Personal Incident

[b1gcountry]

I wanted to post an incident that happened to me recently in the hopes I can learn more from it. It happened to me and a buddy on a trip to the Carribean. Please be somewhat sensitive, as the buddy is my wife.

I am a moderately experienced diver (certified 10+ years, 100+ dives, currently DM-C), and my wife is a pretty new diver (OW <1year ~25 dives). We are both signed up for 6-days of 2-tank diving. Day 1 goes well-her first time in the ocean. Day 2 goes well too.

After the first dive of Day 3, she gets to her LOA point, and since we are diving with a group and a DM, I tell her to go up to the safety stop, while I tell the DM. I guess I never taught her that signal, since she follows me back down to the DM, and we tell him we're going up. Fine. We get to the safety stop, and she starts holding my hand. But not just holding it, vice-gripping it. She isn't controlling her buoyancy very well, and we start going down, then up. I have to rip my hand out of hers to get to my dump valve. I tried to get her to let go and do the safety stop on her own, but she keeps holding onto me, and I get pretty fixated on my depth guage trying to maintain buoyancy for both of us. Then I feel her grab my octo, and start breathing from it. She said she gave me the OOA signal and I missed it. Probably. We finish the safety stop, and head up. When we get back on the boat, and I checked her SPG, and she had about 500psi. I think she just panicked, but I know I also messed up some.

Okay, there it is, any comments on what I / she should have done differently.

BTW, Everyone was fine. I told her we could both sit out the next dive (which only made her change her mind and decide to dive), and we had a great dive on the second tank.

 

[PerroneFord]

Well, I don't know what an LOA point is, but making the decision to seperate from your buddy, especially one with as few dives as she has, seems to be the beginning of a bad chain of events. If you take a quick tour of the Accidents forum, take note of how many of them contain the words "lost my buddy", "seperated from buddy", etc.

Second, was that she excecuted a bounce dive. Might want to talk to her about the danger inherent in that.

Third, I would have tried to lock down with her EXACTLY when she gave you the OOA sign and why. If she doesn't come to understand what caused the panic cycle, assuming she was not really OOA, then she is destined to repeat that. Perhaps with different results.

Congrats on staying cool. Not easy to do in all circumstances. Glad it all worked out ok for you both.

 

[Teamcasa]

I too dive with my lovely (new diver) bride. The only sage advice I can offer is too pay significant attention to her. Pay attention to her facial expressions &#8211; they often reveal more than hand signals.
Practice hand signals on-shore. Reassure her that at 500 psi, she is not out of air. Sometimes, new divers are told that if they get to 500 psi, they are in danger. To them, this means they will be out of air in 10 seconds.
Re-assure her its OK to use your OCTO anytime she wants. Let her use it, check her primary and pressure, if she is OK, let her know at the surface. Use your other hand to purge air, if she wants to hold your hand, let her &#8211; just let her hold the hand you don&#8217;t need to purge.
Patience, practice and a calming confident attitude will serve you well. If you panic or get mad, you may have to find a new dive buddy.

Dave

 

[daniel f aleman]

Well, the big deal is that she's your wife, and because of that factor alone, she's much more than a buddy. Even so, while she was in distress, I wouldn't say that she paniced until the octo grab. Sometime in the near future, have her recount what she thought was happening throughout the dive and especially the moment when she grabbed the octo.

My one real critique: never leave your buddy, especially a distressed one. You should have gone to the safety stop with her and NOT attempted to inform the DM.

And as a personal note: NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF YOUR WIFE WHEN DIVING.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Are you sure the SPG was functional? Many abused SPGs will show pressure in the tank when it's empty...this is definitely one check everyone should do before pressurizing your system. Does your SPG read 0 before you turn everything on? If not, there's an issue.

 

[Teamcasa]

Well, the big deal is that she's your wife, and because of that factor alone, she's much more than a buddy. ...
My one real critique: never leave your buddy, especially a distressed one. You should have gone to the safety stop with her and NOT attempted to inform the DM.

And as a personal note: NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF YOUR WIFE WHEN DIVING.

Sage advice! I am in complete agreement.

Dave

 

[deepstops]

Yep, the first mistake was telling her to head up while you went to tell the DM you were both heading up since she was "low on air". You don't leave your buddy, end of story.

I'm not sure why anyone (Perrone) is calling this a bounce dive. The difference between poor buoyancy control and a bounce dive is large. That being said, bouncing up and down on the safety stop is really bad since bubbles that should get filtered in the lung bed are getting recompressed and may bypass the lung bed to be recirculated.

Perhaps she grabbed your octo because somebody has drilled it into her you NEVER come back on the boat with less than 500 psi.. (just a guess)

I'm glad it all worked out okay and she didn't quit the sport right there. That alone says a lot.

 

[Archangel]

It is apparent to me that your in water communication is not up to speed. She is wholly relying upon your experience instead of being a independent team oriented diver.

Gently, she needs to dive on her own, and then become a part of the team that you two are. You two need to develop signals to communicate with each other. She needs to communicate her air to you every five minutes and you to her also.

Develop team confidence with her. Share with her how to be a good diver. Then when she goes to dive with another diver be it male or female, she wont defer to the perceived experience, or lack of, that this other diver has.

Safe Diving,

Tevis

 

[PerroneFord]

I'm not sure why anyone (Perrone) is calling this a bounce dive. The difference between poor buoyancy control and a bounce dive is large.

I tell her to go up to the safety stop, while I tell the DM. I guess I never taught her that signal, since she follows me back down to the DM

She went up, down to the DM, and up again.

Sometimes the difference beteen a bounce dive and not is as little as 5ft-10ft. Which is why it is not recommended to freedive after scuba diving. And why your computer will indicate you're bent if you exit the water and then drop back to 10ft and come up.

 

[Cacia]

get comfortable sharing air on routine safety stops, it's an option when things don't go as planned and allows one of you to keep an 800 psi reserve.