PADI Rescue Diver class near miss (and lessons learned)

[divinotter]

Two weeks ago I was in a class, they told us after an exercise to "just swimm around and burn off the air -- Have fun." I'm not expecting anything. I'm looking at fishes at maybe 40 feet.

Out of "noware" someone swims up to me fast with no reg in his mouth grabs my BC and spins me around and he pulls the reg away from my mouth hard. So hard the ruber mouthpeice come loose and is lost. This guy looked to be in a full-on panick. OK so now my octo is the only functional second stange. We do the buddy breathing thng and slowly accent to the surface.


They did some other things to us durring that boat trip too. But none of them fooled me. For example we had a "missing diver" did a roll call and the guy was not on the boat.

All of this sounds suspiciously like the advanced diver program through LA County- they do a lot of drills like this that make people think and I for one am a glad alumni of that program- not a certification - a program - to make divers more comfortable with all these types of incidents-

 

[ArcticDiver]

Now you have been given a valuable lesson. A lesson that some never learn, to the detriment of their own enjoyment and safety. Hopefully, you aren't among that group.

In fact:
-Each diver is responsible for themself. Your mental attitude, equipment and skills have to be as if you are solo.
-Each diver is always responsible for solving their own problems. Certainly another diver in the area can be used as one of the possible tools. But it isn't the other diver's responsibility to "save" you. In fact, my experience is that most of the time the other divers will not have the skills or equipment to save you.

BUT, don't develop paranoia about all this as some do. Our modern dive gear is nearly bullet proof. Failure of properly maintained and tested life safety dive gear is extremely rare. So, dive with plenty of gas for the planned dive; stick to the plan; relax and enjoy the dive.

 

[DandyDon]

reading through this incident, I was wondering where was the instructor was through this.

If he/she was doing their job this incident wouldnt have happened.

Probably watching his self-rescue - it wasnt't an OW class. Hope he flunked the other guy...

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I have to say, if losing a reg for a second constituted an emergency for you then you need to work on your own self-rescue skills.

I don't disagree that the guy was a jerk, but finding and securing your own regulator is a skill you should have had mastered from your OW class.

Rachel

EXACTLY! If you even feel threatened by the other students behavior, then I honestly doubt you have the "mind set" to provide "rescue" skills.

You should be disappointed in his behavoir, not angry and certainly not frightened of it.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

There are a lot of reasons I've pursued the training I have......

I have never done buddy breathing, and I ought to -- but I really think the long hose/bungied backup configuration avoids almost all the circumstances where that would be necessary......... .

Really, I'm honestly surprised that this is not in the DIR training. Maybe I should buy one of their textbooks.

My 10-yr old is getting certified very soon. On the most recent open water (training) dive with me, we both practiced buddy breathing without either of us wearing masks. I guess this is outside of the PADI (and GUE ?) playbook?, but the fact that he was able to perform this "simple stunt" without any stress or hesitation makes me feel 100% more confident in his safety underwater. Heaven knows that if he does enough dives with me, sooner or later, I will be stupid enough to kick him in the face and knock out the reg and flood his mask. Should this occur, I believe it will only represent a minor inconvience (well at least to me anyway)...

I agree that having an alternate air source is necessary and preferable, and also concede that I've never done "buddy breathing" in a real emergency but the ability to comfortably share a single reg is only a small part of what I consider it requires to be decent in the water. Maybe I'm hopelessly old fashioned.

 

[Petedives]

Probably watching his self-rescue - it wasnt't an OW class. Hope he flunked the other guy...

Naw, it's a PADI class, pay your money and get your card. At *least* until you
go for instructor. There's a whole lot of PADI DM's that can't find their ***** with
two hands and a flashlight.

Peter

 

[plot]

Two weeks ago I was in a class, they told us after an exercise to "just swimm around and burn off the air -- Have fun." I'm not expecting anything. I'm looking at fishes at maybe 40 feet.

Out of "noware" someone swims up to me fast with no reg in his mouth grabs my BC and spins me around and he pulls the reg away from my mouth hard. So hard the ruber mouthpeice come loose and is lost. This guy looked to be in a full-on panick. OK so now my octo is the only functional second stange. We do the buddy breathing thng and slowly accent to the surface.

I was laughing when we came up. The instructor had me fooled for a sort while. I did not recognize this as a drill untill after I had unclipped the octo and looked at the diver through his mask and saw who he was.

Had this really been real buddy breathing would had been an important skill. Even if you dive solo someone may still find you.

They did some other things to us durring that boat trip too. But none of them fooled me. For example we had a "missing diver" did a roll call and the guy was not on the boat.

So what happens if you use an airsource instead of a true octo? Up close and personal moments?

My LDS stresses that the point of the Rescue class is not only to help others in trouble, but more importantly, to learn your own limitations, task load, etc.. Sounds like you guys got some awesome training.

 

[radinator]

I saw a few posts saying that this (the OP story) is part of the problem with buddy breathing, but keep in mind that the same thing could have happened on the octopus - where the donating diver just decided they are ascending too fast and turns fin-up and heads for the bottom. This is not a BB-only problem.

This reminds me of a real air-share situation I had in Redondo Beach in SoCal where I was the doner on a night dive at about 100 feet. This was no drill. We had buoyancy issues on the ascent, and while I swear that my BC was empty at that point, the other diver says the same thing. We did a (planned) 1 minute stop at 50', but missed the 15' stop and hit the surface inverted, kicking to try to keep a safety stop. I think he still had air in his BC. I'm sure he thought the same thing of me. In any case, we hit the surface.

There were no bad consequences, but it did trigger me to think that there has to be a better way to do this. I started researching what more advanced divers do. In that research I learned about the whole long hose/DIR route.

I'm not waying it's the only answer out there, but to me it made a lot of sense to have the divers ascending near each other but without the nose-to-nose death-grip that is usually taught. That way, each person is still controlling their own buoyancy, and if someone is too buoyant you know immediately who has the problem and needs to dump air. The person is still close enough to grab if help is needed, but since you've seen who has the problem you now know where to focus the effort to control buoyancy.

Also, ascending vertically as we did meant there was minimum drag to help slow our ascent. A horizontal ascent would have had more drag and been easier to control.

I've since been practicing many emergency situations and shudder to think what else could have gone wrong during that dive. For example, had a mask been dislodged during the air share the outcome could have been very different. It's usually not just one thing that happens, but a cascade of problems. Emergency situations tend to cluster.

As a footnote referring to the OP, when teaching rescue skills it is good to spend a lot of thought to make sure the 'emergencies' are happening in a controlled manner, lest they become real. I'm curious how the other diver did on the rescue course, though. Did they pass?

Ray

 

[k4man]

Naw, it's a PADI class, pay your money and get your card. At *least* until you
go for instructor. There's a whole lot of PADI DM's that can't find their ***** with
two hands and a flashlight.

Peter

Is this PADI, or is it the diver themselves?? (Not to mention the instructor who certifies them??)

I'm met lots of GREAT PADI DM's

 

[MikeFerrara]

reading through this incident, I was wondering where was the instructor was through this.

If he/she was doing their job this incident wouldnt have happened.

You have to wonder don't you?


I taught more than a few PADI rescue classes and I don't even remember a BB ascent being part of the class. I'm ok with rescue students being expected to do it but not when it isn't taught in prior classes, not to mention the way that buoyancy control and ascents are taught.

And then the "excersize" falls apart and divers can't hardly find and clear their own regs?

What ever. LOL