Panicking OW Student On Surface

[Fishyhead]

I'm returning to the sport after a long hiatus and had to replace a bunch of old gear so I joined a local dive shop's beach dive to work on weighting and buoyancy control. The instructor asked me to help him and the other instructor keep an eye on the students. The group consisted of two instructors, 5 students taking their first OW dives, one recently certified OW diver, and me.

One of the instructors and I headed out first to wait for the students to swim to us. One student swam to me and told me she just lost her fin then started to panic. She spat out her snorkel and started taking on water so I told her to grab my hand. As soon as she got a hold of me, she started grabbing and clawing at me to the point that I started to get pushed underwater. At this point, I switched to my regulator and added more air into my BCD while still trying to work with her. When she was starting to climb on my back, I pushed her off and swam behind her and grabbed onto her BC out of reach from her arms. The other instructor and I got her calmed down enough to get her fin back on and I swam her back towards shore.

How could I have handled this situation better? I realized as soon as she got a hold of me that I had made a mistake. I carry a sealed bottom SMB - should I have deployed it as a buoy for her to hold onto and calm down before assisting?

 

[johndiver999]

I think grabbing HER inflator and pressing the button would be my first action when taking her hand failed. It is vital that the victim stays stuck on the surface. Inflating your BC, might not preclude her from pressing the wrong button on the BC and sinking like a stone with no regulator in her mouth. If that happens - then you have a real problem and having your BC filled is only going to hinder your response time, should she sink while your trying to help.

 

[Steelyeyes]

Handing them something to float with is the first option. If that's not a quickly available option then go to plan B below.

I was taught to stay out of reach and try and engage them verbally. Have reg in one hand and get negative, swim to stay surfaced. If they move toward me I'd submerge, put reg in and swim under and behind them. Take control of them with their tank between my knees and get them on their back and put air in their BCD, then start talking to them again. Even in full blown panic you should be able to swim them to a safe spot without them trying to drown you.

I'm sure there are going to be other opinions on this.

 

[JackD342]

Sounds like you are not an instructor or a DM, right?
I don’t know what agency you certified with, but you have described a scenario and skills specifically covered in the PADI Rescue Diver course. You should really consider adding Rescue training to your skill set. Sound like you did pretty well though, and all the advice so far is good.

Now, one more important item to cover - assuming you are not a dive pro, most (probably all) agencies would have a major problem with an untrained diver assisting Open Water student divers. If you had not managed to handle it well on instinct, there could have been severe consequences for you and/or for the student. You should never have been put in that situation, And the student should not have been in a position to mistake you for a trained dive pro when she needed help. And then there is liability. Initially the hammer would drop on the instructor(s) that allowed it, but you might very well get sucked in too. Protect yourself.

 

[BikerBecca]

I can't believe what I just read. Am I safe to assume you are not a DM or Instructor? If not then you had no business working with students. If something happened to her you could have ended up liable. The financial and/or legal issues you could have faced would have been devastating.

As for your original question about how you could have handled the situation better. 1. Become a Rescue diver. 2. If you want to play professional diver then do what those of us who are professional divers did and get the training and certification to work with students. 3. Don't dive with an instructor that puts the lives of their students into the hands of non-professionals.

I know that sounds a bit harsh but if you decide to go pro then you will understand the legal duty to act that we have. SSI is a bit kinder and friendlier, but the end of every chapter in the PADI Divemaster materials is a story where things went wrong and people were injured or killed, including in one chapter, the Divemaster died. I'm very glad you were there and wanted to help, but you should have never been placed in that position in the first place and as for the student, she deserved to have a trained professional with her.

 

[WantSomeScuba?]

Handing them something to float with is the first option. If that's not a quickly available option then go to plan B below.

I was taught to stay out of reach and try and engage them verbally. Have reg in one hand and get negative, swim to stay surfaced. If they move toward me I'd submerge, put reg in and swim under and behind them. Take control of them with their tank between my knees and get them on their back and put air in their BCD, then start talking to them again. Even in full blown panic you should be able to swim them to a safe spot without them trying to drown you.

I'm sure there are going to be other opinions on this.

Naw, that's about textbook, outside of circumstancial factors that would inhibit it.

 

[seeker242]

As soon as she got a hold of me, she started grabbing and clawing at me to the point that I started to get pushed underwater. At this point, I switched to my regulator and added more air into my BCD while still trying to work with her.

Would have been better to deflate. If someone in panic happens to grab you, descend! No person that thinks they are drowning is going to hold something that's going down. Then, come up from behind, control the tank and inflate their BC. Never try and work with a panicking person from the front.

 

[Vicko]

You would not be able to inflate the dsmb fast enough. You reacted in a way that was not perfect but it got the job done, and that is how most real world rescue situations end up. No book or course will prepare you for it.

Only thing I would have done different is make sure that the panicked diver is floating before I actually float, if she grabbed on to you with your BCD inflated there is a chance she literally pins you down to the surface making it much harder for you to do anything.

 

[happy-diver]

perfect job Fishyhead

Well done

 

[Marie13]

How to handle this situation? Take the Rescue course. And say no if you’re ever put in this situation again.

And you might consider taking Rescue from another local shop if the instructor who asked you to help keep an eye on the OW students would be teaching Rescue.