Pick apart my rescue: air-share ascent from 110'

[Dive Right In Scuba]

It's always scary in a situation like this. After reading this, I reached out to the freeflowing diver to see what happened. His reg free flowed, and this was the second time it happened on deeper dives. Last time was a similarly deep wreck on Lake Michigan, and it was fine his first dive. He bought the pony bottle because of the previous freeflow to make sure he had air, and would have enough for the deeper dives he was trained for. This diver isn't new to diving, he's reborn with diving. Having been in the Navy, and a Naui diver many many years ago, he redid openwater and all classes with us to fall back in love with diving, including deep diver.

One reason he may have looked narced, or panicked, is because he didn't know what you were doing with your Octo. He had already deployed his pony, and was breathing off it at the time you were trying to give him your Octo. He didn't understand why you wanted him to switch so badly when he already was good and working towards a solution, that you helped with on the tank after he reluctantly switched to your Octo.

Being in these situations makes everyones mind race and milliseconds seem like minutes. It seemed like both of you let your training take over and did exactly what your we're supposed to, and as a team, and looked out for each other. Great job!

I would only mention that with local diving, instabuddies is a horrible phrase to use for people that you will most likely dive with again, and are sharing the same fun hobby as you. Everyone is always a student, and experience is a great tool for learning. I think both of you are doing great as divers and coming a long way. The captain that day made it a point to call me about how great you were helping on the boat and good of a mentor you seemed to be.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

One reason he may have looked narced, or panicked, is because he didn't know what you were doing with your Octo. He had already deployed his pony, and was breathing off it at the time you were trying to give him your Octo.

I'm open to considering that I might be misremembering, but when we reached our safety stop I recall having to pull out his stowed pony hose and hand it to him. I don't think I observed him make the switch to the pony at depth.

 

[Dive Right In Scuba]

He switched to pony before you got to him, switched to your Octo from his pony, and stowed his pony as he was on your octo. Then, up from depth, back to pony and giving you Octo back .

Sorry for brevity or spelling errors. I'm on my phone putting a 2 year old to bed

 

[northernone]

It's always scary in a situation like this. After reading this, I reached out to the freeflowing diver to see what happened. His reg free flowed, and this was the second time it happened on deeper dives. Last time was a similarly deep wreck on Lake Michigan, and it was fine his first dive. He bought the pony bottle because of the previous freeflow to make sure he had air, and would have enough for the deeper dives he was trained for. This diver isn't new to diving, he's reborn with diving. Having been in the Navy, and a Naui diver many many years ago, he redid openwater and all classes with us to fall back in love with diving, including deep diver.

One reason he may have looked narced, or panicked, is because he didn't know what you were doing with your Octo. He had already deployed his pony, and was breathing off it at the time you were trying to give him your Octo. He didn't understand why you wanted him to switch so badly when he already was good and working towards a solution, that you helped with on the tank after he reluctantly switched to your Octo.

Being in these situations makes everyones mind race and milliseconds seem like minutes. It seemed like both of you let your training take over and did exactly what your we're supposed to, and as a team, and looked out for each other. Great job!

I would only mention that with local diving, instabuddies is a horrible phrase to use for people that you will most likely dive with again, and are sharing the same fun hobby as you. Everyone is always a student, and experience is a great tool for learning. I think both of you are doing great as divers and coming a long way. The captain that day made it a point to call me about how great you were helping on the boat and good of a mentor you seemed to be.

Wow. Glad to hear the actual backstory story. Significant difference in perspective.

 

[lv2dive]

Agreed. That small change makes a significant difference in the story.

Wow. Glad to hear the actual backstory story. Significant difference in perspective.

 

[KenGordon]

This is a proper learning point.

Nobody gets any cleverer in the water. Our perception and judgement is disturbed by the chemistry of breathing compressed gas at depth. That is even before all the extra issues of being unsure about what to do, inexperience, looking bad, upsetting people or appearing to overreact.

I have two very clear memories of screwing up badly where I couldn’t understand what I was thinking at depth even as I surfaced, my failure of judgement was so great.

In one case I watched my buddy narrowly avoid being dragged to the surface tangled by an DSMB line while I didn’t absolutely nothing to help, in the other I became completely and utterly convinced other members of the team were complete idiots and doing stuff for all the wrong reasons.

Once you have decided X is happening and focus becomes solving X it is hard to do much other than solve X even if you are wrong about it being the problem. This is generally true even on the surface. I think divers ought to be aware of this and mitigate it through planning and prevention. Stop, think, act might be a bit simplistic. Carry on thinking.

 

[alvinsuper]

Significant difference in perspective.

I think it really goes to show how hard it is to register and remember correctly events that happened during a stress situation with task load, not to mention at depth. I have no doubts both divers recounted the sequence and details of the incident to the best of their recollections. The differences are accounted for due to the nature of human's memory and perception.
Lesson learned/remembered: witness perspective matters.
And again, good job on both divers.

 

[Lorenzoid]

The plot thickens.

Two conflicting versions.

Where's my popcorn?

 

[johndiver999]

I would believe the victim. If he said he deployed the pony and then stowed it and then used it, then he probably did. A
Situation like this is much more stressful for the rescuer because he doesn’t know if the victim is freaking out or not
Going to respond well. If the victim is calm, knows he has a pony and a buddy, the whole incident is not
Much more than an inconvenience.

 

[txgoose]

Provided OP did not remove an air source from the other diver, both made choices to voluntarily take actions to get both divers to the surface without undue underwater conflict.

Having not been there, the added perspective just tells me that there are likely two divers I’d be comfortable descending with. Calm under pressure for the win.