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.

 

[Steelyeyes]

On my third dive with a new back plate and wing my wife, Mary and I started a descent to a small wreck just off shore. Depth at the stern of the wreck was 60 FSW and the bow was in about 80 FSW, water temp was a balmy 43F. My wife was on a buoy line and I was doing a free descent next to her. At about 20 feet I started adding air to slow the descent. By the time I got to 25 feet it seemed like adding air wasn't very effective. A complicating factor was that a horizon line of darker, tea colored water became apparent at 27 feet or so. More air into the BC and suddenly visibility went from poor to complete zero. I didn't want to lose my vertical orientation and I sensed I was still descending. At that point I switched to adding air to my dry suit and my depth felt like it leveled off. My biggest concern at that time was I hoped Mary had not somehow ended up in the black soup too.

I started a slow ascent. I didn't feel like I had an ear squeeze but about the time I could see above the layer of dark water my left ear drum ruptured. I guess my focus on my other problem masked that one.

I made it to the surface, did a quick look around and was relieved to see Mary's bubbles coming up from the buoy line. I swam over and despite knowing better I descended to her position to let her know I was OK. She was just above the soupy water and was looking for my bubbles. I lucked out and the cold water entering my ear didn't give me vertigo. We made a safe ascent and swam back to shore. It felt like it was longer but the from the time I disappeared into the ink until I came back out again was only 3 minutes or so.

I can't honestly say I was terrified but I definitely had some serious concerns for my safety for a few minutes. Later I checked out the jet dump on the BCD and found that merely lifting the hose away from the chest to add air was enough tension on the cable to open the dump valve. The air I heard going through the inflator masked the sound of the air leaving once it got to the open dump valve. I replaced the dump valve, the inflator hose and the LP hose and never had that problem again.

 

[CT-Rich]

On my third dive with a new back plate and wing my wife, Mary and I started a descent to a small wreck just off shore. Depth at the stern of the wreck was 60 FSW and the bow was in about 80 FSW, water temp was a balmy 43F. My wife was on a buoy line and I was doing a free descent next to her. At about 20 feet I started adding air to slow the descent. By the time I got to 25 feet it seemed like adding air wasn't very effective. A complicating factor was that a horizon line of darker, tea colored water became apparent at 27 feet or so. More air into the BC and suddenly visibility went from poor to complete zero. I didn't want to lose my vertical orientation and I sensed I was still descending. At that point I switched to adding air to my dry suit and my depth felt like it leveled off. My biggest concern at that time was I hoped Mary had not somehow ended up in the black soup too.

I started a slow ascent. I didn't feel like I had an ear squeeze but about the time I could see above the layer of dark water my left ear drum ruptured. I guess my focus on my other problem masked that one.

I made it to the surface, did a quick look around and was relieved to see Mary's bubbles coming up from the buoy line. I swam over and despite knowing better I descended to her position to let her know I was OK. She was just above the soupy water and was looking for my bubbles. I lucked out and the cold water entering my ear didn't give me vertigo. We made a safe ascent and swam back to shore. It felt like it was longer but the from the time I disappeared into the ink until I came back out again was only 3 minutes or so.

I can't honestly say I was terrified but I definitely had some serious concerns for my safety for a few minutes. Later I checked out the jet dump on the BCD and found that merely lifting the hose away from the chest to add air was enough tension on the cable to open the dump valve. The air I heard going through the inflator masked the sound of the air leaving once it got to the open dump valve. I replaced the dump valve, the inflator hose and the LP hose and never had that problem again.

I was in a similar situation with a dump valve being forced open by a LP hose. It was a night dive and we surfaced to discuss retrieving an anchor we had just found. I had a mostly full 120 and my buddy’s tank was only half full. When I went down I sank like a stone (10 lbs negative). I tried to trim out and nothing happened. Fortunately, the water was than 30’, but it was a pitch black night dive. We resurfaced and I explained that my BCD had failed. I didn’t want to try to navigate in on the bottom because my buddy didn’t have a ton of air and I didn’t like the idea separating at night in open water. I opted to dump my belt for the swim in. We weren’t in any real danger, but it was our first night dive in an otherwise familiar spot and darkness makes everything seem scarier.
The burst eardrum sounds really sucky. I’ve been lucky to never have had one.

 

[Lochard]

Taiwan, Green Island, April - this was my first time diving outside of the calm tropical waters of Thailand and I only had about 30 dives. My buddy was aow like me but he hadn't dived for over a year.

The waters around Green are swept by the Japan current and it is known mainly as a migratory route for scalloped hammerheads; the dive site where they can be observed is a severe test - guides will only take those with 100+ logged dives and there have been a number of fatalities. Obviously we weren't going to dive there, but In hindsight we should have known that if that site was prone to violent current then any site offshore would be susceptible.

We go out on the boat and my buddy notices that the divers in a different group all have reef hooks. We don't even have an SMB between us. We are about half a mile offshore in big swell and the boat is doing a lot of manouvering. The DM/guide (from the most 'reputable' outfit on the island) explains that 'there might be some current on the dive' and that is the sum total of the dive briefing, no map, no navigational direction, no further indication of the conditions - although we do know our objective - a pinnacle submerged at 15 metres. In hindsight we should have pressed the guide for more information; my buddy, a veteran Taiwan resident, surmised that the DM deliberately understated the dangers because he was too worried about losing face in front of his colleagues and the other group to call the dive.

So we jump in, and hang around on the surface. Looking back i am rather surprised to see the boat already some distance away. We descend, but inevitably at different rates. With no visual reference it is hard to estimate the strength of the current until the pinnacle looms below, moving past us at about 3 knots (a guess - it was like jogging past). No idea where my buddies or the DM are - all I can do is latch onto the top of the reef and haul myself along - which was like rock climbing horizontally - until I found a large crevice in the top of the pinnacle, an unexpected, lucky shelter. I wait there to catch my breath - the problem is that my reg isn't giving me enough air and I consciously have to tell myself to slow and deepen my breathing and resist the urge to bolt for the surface. I feel a panic attack coming on - probably, though I didn't know it at the time, a nasty shot of hypercapnia. I fight this down and look around - still no sight of the DM, though my buddy is there and we hesitantly give each other the ok signs and descend the crevice. At the bottom my depth guage reads 28 metres and I feel a euphoric relief to have survived the ordeal, and finally spotted the DM, or rather his fins, swimming away from us around the bottom of the pinnacle. We swim to catch up, but I'm already at 80 bar, having consumed more than half my tank just getting down.

The rest of the dive is uneventful. The DM deploys his SMB and we surface, still a good 200 metres downcurrent from the boat. There are a number of things that went wrong and many things that I learnt from this experience, most of them interrelated. Above all was the recognition that we didn't dive the plan - there wasn't a plan to dive.

 

[Mrs. B]

Once my husband dropped me off our boat for a solo dive (Hawaii) and at the last minute he “helped” check my tank valve. At around 40 feet (maybe less) it slammed shut like a door. I really don’t like anyone touching my tank valve because they are facing it from a different direction and nobody cares about your valve more than you.
I still lord this over his head to make him feel bad, so it was worth it

I guess the moral of the story is that if someone does fiddle with your valve, you need to check it before descending

 

[Mrs. B]

Once he left the fuel cap off the plane and I mention that one also, that can end poorly

His overall safety score is still excellent but hyper vigilant he is not

 

[clara.chan]

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.

R..

I'm only 19 dives in, so this "most frightening moment" probably does not compare at all with all of yours. This was on my previous dive with a Divemaster in Puerto Galera, Philippines. We were descending upon the Alma Jane Wreck (97 ft), when we met some very strong current. The current knocked my octo out of its holder, and also knocked my red filter/fish eye lens off the gopro hero 5 case. This current caught us both by surprise. We both swam across the current to the wreck (used up A LOT of air), and I managed to take some stunning photos (without the red filter... oh well). And then we turned the rest of the dive into a drift dive. The current soon died down, and the DM checked my air consumption. (I was still thinking about the current...) He signaled for an ascent, and I signaled okay. When we got to 15 ft for our 3 minute safety stop, that was when I first looked at my spg, and it read around 450 psi. I was stunned that I managed to use up so much air in the 20 minutes of the dive. And then realized that I was huffing and puffing to get across the current, and that it was also a deep dive. Lesson learned: I need to check my spg A LOT more!

I do love this sport, but this experience was a good wake-up call for me...

 

[drbill]

Once my husband dropped me off our boat for a solo dive (Hawaii) and at the last minute he “helped” check my tank valve. At around 40 feet (maybe less) it slammed shut like a door. I really don’t like anyone touching my tank valve because they are facing it from a different direction and nobody cares about your valve more than you.
I still lord this over his head to make him feel bad, so it was worth it

I guess the moral of the story is that if someone does fiddle with your valve, you need to check it before descending

I was in Tahiti and asked the DM not to touch my gear. I had opened my valve prior to the dive and noticed she went over to check my gear. I entered the water and made it down to about 20 fsw when I realized I was not getting any air out of my tank. I started to kick to the surface, but she grabbed my legs and tried to hold me down. Topside she chewed me out for bolting to the surface. I tried to explain to her that I had been breathing mostly surface supplied air and her concern was uninformed.

 

[Mrs. B]

You remind me of my WORST time: I was diving off an inflatable with my x husband between Casino point and Hamilton Cove and I floated up into a bloom, getting really tangled up

My lips barely reached the surface and I could only sip air on each swell

Then I pulled my knife out and was waving that around and somebody swam out to help me but wouldn’t come any closer and yelled “PUT THE KNIFE AWAY” Ha ha

Husband no where to be found of course and I had sucked my tank dry. After that I was always aware of how the kelp blooms closer to the surface and likes to grab your first stage. It wasn’t my best moment in the water.
I really shouldn’t even talk about it

 

[wreckdiversam]

In the Philippines I was diving with a group of 6 friends. Most of us had 50+ dives and everyone was AOW with the exception of one person. He had less then 10 dives and it had been a almost a year since those dives. We were diving a plane wreck that was in 70' of water. I'm use to the U.S. and diving with a buddy. We had two dive masters with us. I stayed with the most un-experienced diver (an older gentlemen) and I watched his air supply closely. When he hit 1000 PSI I was still around 2000. I found the dive master and relayed the air totals and informed him we were surfacing. This is where it got interesting...he said no. He said stay put and wait as he went to round of the other two groups (4 divers). Well, it took in a while. He came back and by this time my buddy was around 600 (and getting nervous). Again, I relayed that we needed to ascend. He again said no and motioned for us to wait. He came back a few moments later with the last pair and all 6 of us (plus the two divemasters) ascended together. At this point the dive master was with my buddy and I watched as my buddy took the last breath of air in his tank while at the 15' safety stop. He then had to buddy breath with the dive master.

Moral of the story, I was pretty inexperienced and should have just bolted and started the ascent when my buddy reached 1000 PSI. That's what I would have done state-side. I was not use to having to descend and ascend as a group. Never again... The sad part is that my buddy was totally freaked out and I doubt that he will ever dive again.

 

[EireDiver606]

I was not use to having to descend and ascend as a group. Never again...

Descending and ascending as a group is a much more beneficial for several reasons.

If it’s with other competent divers and you keep eye contact...