Attentive divers know.

Yes, you can ask about their air more than twice on a dive.

 

[KatieMac]

What sort of calculation is this diver doing underwater to recognize that these two divers going lower than him will be out of air in a few minutes?

likely calculated based on his SAC rate.

Estimating Your Air Consumption

Do you have enough breathing gas to complete the next dive? Here's how to find out.

dan.org

And as @The Chairman said, attentive divers know.

 

[Oldmanmatt]

I have logged well over a thousand dives since I first qualified in 1989 (RN, Then BSAC novice before working up the Padi blurb train, then TDI up to Advanced Trimix by 2000/2001. I have almost died at my own dumb hand several times.
Around 02/03 I was part of the team hunting for the U533 off the coast of the UAE (almost in Iranian waters) with only the haziest co-ords, we were basically diving any sizeable contact we could get a hook on in anything between 90-140 msw.
Every weekend for two years…
Anyway, we’d picked up something in about 90msw, got a shot on it and my buddy Ahmed and I prepped to do a bounce, expecting to do a full table deco (pre VR3 days) on just twins, S40s of 50 and 100. Ahmed was on his Inspiration (which a year or so later, tried to kill me, but that’s another story).
My wife (kitted to act as support, should we need/over run the time etc etc) waited in the boat with the guy who drew the short straw on the day and was Cox.

It was pile of abandoned fish traps, washed off some dhow.

So, up we start, unhooking and stowing the kedge, letting it bump of the sand.

It was SOP, that once the boat began to drift, they crew would drop the line off on a bouy and stand off.
They didn’t.
The cox, watching the GPS, was the only one who realised the boat was drifting.

We get to 21 and I go to switch to 50. As I crack the Vv, the O ring blows/fails at the DIN base.

Cue muffled swearing.

Ok, clip John line to the shot line to lay down current from Ahmed and swap reg from O2 to 50. Bummer, but meh. It’s a dull day, so Ahmed is shinning his HID on my efforts, but it’s fiddly with one hand, so…

So I F%$£ up.

I clip the John line off on my scooter ring. I’ve tied myself to the shot line.

Almost instantly the shot line goes tight and we’re being dragged up so fast my mask is being pulled off and I can’t bring my hands round to unclip the John line. Ahmed’s HID and hand are tangled up in my line and hoses and we break the surface like ICBMs.

Absolutely panicked, sure I was dead (thank fark I was screaming like a banshee all the way), in a moment of slack, I unclipped, dumped anything in my wing and willed myself at warp speed back to 21, still on back gas.

Now in the blue, no sign of Ahmed, chanting the time honoured prayer “F£$K! F£2K! F%$K!” I got it together enough to put up a bag, finish swapping regs and decided to stay at 21 until I hit 50b on my 50%, then go to 6 and breath O2 until it stopped flowing. Still expecting to realise I’d embolismed and was actually dead.

We had protocols for such events, none involved in water Recompresion, mostly involving putting the casualty on O2 and sprinting for shore and hopefully the chamber.

Come the moment I made the executive decision to rewrite the SOP. I figured pressure is pressure and this one was way closer.

Eventually, breaking the surface, still shitting bricks to be fair, I found the boat bobbing a few meters away.
As they helped me up the ladder, I realised the Cox had a well defined, purple, imprint of my wife’s right fist on his left cheek and a slowly closing eye…

When he realised the boat had drifted 500 m from where the shot was dropped, instead of dropping the line off on the bouy, he’d flat sticked hard back towards the drop point with the line still attached.
When we broke the surface, the Mrs realised what was happening, relived the Cox of command and yanked the throttles back (giving me the slack to unclip).

It was almost an hour before Ahmed, on his Inspiration, appeared; having taken exactly the same attitude to our previous SOP I had, but being far better equipped.

Thank crap it was a bounce dive, but we’d followed deco for a 10min bottom time, because neither of us was bent. We did decide to rejoin the original SOP and go on O2 and high tail it to Fujairah and on to the chamber, though…

Everyone involved was highly experienced. Nobody could quite articulate why they did things they knew they shouldn’t.

Except the Mrs.

Apparently “the F@$ker deserved it” .

Edit:
Oh yeah…
Later, the computer of Ahmed’s inspiration, showed that we’d gone from 21 meters to the surface in less than four seconds.

 

[Saboteur]

Meet Mitzy and Moose, my parents. They did stuff like this my entire childhood and believe it or not, they are not all that dumb.

View attachment 779703

The other day my mother was telling us about when she soloed at seven months pregnant she was so scared, she could not remember which way to move the yoke.

My father almost flew me into some power lines once with our parasail, it goes on and on...

My dad used to physically drag me in to caves scuba diving when I was around ten.

Otherwise very nice people

MOF!

 

[Oldmanmatt]

This is not my video, but I find the story pretty disturbing.

I know this has been up a while and there’s been quite a lot of comment on it but…

I think I cracked a tooth from grinding my teeth, long before he even got to the really dumb bit.

 

[OTF]

I have logged well over a thousand dives since I first qualified in 1989 (RN, Then BSAC novice before working up the Padi blurb train, then TDI up to Advanced Trimix by 2000/2001. I have almost died at my own dumb hand several times.
Around 02/03 I was part of the team hunting for the U533 off the coast of the UAE (almost in Iranian waters) with only the haziest co-ords, we were basically diving any sizeable contact we could get a hook on in anything between 90-140 msw.
Every weekend for two years…
Anyway, we’d picked up something in about 90msw, got a shot on it and my buddy Ahmed and I prepped to do a bounce, expecting to do a full table deco (pre VR3 days) on just twins, S40s of 50 and 100. Ahmed was on his Inspiration (which a year or so later, tried to kill me, but that’s another story).
My wife (kitted to act as support, should we need/over run the time etc etc) waited in the boat with the guy who drew the short straw on the day and was Cox.

It was pile of abandoned fish traps, washed off some dhow.

So, up we start, unhooking and stowing the kedge, letting it bump of the sand.

It was SOP, that once the boat began to drift, they crew would drop the line off on a bouy and stand off.
They didn’t.
The cox, watching the GPS, was the only one who realised the boat was drifting.

We get to 21 and I go to switch to 50. As I crack the Vv, the O ring blows/fails at the DIN base.

Cue muffled swearing.

Ok, clip John line to the shot line to lay down current from Ahmed and swap reg from O2 to 50. Bummer, but meh. It’s a dull day, so Ahmed is shinning his HID on my efforts, but it’s fiddly with one hand, so…

So I F%$£ up.

I clip the John line off on my scooter ring. I’ve tied myself to the shot line.

Almost instantly the shot line goes tight and we’re being dragged up so fast my mask is being pulled off and I can’t bring my hands round to unclip the John line. Ahmed’s HID and hand are tangled up in my line and hoses and we break the surface like ICBMs.

Absolutely panicked, sure I was dead (thank fark I was screaming like a banshee all the way), in a moment of slack, I unclipped, dumped anything in my wing and willed myself at warp speed back to 21, still on back gas.

Now in the blue, no sign of Ahmed, chanting the time honoured prayer “F£$K! F£2K! F%$K!” I got it together enough to put up a bag, finish swapping regs and decided to stay at 21 until I hit 50b on my 50%, then go to 6 and breath O2 until it stopped flowing. Still expecting to realise I’d embolismed and was actually dead.

We had protocols for such events, none involved in water Recompresion, mostly involving putting the casualty on O2 and sprinting for shore and hopefully the chamber.

Come the moment I made the executive decision to rewrite the SOP. I figured pressure is pressure and this one was way closer.

Eventually, breaking the surface, still shitting bricks to be fair, I found the boat bobbing a few meters away.
As they helped me up the ladder, I realised the Cox had a well defined, purple, imprint of my wife’s right fist on his left cheek and a slowly closing eye…

When he realised the boat had drifted 500 m from where the shot was dropped, instead of dropping the line off on the bouy, he’d flat sticked hard back towards the drop point with the line still attached.
When we broke the surface, the Mrs realised what was happening, relived the Cox of command and yanked the throttles back (giving me the slack to unclip).

It was almost an hour before Ahmed, on his Inspiration, appeared; having taken exactly the same attitude to our previous SOP I had, but being far better equipped.

Thank crap it was a bounce dive, but we’d followed deco for a 10min bottom time, because neither of us was bent. We did decide to rejoin the original SOP and go on O2 and high tail it to Fujairah and on to the chamber, though…

Everyone involved was highly experienced. Nobody could quite articulate why they did things they knew they shouldn’t.

Except the Mrs.

Apparently “the F@$ker deserved it” .

Edit:
Oh yeah…
Later, the computer of Ahmed’s inspiration, showed that we’d gone from 21 meters to the surface in less than four seconds.

Crazy story, thank you for posting.

 

[BlueTrin]

I'm surprised that his wife didn't kill him for leaving her alone while he penetrated the wreck!

She’s not the jealous type

 

[Al Stevens]

I have logged well over a thousand dives since I first qualified in 1989 (RN, Then BSAC novice before working up the Padi blurb train, then TDI up to Advanced Trimix by 2000/2001. I have almost died at my own dumb hand several times.
Around 02/03 I was part of the team hunting for the U533 off the coast of the UAE (almost in Iranian waters) with only the haziest co-ords, we were basically diving any sizeable contact we could get a hook on in anything between 90-140 msw.
Every weekend for two years…
Anyway, we’d picked up something in about 90msw, got a shot on it and my buddy Ahmed and I prepped to do a bounce, expecting to do a full table deco (pre VR3 days) on just twins, S40s of 50 and 100. Ahmed was on his Inspiration (which a year or so later, tried to kill me, but that’s another story).
My wife (kitted to act as support, should we need/over run the time etc etc) waited in the boat with the guy who drew the short straw on the day and was Cox.

It was pile of abandoned fish traps, washed off some dhow.

So, up we start, unhooking and stowing the kedge, letting it bump of the sand.

It was SOP, that once the boat began to drift, they crew would drop the line off on a bouy and stand off.
They didn’t.
The cox, watching the GPS, was the only one who realised the boat was drifting.

We get to 21 and I go to switch to 50. As I crack the Vv, the O ring blows/fails at the DIN base.

Cue muffled swearing.

Ok, clip John line to the shot line to lay down current from Ahmed and swap reg from O2 to 50. Bummer, but meh. It’s a dull day, so Ahmed is shinning his HID on my efforts, but it’s fiddly with one hand, so…

So I F%$£ up.

I clip the John line off on my scooter ring. I’ve tied myself to the shot line.

Almost instantly the shot line goes tight and we’re being dragged up so fast my mask is being pulled off and I can’t bring my hands round to unclip the John line. Ahmed’s HID and hand are tangled up in my line and hoses and we break the surface like ICBMs.

Absolutely panicked, sure I was dead (thank fark I was screaming like a banshee all the way), in a moment of slack, I unclipped, dumped anything in my wing and willed myself at warp speed back to 21, still on back gas.

Now in the blue, no sign of Ahmed, chanting the time honoured prayer “F£$K! F£2K! F%$K!” I got it together enough to put up a bag, finish swapping regs and decided to stay at 21 until I hit 50b on my 50%, then go to 6 and breath O2 until it stopped flowing. Still expecting to realise I’d embolismed and was actually dead.

We had protocols for such events, none involved in water Recompresion, mostly involving putting the casualty on O2 and sprinting for shore and hopefully the chamber.

Come the moment I made the executive decision to rewrite the SOP. I figured pressure is pressure and this one was way closer.

Eventually, breaking the surface, still shitting bricks to be fair, I found the boat bobbing a few meters away.
As they helped me up the ladder, I realised the Cox had a well defined, purple, imprint of my wife’s right fist on his left cheek and a slowly closing eye…

When he realised the boat had drifted 500 m from where the shot was dropped, instead of dropping the line off on the bouy, he’d flat sticked hard back towards the drop point with the line still attached.
When we broke the surface, the Mrs realised what was happening, relived the Cox of command and yanked the throttles back (giving me the slack to unclip).

It was almost an hour before Ahmed, on his Inspiration, appeared; having taken exactly the same attitude to our previous SOP I had, but being far better equipped.

Thank crap it was a bounce dive, but we’d followed deco for a 10min bottom time, because neither of us was bent. We did decide to rejoin the original SOP and go on O2 and high tail it to Fujairah and on to the chamber, though…

Everyone involved was highly experienced. Nobody could quite articulate why they did things they knew they shouldn’t.

Except the Mrs.

Apparently “the F@$ker deserved it” .

Edit:
Oh yeah…
Later, the computer of Ahmed’s inspiration, showed that we’d gone from 21 meters to the surface in less than four seconds.

Holy Crap!!! 4 seconds! How are you still alive..........

 

[BikerManiac]

Not as crazy or scary as the other post here.

For me:

1. Open water. Somewhere in the Maldives. Chasing Hammerheads. We are following the DM. Jumped into the water, straight down to 140-150 ft. There is nothing to see. Everything is darker and darker blue. Just kicking and kicking against the current. Everybody is following. After x number of minutes I heard distant beeps. I thought it was my mind playing tricks. It turns out every single dive computer was beeping because we reached/reaching our NDL. My computer was flashing read. Anyways we started going up. Saw one giant hammerhead in the background. Did my safety stop, had 5 PSI left in the tank.
2. Super strong current. Belize, Thailand, Palau (Superman) and the Philippines (Isla Verde). There are highways underwater that have such a strong currents they will sweep you out. These currents are at a specific depth. They are basically rip tides. You can't swim/kick against them. Once you are in one. You either have to go up or down. It's so weird. I remember in Belize, if we didnt grab on the rope/bar at the perfect time we would have gone to open water and wait for the dinghy to find you. (Same with Galapagos??)

 

[exodusmaximus]

After seeing how the post I wrote about the reverse block resonated with people, I would like to make another post today, namely about the most frightening moments I've ever had.

It's easy, particularly for novice divers, to think that people like myself, with decades of experience, thousands of dives and a deck of c-cards have everything under control and nothing bad ever happens.

I wrote about the reverse block because of that. I wanted to show that I am still human and I can still make mistakes. On the internet there is a strong tendency for (technical) divers and instructors with a lot of experience to project an image of themselves as always solving problems correctly, always making the best decisions, and in the case of instructors in particular, having a monopoly on good ideas that lead to perfect students diving perfectly.

None of that, of course, reflects reality at all.

So I will start. I urge experienced divers to share their own stories.

-------
First
-------
1985. I was certified as AOW and we were making a deep dive along a wall. The bottom, for all intents and purposes, at the bottom of the wall was unsurvivable. A diver who diving with a group slightly ahead of us got caught in a large ball of discarded fishing line that he didn't see. He started sinking. The incident started at 42 meters. My buddy and I had just started our dive and we saw this happening. Nobody in his group did. We went after him. This was the first time I had dived deeper than 42 meters. I couldn't tell how deep we were when we caught him because the (analogue) depth gauge I was using was pinned at its maximum depth. This was also my first deco dive or at least my first dive where I was "off the tables" and unable to to know how to ascend. I was, at that time, unaware of oxygen toxicity, gas management and ascent protocols. We returned (at a rapid pace) to 30ft. (10m) and waited there until our tanks were empty on the assumption that any damage done by our deep incursion would be fixed by that. Upon surfacing we didn't know if we were going to get the bends or not. I was, frankly, scared. It still gives me the heebiejeebies to think about this incident more than 30 years later. We did something there that was completely out of control (also the rescue) and we got off easy.

-----------
Second
-----------
2002, I think. I was working as a DM. We temporarily lost a diver during a dive. The situation was that we were on a platform at 25m and doing some exercises for the AOW (deep) dive. A group of divers (maybe 6) descending LANDED on us and kicked up so much silt in their attempts to slow down before impacting the bottom that the visibility went from 5m to black-out in a matter of seconds. I grabbed the two divers right in front of me and dragged them out of the silt cloud. One of them turned out to be our diver and the other one turned out to be one of the idiots who landed on us. We were missing a diver. We surfaced. Naturally our divers were told to surface if they became separated but this diver did not. He remained where he was and waited to be rescued. On the surface we decided that I would search for the missing diver because I had the most experience of everyone (including the instructor). At that point I was a DM but I was already technically trained. I had very limited time. I went back down and eventually found him but it was luck. He survived and my beard got grayer overnight. If I couldn't have found him in the next 5 min his death would have been on my conscience until I died. This was so frightening to me that I nearly abandoned all plans I had to become an instructor.

-----------
Third
-----------
The accident. My team saved the life of a diver who ran out of air during an AOW training dive (by another group, not mine) and was left for dead on the bottom at 18m. We acted quickly and professionally and got him into the hands of paramedics within about 10 min. As an aside, the fact that the Dutch paramedics were able to be on scene so quickly was no small part of this! He looked dead when we retrieved him. He lay in coma for several weeks after the incident. Doctors had basically written him off when -- unexpectedly to all -- he woke up and subsequently made a reasonable (albeit not full) recovery.

The impact on myself and on the members of my team was substantial, particularly because of what we viewed as our 'mistakes'. One diver (the DM) stopped diving. He started hyperventilating during the descent to find the "body" and after that he started to hyperventilate on EVERY dive. He stopped diving.

To me it changed EVERYTHING about how I view training and my role as an instructor. I didn't organize things on the surface as well as I could have, if I had had a second run at it. Yes, I had the EMS on site in 10 min. Police, paramedics, trauma doctor, helicopter, fire department with a boat, a private boat.... all of that I had..... but I was overwhelmed and not communicating as well as I could.

Someone tried to chase my (uncertified) OW students into the water to go search. He didn't know that they were uncertified and I ripped him a new one in a way that I regret, giving in to the emotion. An NOB (CMAS) instructor showed me by example how to control the dive site in a way I had never learned, I missed seeing a diver (the DM who caused the accident) displaying passive panic. It only became apparent to me when they had to take him away by ambulance when he collapsed.... it was MUCH more messy scene than I had ever imagined and I was not in control as well as I would expect from myself. At one point, once the EMS had control of the surface situation I grabbed another diver (a DM) and went searching myself. This was a mistake. I can't get over the mind set that drove me to ACT when I SHOULD have been coordinating! I'm like the guy who charges into a burning building because I can't fight the urge to DO SOMETHING! I HATE that about myself.

Since that time (it's been years) I've been replaying that event in my mind and thinking, "if I had only done XXXX then YYYY". It drives me CRAZY to think that if we were sharper we could have found him 30 seconds or a minute earlier and his recovery could have been better. The fact that he survived is utterly astounding. These things never end like that.... but I feel responsible for the fact that it took so long.

This was a formative moment in my diving. I considered stopping as well but eventually decided not not to. To this day I cannot -- and will not -- teach or participate in the Rescue course, even though I may be the one instructor in my circle who is most qualified to talk about the differences between theory and practice. It's just too intimidating.

I consider my self soooo lucky to always been diving with great divers (better than me). I took rescue diver course just for that - so in the event of emergency, hopefully, my training will give me some muscle memory to handle it. Even though I never plan to be an instructor, I want to do my DM, just for the same reason. My biggest fear is something I can't forsee, as being pulled by down current, encounter really panicked diver I can't calm or such...