OOA Buddy starts to drag you up by your octo - What would you do?

[D_B]

I saw this happen at 45' in Bali a few weeks ago with someone else from this board, who was the one dragged up. We were just working our way up a long slope near the end of a dive. I was behind the other divers and looking up the slope when I saw one diver, who was OOA, frantically swim up behind another in front of her and grab his octo. I don't think she purged it and got a mouth full of water, and bolted for the surface before he knew what was going on. When she did this, his octo got hooked on her camera and she started to drag him up too. I could actually hear him yelling through his reg and finally yanking himself free.

I swam up under her and we did a slow ascent to make sure she was OK. It all worked out fine but it happens so fast that sometimes it is difficult to react, especially when you don't see them coming. She was a very athletic woman and when panicked had the strength to pull him up without much problem.

I would do the same as he did, try to get free first. Sometimes you might not be able to stop someone and you have to let them go.

That's exactly what I was thinking, and fear. It's gonna happen fast, without warning, and your going to be several feet up at the very least, by the time you can get any reaction on your part .. I hope I have the time and presence of mind to dump air in my BC to arrest my now positive buoyancy ascent .. and I fear the next action I would take (I am now very many feet above where I started, and someone is on the end of my hose, air expanding in his BC, swimming up, dragging me along) would be to give my reg a good yank, or at least a good pull on it .. I do not want to go up any more, this fast .. what now? do I follow the OOA diver up as fast as prudently possible? (60fpm, more?...100fpm?) do I leave my buddy behind? (who, of course did not see this happen and is still down, now looking for me) .. if in a group, will let buddy stay, and follow OOA diver .. if only us, I will get Buddy's attention with light and then continue to go up

all sounds good on paper, but I really don't know how it would all play out in real life .. good to have thought of such things up here first, before you need to

 

[Soggy]

dive with what he said is DIR setup, and yes, with 7 feet hose around his neck.

I can assure you, the long hose is not wrapped around the neck in any way, shape, or form. Either you don't understand the routing, or your friend is an accident waiting to happen.

A long hose routes down the right side, underneath a cannister light (or tucked into a waist belt, up across the chest, then BEHIND the neck from the left and back into the mouth on the right. There is no more strangulation hazard than with any other hose routing.

The bungeed backup is on a piece of bungee, which is worn like a necklace, with the regulator underneath the chin. Maybe that is what you were seeing? That backup is on a 22-24" hose and is not donated.

 

[LI Diver]

I haven't read the whole thread but should someone design a octo hose with a quick disconnect???? I've thought about this scenario also and to make it more difficult it would most likely be one of my children that I'd be buddied with. We dove several 100' dives in Bonaire even though our pre trip discussions detailed a 60' max depth. This was my 16 yr old daughters first dives post cert and my 14yr old sons deepest dives with about 30 dives under his belt. In retrospect it was probably stupid of me. They both were talked to daily about emergency procedures and we practiced skills at the end of most dives at safety stop depth. They did great but who knows what a panicked person may do until it happens. For this reason their next several trips and any dives I do with a questionable buddy will be in a place that a dive over 35 or 40 feet maybe non existant.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Yup they do... sadly.

But keep one other thing in mind... in emergency training, around 15% will be able to actually, effectively do that training in a real situation. The rest, no matter how trained will not.

Note: Military training manuals used to discuss this problem, don't know if they still do.

I also know that there is no way to actually know who the 15% are, until it happens.

So, you or I might be in the 85%, and not know it (ok, you might - kidding, just kidding). Given that, it is best to plan for you (or me) to be one of the masses and avoid the situation.

These scenarios remind me of some of the stupidity I was presented with back in days of the two week instructor courses. I was told to conduct an open water session on entries. I asked, “What dive is this?” I was told, “Fourth open water dive.” So I took my group, which included an evaluator from headquarters, out on the dock and ran through giant strides and short steps and forward rolls and then I get them lined up facing backwards to do seat drops. Well … the headquarters evaluator goes off the dock, splash into the water and disappears beneath the surface. I secure the class and go get her. I bring her to the surface and she says, “You fail, you lost control of your class.” So I said, “The rules are that you can’t do anything that you’ve not actually had happen during a class. Are you telling me that on their fourth open water dive you actually had a student pull a bonehead stunt like that?” She solemnly assured me, that she had. So I told her sternly, “Then you clearly lack the judgment to be teaching diving, I for one would never trust anyone who is that poor a judge of students to teach my loved ones to dive.” And I turned on my heel (if booties have a heel) and walked off.

When I check the board that evening I had passed the exercise, and you know what? She had an emergency and had to leave, she was no longer staffing the course. Will coincidences never cease?

But I see the same kind of thinking going on here. The problems that are being presented are problems that you solve in a hundred different ways a hundred different times … LONG BEFORE THEY OCCUR. Getting yourself into such a spot is almost proof positive that you really are a stroke of the first order. Maybe I'm way off base and sticking to my Ivory Tower too much. Do these sorts of things really happen?

 

[ReefHound]

The OW training you received makes the decision for you. They decide that at your current level of training and experience, while diving within NDL recreational limits, your chance of drowning while going back down to do your stops is more dangerous than the remote chance you'd actually take a DCS hit.

Assuming I'm not the one OOA, how is re-descending to do my stops put me at any more risk of drowning than the first time I descended? Is it the solo diving aspect?

 

[ReefHound]

Imho, everything seem ideal and easy to solve when we are in front of a keyboard.

Honestly, if I was enjoying my dive, maybe trying to take pictures, when someone (my buddy or stranger) took my octopus and carried me to the surface, I might need sometime to adjust to the situation and found out what is going wrong. After that, I might not have enough time to react the ideal ways (like trying to calm the diver/communicate), I don't even think I'd be able to dump the air in their BCD, considering the limited time and maybe, unfamiliar equipment.

That's left me with 2 options:
1. Ride with them to the surface
2. Yank the regulator out of their mouth.

Don't discount the value of keyboard problem solving. It certainly doesn't replace actual training and practice, but mentally rehearsing procedures can be beneficial in allowing you to react calmly and rationally.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Don't discount the value of keyboard problem solving. It certainly doesn't replace actual training and practice, but mentally rehearsing procedures can be beneficial in allowing you to react calmly and rationally.

Not really ... the problem won't be an intellectual exercise when it happens. You will be severely task-loaded ... to the point where you may or may not be able to think about something that was discussed on an Internet forum.

In-water practice at dealing with multiple issues while maintaining control is essential to handling problems like this one ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ReefHound]

Not really ... the problem won't be an intellectual exercise when it happens. You will be severely task-loaded ... to the point where you may or may not be able to think about something that was discussed on an Internet forum.

So I guess we can just eliminate the classroom sessions from the Rescue course?

 

[Diver Dennis]

Yup they do... sadly.

But keep one other thing in mind... in emergency training, around 15% will be able to actually, effectively do that training in a real situation. The rest, no matter how trained will not.

Note: Military training manuals used to discuss this problem, don't know if they still do.

I also know that there is no way to actually know who the 15% are, until it happens.

So, you or I might be in the 85%, and not know it (ok, you might - kidding, just kidding). Given that, it is best to plan for you (or me) to be one of the masses and avoid the situation.

This is an excellent post Puff. Even if we have a buddy we dive with all the time and they have gone through a lot of training together, you never know how someone will react in an emergency until it happens. Obviously training gives you the best chance to react in a prudent manner, but it is no guarantee.

DB, the diver who was the draggee in the incident I described was VERY experienced but I saw how fast it happened and know he had no chance to catch her or even slow her down. He didn't panic at all and did exactly what I would have done. She said she had no idea they were still hooked up but had to get to the surface. From what I saw, no matter what your experience level is, sometimes you don't have time to do anything. This was at 45' but even at 100' she would have been at the surface before he was half way up.

 

[darkpup]

Assuming I'm not the one OOA, how is re-descending to do my stops put me at any more risk of drowning than the first time I descended? Is it the solo diving aspect?

If you don't dive, you have less of a chance of drowning while diving. Depending on your training, experience, frame of mind, and the conditions, you may or may not be at more risk going back down than you were the first time you descended.

Would you recommend that a panic'd diver head back down for their saftey stop?

~ Jason