OOA and Situational Awareness...

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fxrguy

Contributor
Messages
99
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Location
Central Florida (Daytona area)
# of dives
200 - 499
While diving on a live aboard in the Dry Tortugas back in the early 90's, my dive buddy ran out of air at 90 feet while we were chasing a lobster. We booth were to blame for not being more situationally aware. He was diving with a jacket and did not have the consumption rate that I did. I have found this to almost always be the case when diving with people who use jacket type BC's as opposed to back inflation devices. Knowing this and wanting to be a good dive buddy, I would always check with my dive partner/s when I thought they may be getting low on air. Well I screwed the pooch big time that day and am lucky that no one died because of it. I had been diving for about 15 years by then while he was relatively new to the sport so I have to blame myself more then him for this one. On the upside I am very proud of myself for not panicking and doing everything right to get my partner back to the surface. Only those that have suddenly had their dive partners clutching madly at your regulator at depth can understand the cold terror and reality of this situation. Every decision and move has to be correct or your partner, or possibly both of you, "will" die! I immediately left him have my regulator and started using my octopus. He was still cognoscente enough to know that if he was out of air then I had to be out or near so myself and he started clutching at my gauge console. I knew what he wanted and gave him the thumbs up sign after looking at my pressure gauge. I was reluctant to actually let him see it though because I was very low myself and didn't want him to freak out any further. He really was on the edge! I knew we had enough to make a controlled ascent back to the surface. He immediate wanted to start an emergency ascent and I had to literally pull him back down by the foot. Using hand signals as best as I could I tried to let him know that everything was Ok, but that we needed to go back up correctly. I knew he was somewhat stabilized when he nodded OK and gave me a thumbs up. Using my computer I made sure we didn't ascend to quickly and even managed a safety stop at 15'.

Lessons learned?

Pull your head out of your ass when diving at depth. This may be a sport but it is inherently a dangerous one. Always and I mean "always" try to think what you might have to do if the unthinkable should happen because it can and does! Look out for your dive buddy because at that depth he is the only buddy you got!
 
Jacket style or back inflate has no bearing at all on being OOA. This is strickly the ability and skill of the diver. Making an assumption of a diver's skill based on his/her BC choice is not a good idea, good and bad divers come in all type of gear.
 
Using my computer I made sure we didn't ascend to quickly and even managed a safety stop at 15'.
Thanks for sharing your story. Good job on getting you and your buddy to the surface.

I have one question, though. If you were low on air and you were able to do a controlled ascent, why did you bother doing a safety stop? You didn't have a deco obligation, right?
 
Wasn't trying to imply that one BC is better then the other or that there is some connection between good and bad divers based on their BC choices, although I definitely have my preference. Was only trying to point out that jacket style BC's do not facilitate the consumption rate of back inflation type BC's and that knowing that I should have been more attentive. There is an old saying among motorcycle riders, " There are two types of riders, those who have had an accident and those who will". Moral of the story is that sometimes bad things happen to good people/divers. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable diving with someone who thought they were so "together" that nothing like this could happen to them or at least be surprised by it! I'm just getting back into the sport after a 10 year hiatus and will be taking a refresher course and maybe a rescue course if I think I'm up to it. Thanks for you feedback.
 
Bubbletrubble - I thought it was a good idea at the time but have since learned that getting my partner was way more important especially since the safety stop wasn't necessary. god forbid anything like this should happen to anybody once in a lifetime but should it I will try to remember screw the safety stop"
 
Bubbletrubble - I thought it was a good idea at the time but have since learned that getting my partner was way more important especially since the safety stop wasn't necessary. god forbid anything like this should happen to anybody once in a lifetime but should it I will try to remember screw the safety stop"
@fxrguy: You know, I feel like this is a point that OW instructors should clarify in class.

I'd be willing to bet that, even today, a majority of OW students, given the scenario you describe, would say that the divers should do the safety stop.
 
@fxrguy: You know, I feel like this is a point that OW instructors should clarify in class.

I'd be willing to bet that, even today, a majority of OW students, given the scenario you describe, would say that the divers should do the safety stop.

I would never claim to speak for the majority, but I'd say that in a similar situation, I might well do a safety stop. It would depend on the circumstances. How close were we to the NDL? How much air do I have? If we were close to the NDL and I had plenty of air, I might well do the safety stop. Would that be wrong?
 
I think that most OW instructors probably are trying to a good job based on their experience. I will say this, if I were interested in becoming an instructor, which I'm not, I would certainly emphasize buddy breathing, situational awareness and proper ascent in an emergency based on what happened to me. Most students and maybe some instructors probably think something like this probably will never happen to them and they are probably right, but it does happen. The only reason I bring it up is for the "lessons learned" value it might give to those who it has not happened to. Hope for the best but try to be prepared for the worst, however, we are in this thing to have a good time aren't we?
 
To echo Bob . . . one of the nicest things about having tools to plan the gas needed to get two people up from the bottom, is that should anything untoward happen, you can push down the anxiety level, knowing you have enough gas to deal with it.

This is also why I so strongly support practicing skills like air-sharing ascents. One would think they were easy, but they aren't necessarily, especially if you have a diver who is not processing well. Having done enough to where they are a comfortable skill can also help defuse a bad situation.
 
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