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

[MXGratefulDiver]

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

Not at all ... but you cannot also rely on just those. That's why you have both pool and open water in-water skills practice. Furthermore, if you took Rescue class several years ago and haven't practiced those in-water skills since then, I wouldn't rely on them too much either.

Scuba skills aren't "just like riding a bicycle" ... in an emergency you want to be able to rely to a degree on allowing your body to respond without conscious thought to certain tasks, while your brain is focused on the tasks required specifically to deal with the emergency. Dealing with that sort of task-loading requires in-water practice.

Dealing with emergencies usually doesn't give you a whole lot of time to think about anything ... you have to be prepared to react. This is particularly the case in situations like the one we're discussing here that involve a runaway ascent. You're only going to get a few seconds (or less) before the situation gets beyond your ability to control it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Diver Dennis]

I agree Bob and I know your in water practice includes "surprise" drills where you try to replicate OOA divers.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I agree Bob and I know your in water practice includes "surprise" drills where you try to replicate OOA divers.

I and my buddies practice skills regularly ... and I will admit that those few real emergencies I've had to deal with have still found creative ways to bite me in the arse.

Emergencies rarely ... if ever ... happen the way they're imagined on the Internet forums ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

Doing what I do for a living, I know all too well that the calm, methodical responses you learn in classes aren't what happens when the real poop hits the fan. BUT having practiced and thought things through ahead of time DOES help, and you are far more likely to come up with a viable solution to a problem if you don't have to invent it under enormous stress.

For me, just having to think this issue through on the internet answered one question for me -- Would I try to get my regulator back? Having regarded the options, I decided the answer to THAT question was no. I'm glad I didn't have to make the decision while being towed to the surface.

 

[ArcticDiver]

This has been and will be a long, but useful thread. Experience has taught me that in an emergency you WILL default to your training. That training includes the pre-scenario decisions you have made.

-In my experience in a variety of situations (diving and non-diving) very, very few have gone as practiced. But the practice has helped me deal with the situations.
-It is important to make the basic decision about when, or when not, you are going to separate yourself from the diver with the emergency. Some, are going to want to ride up with the emergency diver and attempt to minimize the disaster. Others are going to cut'em loose and save themself. Neither is a wrong answer; just a personal answer.
-Never, never, never say any particular emergency can't happen to you. Every emergency can happen to every one. It is foolish to think a person can avoid an emergency by selecting dive partners, or anything else other than by just not diving. If you dive emergencies will happen.

Just my two cents earned from cautious adventure in several areas and applied to scuba.

(I've GOT to learn to type faster others posted similar while I was keying)

 

[Thalassamania]

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.

If you have a buddy with whom you dive often, then you've gone through small emergencies together. If you trained together you've both operated under, what should be, significent stress. If you are not 99.99% sure how this buddy will react in a real emergency, then I think that you should either be looking for a new buddy or a new instructor, or both!

 

[ArcticDiver]

If you have a buddy with whom you dive often, then you've gone through small emergencies together. If you trained together you've both operated under, what should be, significent stress. If you are not 99.99% sure how this buddy will react in a real emergency, then I think that you should either be looking for a new buddy or a new instructor, or both!

99% is not 100%. Plus, long and hard earned experience by folks in a wide variety of sports and military operations has taught that no one knows how a person is going to act in this emergency until it happens; no matter how they have behaved in prior situations.

People are human, not machines so don't expect a machine response.

 

[Thalassamania]

99% is not 100%. Plus, long and hard earned experience by folks in a wide variety of sports and military operations has taught that no one knows how a person is going to act in this emergency until it happens; no matter how they have behaved in prior situations.

People are human, not machines so don't expect a machine response.

No prediction, by definition, is 100%. Yes the third decimal point out can kill you, but it's not very likely. Spending a great deal of time and energy worrying it to four decimal places is, IMHO, time that could be better spent on risks that are far more immediate.

 

[ArcticDiver]

No prediction, by definition, is 100%. Yes the third decimal point out can kill you, but it's not very likely. Spending a great deal of time and energy worrying it to four decimal places is, IMHO, time that could be better spent on risks that are far more immediate.

Just trying to pick up the context of your statement; an imperfect thing at best on a web site like this.

You seemed to be saying that you and your buddy were so familiar with each other and with each other's abilities that essentially nothing could happen that y'all couldn't handle and that you could count on a competent response.

My comment was pointed in that context.

 

[ReefHound]

If you don't dive, you have less of a chance of drowning while diving.

That applies to the original dive as well.

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

Of course not, we're talking about the one who was not OOA and remained calm but ascended with a diver in distress.