Question Near incident. What should I have done?

[DiveProKoko]

I feel like the blame for this part is on the operator though, when we booked the liveaboard I assumed they'd have a dedicated instructor or do their training dives separately from the rest of the group. He was put on a position where he had to either tell my friends to skip several of the dives on the trip, or tell the rest of us ro be unguided, which I'm sure he though would put him in trouble. Given the culture of the country we were diving in, I can understand how that may well be the case and he had no other option. This is why I'm not naming anyone on this thread

Yeah, I get what you're saying and I appreciate you understanding he was probably put in a tough spot. But this is potentially life and death stuff. You still did the right thing, lived to tell your story, and have learned something. All "wins"! When you book trips in the future, now you know to ask about the number of guides on the boat, in the water, etc. It's all good. I've been on liveaboards where they had students doing an AOW or other certs. They always had a dedicated instructor to the student(s) and at least one additional guide(s) in the water for the rest of the group. This is how it should be. Don't let the operator play with your safety so he can save a few bucks by not hiring a Divemaster.

 

[NorCalDM]

I feel like the blame for this part is on the operator though, when we booked the liveaboard I assumed they'd have a dedicated instructor or do their training dives separately from the rest of the group. He was put on a position where he had to either tell my friends to skip several of the dives on the trip, or tell the rest of us ro be unguided, which I'm sure he though would put him in trouble. Given the culture of the country we were diving in, I can understand how that may well be the case and he had no other option. This is why I'm not naming anyone on this thread

This was a boat operator decision not a culture thing. I was on a liveaboard in the Red Sea a few months ago and there were a couple divers doing an AOW class and one doing a buoyancy class. The instructor always had students only when they were doing class dives and we did our own dives without students. Also their dive site briefings where done very well and it was our option to do our own dives or stay with the guides. We all had to have our own spool and DSMB. I like to follow a guide in a new place as they know the sites and can spot things we may miss but my wife and I are also very comfortable doing our own dives without a guide so I never look at any dive as a trust me dive. If I'm not comfortable doing a dive on my own I won't do it whether I'm following a guide or not. I take every dive as it is my responsibility and a guide is just that a guide not my safety net.

 

[inquis]

The problem was that unexpectedly, someone I felt responsible for was on 50 bar. How could I plan for that?

The original plan to turn at 120 bar sounds crap for those conditions.

To avoid similar issues in the future, you and your friends should educate yourselves about Rock Bottom reserve (used strictly for the ascent) and the gas planning required for a mandatory return to anchor at depth (including the impact of current).

For a depth of 25 m, I would urge relatively new divers to be *back at the anchor* with about 80 bar (assuming AL80/11 L tank) and with more experience, perhaps 60 bar.

For return against a current, it's not unreasonable to use 2x as much air for the return as the outbound, but also remember that you might be sharing -- so 4x. Then plus the 1x used on the way out. That means you can go "away" using 1/5 of the remaining non-ascent gas. A more realistic turn pressure for these conditions is around 165-170 bar.

As it was, the sharing wasn't even from the turnaround point and was with the instructor (who would ideally be the calmest)... and they didn't have enough to complete a brief safety stop. A blown LP hose at the turn absolutely would have had to surface away from the anchor. "Super dangerous" according to the instructor, therefore a crap plan on their part.

Again, the above is meant to be constructive. You need to plan for stuff to go sideways. Had you and the new divers had this background, you could have tactfully/privately said something to the instructor before the dive. Ideally, this would have been woven into the AOW instruction.

As it was, everyone trusted that the turn pressure was appropriate. Give yourself the knowledge to verify that is true.

 

[Miyaru]

I think the OP's description of the event makes an excellent example for instructor training.

Next to all the issues mentioned already:

If you are teaching a course as instructor, you may add non-student divers to your group, but those divers must be included in the allowed ratio for that specific course dive.
The OP mentions wreck as specialty course. I also read that there is wreck penetration (= overhead environment), so I assume this was the final dive of the wreck diving course. It will differ from agency to agency, but the ratio for training divers in an overhead environment is absolutely not 8:1. Not even in technical courses.
Breaking standards already started during the dive briefing. Swiss-Cheese-model hole 1.

Restrictions (places too narrow to allow divers to pass side-by-side or piggyback) are not permitted on any training dive.
"...which is dark and narrow enough we'd have to enter it single file..." -> breaking standards.

The OP's story is a perfect cookbook recipe for a clusterfcuk. All the holes were present in the Swiss Cheese Model, you're all just lucky that the holes didn't line up. But kudos for trying.

 

[afternoonnaps]

Just wanted to say thanks for posting this question, OP! It's a good reminder of things I'm supposed to know.

 

[rick00001967]

I was recently on a red sea liveaboard with my partner and two friends. Me and my partner have AOW and 50/30 dives respectively, our two friends had just gotten their open water recently with no further dives outside training. Our friends decided to do their AOW at the beginning of the liveaboard.

On the second day, our friends were going to do their deep and wreck adventure dives on two dives on a wreck that sits at 20-30m depth. There was a lot of current that day, we were a group of 9 divers.

The instructor made it clear in the debrief that:

1. The two divers under instruction should follow him closely, me and my partner after, and the other 5 divers behind.
2. Due to the current, we were to descend and ascend on the anchor line, current would not be an issue once on the wreck itself.

We splashed in, and made our way through the wreck. The anchor line was on one end of the wreck, he guided us all towards the other end, which was relatively far, with two or three penetrations on the way.

There were other groups of divers on the wreck making staying in line a challenge, and the other 5 divers in our group weren't respecting the order (I think because they were taking pictures and didn't want the beginners in front of them to disrupt visibility).

Suddenly, I find myself and my partner in front of our friends in an open area of the wreck opposite side of the anchor line. When I signal to them to get back in front, one of them signals to me he has 60 bar left. We are at 25 meters and the rest of the group, including the instructor have turned around and penetrated the wreck through a different spot than the one we came, which is dark and narrow enough we'd have to enter it single file. I see the fins of one the divers in our group inside. At this precise moment, my partner signals she is having trouble with her mask leaking. I signal to my friends to wait one moment. She readjusts the mask and tries to clear it, which seemingly doesn't work. After a couple more attempts, through which she is getting nervous, it finally clears (she later told me water went up her nose hence the struggle).

I look back at the place where the group went, I see nothing. I illuminate with the flashlight, darkness at the end of a tunnel. I ask my friend how much air he has. 50 bar. It has been a minute since I last saw the last person of our group, and more since I last saw the instructor. My friend's face with low air reads like anxiety. There are other boats above and I don't trust them to be competent at deploying their DSMB without shooting to the surface.

I decided to abort the dive. I signal to the other 3 abort, we go up as a group and do a safety stop together.

We start ascending, but the 4th diver (partner of the friend low on air) is still trying to look for the instructor to no avail, at this point there are no other divers there. I repeat the signals to abort and go up, she ends up complying. We start ascending slowly from 25m to 20m, where the top of the wreck ends, and there is indeed a lot of current. I start to prepare the DSMB to shoot it ASAP so the boat can see it drifting while we do the safety stop.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I feel my left being pulled down aggressively. The instructor has realised we were missing, come back for us, and seen us above him. He yanks all of us down. I signal to him my friend is now on 40bar. He is visibly angry.

He leads us all to the anchor through a different path that avoids the current but without penetrating. On the anchor line, my friend signals that he is out of air as soon as the safety stop starts. He ends up doing the safety stop on the instructor secondary, and surfaces with the needle below 10 bar.

On the boat, the instructor is furious telling me that who am I to make a decision like that, that it was super dangerous to try to ascend with the current like that, that we could have been lost at sea. I try to tell him there is no way I'm leading my friend down a dark hole at 25m depth with 50 bar, he tells me we should have just waited for him.

What was I supposed to do? I've been thinking this over and over and the only other reasonable alternative would have been for me to give him my reg instead of ascending (I had 120 bar at this point) and wait for the instructor there, though this seems to go against the training I received

wow that is quite a story

i will say i have not read any of the response yet. but i plan to later. i am very interested to see how people respond.

first....i do not know which agency the instructor is with and i do not know the rules he has to work under. but i can tell you with 100% certainty that there is absolutely no way i would have ever taken any new divers who have just gotten certified on a penetration dive.

add to that, the current, the depth, the number of other divers in your group (plus the others who were also diving the same site), the fact that apparently no one had any back up air (or did they?), etc and you have a recipe for disaster imho.

every problem scenario can be discussed after the fact and often we can learn from it to make better decisions next time.

but in this case, considering the info you have provided, i personally think you made the right call.

my only questions would be.....how far were you from the anchor line, and was it upstream or downstream of where you were when you decided to ascend.

i think if you had decided instead to share your air with the diver low on air, and waited for the instructor, you may have ended up with two divers out of air. but that is a call only you could make based on the circumstances at the time.

you certainly made the right call by not following the missing group back into the wreck. that could have cost someone their life.

if the boat crew were doing their job and paying attention, they would have seen your smb. if you were to drift off the site, they should have been well aware of where you were.

 

[johndiver999]

He might have reacted like that because he felt he was made to look incompetent and not managing the group he was with -well tough luck it sounds to me that the group was only a few moments away from a total cluster f**k
no way anyone should be doing a penetration with 60 bar

I agree. The instructor was upset because things got out of hand. The whole dive with all the penetrations sounds like a bad idea.

On the other hand, the OP said he can think of almost nothing else he could have done, except maybe share air BUT this was not part of his training.

To me, that is the EXACT thing that should have been done. The OP has lotsa air, he could share air for a couple of minutes and SAFELY wait for the instructor to reappear. At that time the air sharing and relatively low on air situation should have been evident to the instructor and a relatively normal exit/ascent should/could have been made.

I'm not really sure how people are being trained, but sharing air on the bottom for a couple of minutes to ameliorate a situation and/or buy some time should most definitely be a go to option to consider - for me anyway.

I am surprised that this solution would not be one of the initial thoughts when the situation arose. Someone is low on air - I got a solution for that.

Ascending off the anchor line can present some dangers so it should be avoided, but once someone is too low on air, the ascent should become the overwhelming priority. Notifying the instructor and the dangers on the surface be damned.. running out on the bottom will kill people.

 

[ktchan]

Going back to the original question of what was OP to do with an anxious diver at 50 bar, 25 meters, the other side of the wreck to the anchor line, in front of a restriction of unknown length etc. Not entering the hole was without question the right thing to do.

If it was just OP and the anxious diver (as their buddy), then going up there and then would IMO be the correct decision. The friend, as evidence by what actually happened, didn't have enough air to get back to the anchor line even if they knew where they were going. If they had tried to get back to the anchor line relying on the fact that OP had air to share, then they could both be OOA on the ascent either because of the time it take to get back to the anchor line or something break on OP's equipment and you're now relying on sharing the anxious diver less than 50 bar. Better drifting on the surface waiting to be found then both of you drown.

But there were 4 of them, so going back to the anchor line first was a reasonable option. Not that I think aborting there and then and going up with a DSMB is unreasonable. You have one diver that's running out of air to return to anchor line and another having issues with their mask and clearing.

The instructor/guide don't get to be angry with OP. This was a bad dive to be doing/leading, and it all started from there.

 

[SlugLife]

I was recently....

There's a long going on here, and for the moment I'll presume you told the whole story.

As described, it appears the instructor made the majority of errors here.

• Acting as a guide and instructor on the same dive
• Losing track of the group he's supposed to be instructing or leading (regardless the reason)
• Doing a dive that is arguably beyond the abilities/training/experience of the divers he's leading.
• Failing to establish emergency protocols before the dive. (i.e. whether people should shoot a dsmb, or return to the anchor, etc)

Perhaps you made some minor "mistakes" here or there, but IMO you did the responsible thing with the information you knew at the time.

 

[ktchan]

To me, that is the EXACT thing that should have been done. The OP has lotsa air, he could share air for a couple of minutes and SAFELY wait for the instructor to reappear. At that time the air sharing and relatively low on air situation should have been evident to the instructor and a relatively normal exit/ascent should/could have been made.

I'm not really sure how people are being trained, but sharing air on the bottom for a couple of minutes to ameliorate a situation and/or buy some time should most definitely be a go to option to consider - for me anyway.

Training is to dive in pair and if something goes wrong when you're in a pair. Sharing air here is only a reasonable option because there's 2 pairs here. What if OP's equipment were to fail after they've been sharing air and stayed at the bottom wondering and hoping the instructor-guide would turn up, now you have two divers sharing the near empty tank of the anxious diver, at depth, and probably both panicking.

As a general rule, if you're sharing air, you should be on the way up.