Fishyhead
Contributor
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?
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?