Question Near incident. What should I have done?

[wetb4igetinthewater]

What was I supposed to do?

How comfortable are you with physical violence?

Sounds like a goat rodeo. You did nothing wrong and it is unfortunate that you have had such a negative experience early in your dive career. Ascending with your buddy's low on air (you didn't have to share air immediately, just abort the dive is fine. Someone runs out, then yes of course donate).

 

[Kendall Raine]

Disagree. We did a week long livaboard trip in Truk Lagoon diving large intact wrecks. Some of the penetrations we did under the supervision of an experienced dive master took us so deep inside the wrecks we probably would not have found our way out on our own before emptying the contents of our cylinder.

According to you we never should have entered the wreck in the first place if we didn't know the way out, and we would have therefore missed some of the most spectacular diving we have done in our entire lives, and we're just two of countless divers who have done the very same thing and lived to tell the tale.

It's a trust me dive if you can't plan/get out on your own. The engine rooms in Truk are trust me dives for many divers. In some cases the wrecks are on their sides making engine room reference points (ladders) 90 degrees off. Guides (they might also be DM's but often not) in Truk will take beginner/low experience inadequately equipped divers who don't have overhead training into these confined/confusing spaces. That doesn't make them trust me dives for all divers, just those (probably most) without the wherewithal (equipment, training, gas management, reference skills and confidence) to exit without their guide. The fact so few fatalities happen on these dives is a testament to the guides in Truk. And luck.

But don't kid yourself. These trust me dives are an example of normalization of deviance. This is @The Chairman 's point. Tried and true overhead protocols are well established but ignored on these (guided) dives. Exit and entry points are sometimes different further making running a line or referencing difficult. Progressive penetration is similarly ignored in Truk. Pre-dive briefings are sometimes little more than "follow me." Many divers do them on single 80's (maybe a single 120) and often with a single OW flashlight in buddy teams that aren't. The fact so few fatalities happen emboldens others to do it. Doesn't mean it's smart (in most cases it's pretty dumb, in fact) but it's SOP in Truk and will be as long as the wrecks last and people are willing to pay good money to "skip the line" on technique, training and experience.

The Truth boats operated in the Channel Islands for over forty years while violating lots of common sense (and regulatory) protocols (normalization of deviance) until Conception burned up killing 34 people.

 

[Kendall Raine]

I can top my own example. On that same livaboard trip, recreational divers are given the option to do a tech dive to a wreck at about 200' under the careful supervision of dive guides who will monitor and assist them through the required staged decompression stops for which they have never been trained.

I assume you're referring to the San Francisco (170' to the deck 200' to the sand) where recreational divers might have total deco of 20 minutes without a gas switch. Another good example of normalization of deviance, but less risky than getting untrained/unprepared divers into an engine room with no clue about how to get out on their own. If something goes wrong on the first example someone gets bent. On the second someone gets dead.

 

[johndiver999]

I assume you're referring to the San Francisco (170' to the deck 200' to the sand) where recreational divers might have total deco of 20 minutes without a gas switch. Another good example of normalization of deviance, but less risky than getting untrained/unprepared divers into an engine room with no clue about how to get out on their own. If something goes wrong on the first example someone gets bent. On the second someone gets dead.

You seem to have a naive concept of how some people will act at 200 ft on air. I don't know which is worse, but both scenarios both present significant mortality risks.

 

[The Chairman]

But don't kid yourself.

More importantly, don't let others deceive you. I know of several friends who got bent in Truk. 5, to be precise. Three had to be extricated, and two of them don't dive anymore.

Most dive ops go out of their way to hide such incidents. Hell, I've been sued by a certain dive op in the Maldives because they changed their name in order to avoid being connected to a diver death, and ScubaBoardians still pointed them out.

But again, new divers don't have the benefit of experience to know better. I don't fault the OP: I fault the dive op that put him into that situation. However, this is a good way for the OP and other less experienced divers learn that trust-me dives are not good. No bueno.

 

[Kendall Raine]

You seem to have a naive concept of how some people will act at 200 ft on air. I don't know which is worse, but both scenarios both present significant mortality risks.

You seem to have misunderstood my post.

I was describing comparative, not binary, risk in response to @LI-er's comment "I can top my own example."

Both dives are trust me dives and involve significant violations of every training/community standard there is. Both are risky. However, one type is pretty obviously riskier than the other based on the fact sets of the respective dives.

If the dive described by @LI-er is in fact the San Francisco, it's 200' to the sand. 170' to the deck. Most recreational divers will on a sightseeing tour in the 160' area. Moreover it's conducted as an open water (non-penetration) dive in warm water and good viz with no chance of silting out or getting lost. TBT is 10-15 minutes. This is a tag the wreck bounce dive. The guide is right there and can easily see the whole group. If it's the operator I'm thinking about this dive is the last one in a week long series of progressive recreational dives and would not be offered to someone who screwed (gave the guide concern) up on a previous (shallower) dive. Contrast that with the type of engine room penetration @LI-er described where the wreck may be upright or on it's side swimming down multiple ladders/multiple buklheads/cat walks three decks down with little to no ambient light, possible leaking oil, lots of silt and a conga line of untrained unskilled ill-equipped (poor lights/no redundancy) divers following a single guide who's leading from the front. The chances of making a wrong turn and getting separated, getting entangled, losing situational awareness (direction, gas managenment, etc) and otherwise getting lost/freaking out or doing something stupid is material. Narc is influenced by many factors (not just PPN2). Many of the local guides do not use a long hose or doubles so exiting OOG, while keeping the whole group together, would be a nightmare.

 

[johndiver999]

You seem to have misunderstood my post. ...

I Both are risky. However, one type is pretty obviously riskier than the other based on the fact sets of the respective dives.

I

I read what you posted, there was not a lot of interpretation needed.

The worst case for people diving air at 200 is not decompression sickness as you stated.

I am glad that you changed your mind, perhaps you should edit your prior comments to better reflect your thinking and to avoid leading people astray, particularly with the attitude toward tourists on 200 ft air dives.

 

[Kendall Raine]

I am glad that you changed your mind, perhaps you should edit your prior comments to better reflect your thinking and to avoid leading people astray, particularly with the attitude toward tourists on 200 ft air dives.

I didn't change my mind. I was clarifying my point for your benefit. Seems I wasted my time.

Over and out.

 

[boulderjohn]

Seaweed Doc did a pretty good job of describing all the standards violations in this incident in post #88, so I won't repeat them.

Without quick and cheap instruction with a lot of hand holding those people would never go past the surface.

The difference between OW instruction with students who are on their knees (the traditional way) and students taught while neutrally buoyant/horizontal trim is night and day. At the end of the pool sessions, students taught while neutrally buoyant already look like experienced divers. This takes no more time than traditional instruction. The students are constantly practicing buoyancy, even while waiting for their turn to do a skill.

The first article PADI published on this appeared 14 years ago. It should be standard practice by now, but I am sure most classes are still taught on the knees.

 

[boulderjohn]

I want to bring up what I believe to be the biggest problem with scuba instruction, something I believe was very much in play in this incident.

As noted many times in this thread, the instructor violated a bunch of standards. People might be asking how he got certified as an instructor if he's that bad. The reason is that he was not violating any standards when he was certified. I am sure that if he had total freedom to do what he wanted to do, he would not have violated any standards on that dive.

The problem is he did not have total freedom to do what he wanted to do. I am sure he did not make the decisions that were made that day. He did what was required by his employer. What do you do if you need a job and your employer tells you that you have to do something that you know is a standards violation? What if you know that all the other employers in the area will require the same sort of thing? How do you feed your family if you do not agree to violate the standards and pray that nothing goes wrong?

And what if something goes wrong? If the violation was bad enough, the instructor will be expelled by the agency and likely sued. The employer will probably be fine, especially if the employer has no agency affiliation. Once the instructor who did as he was told to do is gone, a new instructor is hired and told to do the same thing. The odds are everything will be OK, but when they aren't OK, well, time to hire a new instructor.

Years ago I heard the manager of instruction for a shop in the USA say "Instructors are a dime a dozen." He said someone is coming in to drop off an instructor resumé about every two weeks. Any instructor who doesn't like the way we do things can be replaced in a heartbeat.