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

[darkpup]

The confusion is evident in your choice of terminology. When you try and cover "all the bases" you wind up covering none of the bases because your lack of clarity makes you appear confused. A Deco stop and a Safety stop are not the same thing, many of us made literally millions of dives without ever making a single safety stop and we are no worse the wear for it. The entire concept of a safety stop came about (and I can say that with some authority in as much as I was one the folks in the room having the conversation) as a result of concern over the rapid ascent rates that were being observed in recreational divers. Have you ever thought why three minutes? Simple, a 130 foot dive should have an ascent time of two minutes and change, data at the time was suggesting that a slower rate from 30 to the surface was in order, so add another minute. That’s where it all came from, that’s what it was (and is) about, nothing more than a way to stretch out the ascent. Now, serendipitously, it had some other advantages and was the first step toward deep stops and riding the bubble.

Now contrast that with a scheduled staged decompression stop, which is required because a diver took up sufficient nitrogen during a dive that M₀would not permit an ascent to the surface without significant offgassing first.

And yes, all dives are deco dives, but then so is a ride in an elevator. It’s a matter of degree. But blowing by a “safety stop” is not the same thing as blowing by a “deco stop” to confuse the terminology is to give more importance than it deserves to one and less than it requires to the other.

Do you feel better now? That's a lot to get off your chest. Oh, and way to clear things up there champ.

deco / saftey stop - There I said it again.

~ Jason

 

[Thalassamania]

Do you feel better now? That's a lot to get off your chest. Oh, and way to clear things up there champ.

deco / saftey stop - There I said it again.

~ Jason

It is unfortunate that at your age you're still leaving messes about for the grownups to clean up.

 

[darkpup]

It is unfortunate that at your age you're still leaving messes about for the grownups to clean up.

Oh, now it's about protecting the children. Very entertaining to say the least.

~ Jason

 

[ReefHound]

I know ... and responding to my earlier comments with ...

... was precisely the same tactic, since I never suggested any such thing.

You DO know that I am an instructor, and that I teach these classes. So why would you imply that I think they should be eliminated?

If you don't like strawmen, don't create one. If you do, then don't complain when someone tosses it back in your face.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I wasn't the one complaining. And I knew you would not think the classroom portion should be eliminated from Rescue. It was a leading question to illustrate that the intellectual exercises are not completely worthless by showing an example where you place a high worth in them.

 

[ReefHound]

Wow!!!! Talk about taking my comments out of context.

ICE9 mentions his OW instructor stated that you should never go back down after you reach the surface (or something close to that). I then comment that the decision was made for him by his instructor, and I agree with his OW instructor because OW students do not have the training or experience to safely determine when it is and is not ok to go back down for the omitted deco / safety stop.

My apologies, I saw your statement "The OW training you received makes the decision for you" as not a response to a specific person but as a collective "you" to all recreational divers. Semantics aside, we both agree it is a personal decision one must make for themself but after hearing the arguments both ways I would lean against going back down in most situations.

 

[darkpup]

Semantics aside, we both agree it is a personal decision one must make for themself but after hearing the arguments both ways I would lean against going back down in most situations.

And that is the main reason why "I" would follow my buddy to the surface.

To me it's all about managing the risks. The actual chance of taking a DCS hit after an uncontrolled ascent is minimal on a recreational dive, and statistically speaking, it's not going to kill me. Leaving your buddy during an emergency on the other hand has a much higher chance of ending really bad. Training, Nitrox, practicing skills, and doing everything in your power to prevent it from happening in the first place, will further reduce your chances of getting into the type of trouble that would cause a fast / uncontrolled ascent. The only thing left to take into consideration is that rare and random X factor that pops up from time to time, and in those situations, you do what you can to minimize the damage.

And for the record, I'm with you. I'm not going back down for a deco / safety stop unless the threat of DCS is in that fatal range, and you're not going to get there on your average recreational dive.

~ Jason

 

[Dan Gibson]

Yes, but don't forget the return trip to the heart and then back out into the body. If some bubbles are not filtered out in the lungs, growth on the other side could pose serious problems which is likely what Soggy was referring to. You can control bubble growth much better in the chamber. Also, Soggy was referring to typical safety stop depths which is less than most chamber rides.

Dude, a chamber ride does the same thing...that's what you want to see happen. Bubbles get compressed. They flow through the heart and then through the pulmonery arteries to the lung where they get expelled.

 

[in_cavediver]

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.

This is true to a point. There is a threshold where panic sets in. Once you pass that threshold, you operate on basic insticnt, not the drilled procedures and training. The goal of training and expierence is to push that threshold farther away so you can handle more stressors prior to hitting that threshold.

Fundementally, the goal is to prevent panic and address the stressors prior to the onset of panic. A diver who is in trouble, but not panicked, has a lot of options. A diver who is in trouble and panics underwater has few options. That panicked diver also places not only themselves, but those around them at a much higher risk.

 

[Steve_Dives]

Referring to my suggestion to recompress...

Is this reasonably safe? In OW we were always taught never to go back down. Of course, I guess theres exceptions to every rule, but I'm not qualified enough to know them

In my original I said I might modify that profile based on other factors. That neatly glosses over the roughly 1.4 million things that will be running through my head. Or is that 1.4 billion???

A couple quickies: availability of medical/O2/chambers on the surface (remote?), the panic-rocket's mental state on the surface, other divers, weather, currents, light, tide, DCS risk (repetitive dive, multi-day dive), my hydration, my fatigue...and did I mention the amount of air in my tank???

Like someone else posted, it is a procedure from a military or government manual. Might be something to discuss with the crew before doing the deep dive.

 

[Steve_Dives]

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

~ Jason

Maybe. If they collected themselves, the water is clear, warm and calm, the boat's hang tank is right below us, and the nearest oxygen tank is a day's travel away. Weigh the risk of DCS vs. submerging.