overtasked

[crispix]

Ok, just looking for suggestions on how to handle myself better next time. I had a momentary flash of panic on a dive, training did kick in and I managed, but I've never, ever felt panicked on a dive before and am feeling a bit sheepish afterwards.

Background: boat dive, I was buddied up with a brand new diver on dive #5. (Note: while I am a DM, I'm not working for anyone and this was not a commercial dive, more of a club thing.) I made a very easy dive plan: follow me, we're staying near the boat, check your gauges etc, we will start heading up between 800-1000psi and will use the kelp as an upline, safety stop at 20ft, etc. Depth was around 60fsw.

Dive went well. Buddy required constant supervision, however. Constant. You know the kind.

At his 1000 psi I gave the thumbs up sign and slowly ascended on kelp strand. Buddy misunderstood my thumbs up and started ascending much too quickly, then got buoyant and was moments away from an uncontrolled ascent. I manged to grab his fin with one hand, the kelp with the other. His hand was on his inflator buttons and he was loading and dumping air to (un)control buoyancy. I made a leveling motion with my hand, tried to communicate the need for a slow ascent, and managed to get him to 20ft. He forgot about the safety stop, let go of the kelp and started ascending rapidly and uncontrolled. Now the fun part:

In an effort to grab his fin as he rose away from me, I got entangled in kelp. This has happened to me a zillion times before. But this time, the combination of trying to get my buddy and the realization I was stuck caused a cascade of events:

1. "I'm stuck -- but I need to stop him from ascending so fast!"
2. "Crap, I'm REALLY stuck. Need to break some kelp. Need to stay with buddy."
3. The kelp didn't break on my first attempt.
4. BOOM! Panic! I struggled violently. Super scary feeling. While it seemed like an eternity, it was probably all of 2 seconds.

What happened:
5. I told myself: "You idiot. Stop panicking. Relax for a few seconds, solve the current problem. Do not cascade problems." I sort of did a mental review of the panic cycle and forced myself to stop moving.
6. I relaxed, checked my gauges; I had over an hour of gas. I was quite entangled. I even considered dropping my weights, then decided to take a minute or two before deciding on that. For your future reference, I really do not recommend fighting kelp, better to deal with it slowly. I put some air in my BC so I would stay positive. I took a moment and extracted myself from the kelp, all the while forcing (and I mean it: forcing) myself to stay on calm, focus on one thing at a time. This took all of 30 seconds.
7. Once free, I ascended. Buddy was on the surface, he was fine, I was fine. We talked about better ascent procedures and the second dive went fine.

So, obviously I was overtasked. Any suggestions on where to go from here?

 

[JamesK]

Here is my take;

I think once you realized that you were in a panic mode, which according to you lasted two seconds, and then you were able to come to terms with that and come down from that say a lot. Even in a panicked state, you were able to clear your head and force yourself to think things through. You seemed to have thought about things, checking your gas, making decisions like dropping weights, etc. This shows that you were able to think things though and not let panic take complete hold of you. I don't think you were in full blown panic, but you were on the edge of it, looking down, thinking "hmmm I wonder what happens if I step off".

Where to go from there? I would say you already went there, on another dive.

 

[crispix]

An addendum. I've downloaded the profile from my computer so I now have a much better sense of the timing of all this.

The entire "moment of interest", let's call it, is about 2 minutes long (my computer takes a sample every 15 seconds, so there's a margin of error). It's kinda of freaky looking at the evidence now that I'm trying to be logical and emotionally detached.

I was trying to stay with my buddy for 30-45 seconds (constant depth, normal breathing rate). Then he starts to pull me up, gets away from me, and my depth does a little zigzag, still normal breathing. Then my breathing rate goes up noticeably for 15 seconds -- this must be when my buddy gets away from me and I realize I'm stuck in the kelp and I'm trying to get free but not panicked. Then my breathing rate skyrockets for the next 90 seconds. So my panic must have started between these two specific readings.

The 90-second period of rapid breathing is the entire amount of my "ordeal" -- the panic and the resolution. My depth stays constant for 3-4 readings, then I start to ascend. So that means there's a 45-60 second period that corresponds to the wave of panic and the "get your $@%! together" pep talk I gave myself at a constant depth. Then I start to ascend, this must be when I inflated my BC and started to get free; this part lasts ~30 seconds. Somehow I don't have any ascent alarms and I surface ok, but still breathing very hard.

So it's clear when my troubles started and how long it lasted. But what's also interesting is that even when I was forcing myself to work through the problem, my breathing rate remained very high. It also seems clear my moments of panic were longer than I thought when I made my first post, and the time it actually took to get free was shorter than I thought. (interesting!)

One moral of the story: those "rock bottom" calculations about needing 1 minute to solve the problem and double your normal SAC for the entire ascent? Spot-on.

 

[Selchie in LB]

Awesome account and follow up with computer data. One thing that I have been taught is if a buddy or other diver is having a run away ascent DON'T chase them! If both of you get bent then a potentially bad situation just got worse. Good in theory, but I have chased them. I think it's human to want to help and stop them. Thankfully neither us got bent.

Some of my first dives after OW certification resulted in some uncontrolled ascents. I tried using the kelp to maintain a safety stop and got tangled! I didn't get myself out. My buddy was there to get me out. Another time my buddy was able to grab me and keep me from popping!

I commend you for thinking through the situation and controlling your panic. It does show that training is important.

 

[RickyF]

Sounds to me like you did the best you could in a potentially bad situation. It's hard to predict how we will respond when the mess hits the fan, but that is where the practicing on core skills comes in to play. Relax, assess, think and then act! Sounds like you did all of these. You realized you had plenty of air and you know you could cut yourself free! Good job!

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Don't allow your breathing rate to explode again. If you are trying to solve a problem, but were not actually doing a high level of aerobic exercise, you did not need to breath like that.

In very stressful situations in the future, it may be critically important for you to FORCE yourself to breath slow and deep with full exhalations. Being able to do this even when very excited, scared, mad, frustrated etc. will give you confidence and band width to make it more likely that you are able to effectively address whatever situation your are confronted with.

I think you should do a little mind game and think how you would have responded should you have lost all air when tangled? Could you have made it out or would you have needed a redundant air supply to survive? If it is the later, maybe consider getting that, if you don't already.

The super high breathing rate is indicative of being out of control and it is good that you are trying to analyze this.

This weekend I was spearfishing alone in 90 feet, I shot and missed a very nice fish (very disappointing). Before the shot, I had stalked the fish and held my breath and breathed very little. Then when I missed I was super pissed. As I was looking up and reloading (somewhat physically intensive) I see some more large fish and begin to follow and stalk them. At this point the adrenaline is flying through my body, my heart is absolutely POUNDING, I can feel it in my throat, but I also know that I can NOT allow myself to break into a fast breathing rate because it wlll scare the fish. Swimming along chasing/stalking a fish REQUIRES me to maintain the slow and steady (and in this case) very gentle breathing pattern. I remember, thinking THIS is why I really like this sport.. still gets my heart pounding!

But the point I am trying to make is that being able to exercise this type of breathing contol when excited and fighting some degree of oxygen debt from prior physical activity is something that will allow a diver to continue to function when stressed, particularly when it is of a short duration.

In any regard, I was excited not scared like you were. But it sounds like you were more excited, pissed and frustrated with the buddy issues and then the entanglement made you loose it. If you HAD controlled the breathing rate, you would have felt in control, you probably would not have broke into a struggle and the whole thing would not have been an issue for you.

 

[TSandM]

I think this is a very cool story, and I thank you for sharing it.

I would not say you panicked. I would say you got scared, and controlled it. It took you more time than you would like to get that done, but you DID it. And the best thing about the experience is that, the next time you begin to feel that anxiety spiralling up, you won't let it get as far as it did this time.

But this IS a great example of the incident pit, because it wasn't any one thing that caused the problem. You started with one foot on the edge of the pit (and you know it) because you were escorting a brand new diver, and you know they are prone to buoyancy problems and can be extremely unpredictable. Did you maybe have the option of a third, experienced teammate? I've found that enormously helpful, because one diver can dive beside the new guy, and the other can hang back in "DM position", a little behind and above, to intercept buoyancy "oopses".

Second, was this a live boat or an anchored boat? If it was anchored, it might have been a better plan to stay relatively close to the anchor (maybe a star pattern kind of thing?) so that you could use the anchor line for ascent, and keep the new guy out of the kelp. I don't have a huge amount of experience diving in kelp, but I've made several trips to Monterey and Southern California, and it's been my experience that getting entangled in kelp, especially as you move up into the canopy, is almost the rule rather than the exception. Most of those entanglements are minor and quickly solved, but a new diver may not cope with things as well as you did. I'd have been nervous about planning an ascent into the kelp canopy, myself.

But the last thing is that you can only do what you can do to control another diver . . . and the principle of Rescue class is not to create a second victim. When you got entangled and couldn't hang onto the other guy, you had to let him go and cope with your own situation. And you did . . . and I suspect being entangled wouldn't have been anywhere near as stressful for you, if you had not been imagining, at some level, something horrible happening to your buddy.

Overall, I think this is a very near story, that illustrates that even a couple hundred dives and professional training is not enough to prevent that huge surge of adrenaline from coming out of nowhere, and it takes a lot of self-control to beat it back. The good news is that, at least in my own personal experience, each time it happens you get on top of it faster.

 

[supergaijin]

Firstly welcome to the club! It sounds like this was your first experience of Murphy showing up while in a professional role. Even if you weren't being paid for it (club diving) you were still in an active DM/Con role.

I have had a few such experiences, and while they scare the crap out of you, they are also opportunities to learn from. As you have done so far, try to analyse what you did well and what to work on, and move on from there.

 

[Cali_diver]

Thanks for sharing.....I find your story interesting because I have always felt completely at ease under the water, even when little things would go wrong. But I was recently on a liveaboard and diving with my usually buddy (husband), and I had a moment of panic. Not really panic but anxiety maybe. We were mid way through the trip and we had one beginning diver on the boat who was kind of a train wreck going too deep and always sucking on the hookah cause she ran low. My husband and I would follow the wall until a certain point on his tank then ascend and follow top of the reef back. We were out on the wall just getting ready to turn around when she comes finning up to us at a pretty quick speed. She looked at us then turned around and swam away. We looked at each other not sure what to do. Suddenly she reappeared swimming quickly toward us again. I asked her what her psi was and it was very low. I told her to stay with us and told the hubby to ascend and start back. She kept trying to go deeper and I had to keep telling her to level off and stay where we were. As we headed back to boat she just kept asking me where the boat was over and over again. I just kept pointing in the direction of the boat. It made me so nervous to have her there and to feel somewhat responsible for her. When I finally heard the boat I pointed to it and she just sped off to the hookah. Crazy... I was fine and able to manage my anxiety but It made me have so much respect for the DM's who have to take care of people like that everyday.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Learn from every dive, I like to say, and this was a huge learning experience for you. One lesson not mentioned is this: When diving with an instabuddy take a little time to ( more than normal) to get acquainted and to learn of their experience level, expectations for the dive, and so on. Share yours with them. I emphasize safe ascents and safety stops, like I would with a student, if I am diving with a new diver or a diver who has not dove in quite a while. Good job. Everyone was ok.
DivemasterDennis