Please tell me Who was at fault?

[oceanpro4]

ok, i wont state the certification level of the 4 divers in this story as it may sway your opinion, lets say they were all certified divers.
2 guys and 2 girls, 2 guys buddy up and 2 girls buddy up for a shallow (12ft) beach dive.
guy diver #1 is married to girl diver #1, guy diver #2 and girl diver #2 are just friends.
so the plan is to submerge when possible and head out to the reef then after we hit the reef go south till the first diver gets to 1500psi and then head back in, guy diver #1 is the flagman who is leading the dive.15 mins into the dive the girls are falling behind bearing in mind the guys are not going fast.the flag man realizes the girls are falling behind and slows down, now the #2 guy diver is still going forward, the flagman is hoping his dive buddy notices this and too slows down for the girls and his dive buddy (flagman), he does not slow down and now he is fading ahead in the distant. the flagman is in a dialema, does he wait for his wife or does he catch up to his dive buddy who is not paying attention to losing his dive buddy risking losing sight of his wife and her dive buddy? the 2 girl divers must have turned or stopped now the flagman can not see his dive buddy or the 2 girl divers.
The flagman decides to turn back to ensure that his wife is ok,he travels in the direction that he last saw the 2 girl divers, on the way he is thinking his dive buddy has over 300 dives under his belt so he should know to come to the surface and locate the dive flag and swim to the flag. however, the 2 girl divers are least experienced certified divers and one of the girls being his wife will be the most important to him at this time.
he can not find the two girl divers for 1 min so he surfaces and looks for bubbles and does not see anything so he waits and waits, his dive buddy does not surface in the 7 mins that the flagman is on the surface nor do the 2 girl divers.so now there are 3 divers out there with no flag and one diver down, shouldn't they all surface in the 12ft water to locate the flag man?
The flagman is the first to exit the water and waits knowing that the other 3 divers still in the water have plenty of air so he does not raise an alarm.
Then shortly after the 3 remaining divers exit the water together, the wife blames the husband/flagman that he left them whilst guy diver # 2 and girl diver # 2 said nothing.

I know allot of you may say you shouldn't have lost each other in the first place and your right, i already know this and i always apply this to every dive i do.My wife and i argue about this all the time and cannot come to a solution or an agreement over it. its been over a year since this happened, now she wont dive with me because she said i left her behind even though i wasn't her dive buddy, i did turn around for her but she was out of sight.

Please can someone shed some light on this and advise me who was at fault so we can put this behind us. whether your and instructor or just got freshly certified.
Please.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Call it a cluster frak all around and learn how to not lose buddies. If you two are fighting over fault then perhaps diving together is not the best idea. You should be able to discuss what should have happened and learn from it. If you guys can only handle this situation by blaming one or the other then I think you both should read up more on what it is to be a good buddy.

Buddy diving is a team effort and what you are describing is not a team effort. Improved situational awareness and more frequent buddy checks are required by every single member of your "team".

 

[annieols]

was the agreement to dive as a group or two separate buddy teams? answer that question and the answer to who was at fault would be easier to answer.

Right off though; the girls shouldnt have lagged behind, they should have had their eye on the flag man (who is usually the dive leader). The second male diver shouldnt have passed the lead diver, nor spent so much time swimming without looking back. The flag man should have audibly conntacted his buddy (knife on tank or noisemaker), or physically (fin tug), and then turned back to look for the girls. And most importantly, there is no way the flag man should have been alone on the surface long enough to wait seven minutes on the surface and exit the water without one other diver popping up. That (the other divers not surfacing after separtation) IMHO is the biggest mistake of the day!!

Tell your wife had she followed proper diving standard and protocalls (assuming you guys planned the dive to surface after a one minute separation) she would have noticed the separation, ascended and you guys could have met on the surface and contiued diving. You didnt leave her behind so much as she didnt keep up with you, It sounds like you all need to plan your dives better, and you DEFINITELY need better buddy communication...

 

[Jax]

Sounds like a fluster cluck to this noob, with enough "you mucked up" to go around . . .

But if you are still arguing about it after a year, you have greater problems on your hands, bud.

 

[tkdgodess]

If you planned to dive as a group, the flag man should have been communicating with his buddy more and vice-versa. As soon as you noticed the other team was lagging you should have told your buddy to slow down. How bad was vis? I hate pleasure diving in groups. If you discussed seperation but noone followed the plan everyone is to blame. Your wife should also be able to dive without you. I hope she is already doing that.

 

[Thalassamania]

Everyone gets a piece of the prize, but I'd save the biggest slice for the flagman, who should have stayed with his buddy. There were two teams there, of two divers each, trying to dive as a foursome. If the foursome split, everyone still had a buddy.

 

[shark girl]

I think Annieols sums it up pretty well. Sounds like mistakes were made by all, but could have been rectified sooner if:
1) You'd notified your buddy that you were stopping.
2) Your buddy had kept a closer eye on you and realised that you'd stopped.
3) Everybody else had followed proper protocol upon realising that you were separated.

How far ahead had you got? How did they get so far behind- were they looking at stuff or are they slow swimmers? I'd suggest that maybe the women should be the leading buddy team- it is easier for the faster swimmers to follow a slower person than to constantly be looking behind to check that they are there.

 

[Gombessa]

My humble opinions on the scenario presented:

Things you did right:
Split a 4-person team into buddy pairs.

Diver 1 stayed on the surface, and didn't try to re-descend to find the rest of the group.

Things you did wrong:
Lack of communication between teams: Did every discuss separation protocols before the dive? It's not got enough to think "everyone should know what to do." Especially with multiple buddy pairs diving together, everyone should be on the same page regarding what to do if one buddy pair loses sight of the other, especially if the dive flag is required for some reason.

Lack of communication within guy diver team: When you slowed down, did you tell your buddy? my buddies use a signal for "slow down," it's holding one arm out in front of you, hand open and palm down, and slowly passing the other hand (also hand open, palm down) over your first arm, from elbow to wrist.

Lack of team awareness for guy buddy team: If you were the flag bearer and leading the dive, why wasn't diver #2 following you? It sounds more like you guys were solo diving in the same direction.


In short, as I'm sure you're already aware, diving in a big group is hard, and it's easier to get separated. Having clearly established protocols for what to do in case of separation would have made this a non-issue (and if you had done this, then happily more of the fault would lie with your wife ).

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

Everyone gets a piece of the prize, but I'd save the biggest slice for the flagman, who should have stayed with his buddy. There were two teams there, of two divers each, trying to dive as a foursome. If the foursome split, everyone still had a buddy.

If the dive was "2 buddy teams diving together" (rather than a "4-buddy team"), I agree with your reasoning, except I'm not sure why the flagman ges the biggest slice. Although he eventually abandoned his buddy, at first all he did was stop. And the flagman's buddy, who swam away while his buddy was stopped (there could be a million reasons why you'd stop) didn't realize this. I'd say it was the buddy who (accidentally) abandoned the flagman, not the other way around.

Now, that said, I have a feeling my iniitial "2 buddy teams diving together" assumption is invalid, in which case I think they all get an equal slice here. The problem started long before anyone entered the water, since no one seemed to know if they were buddy pairs trying to stick together (in which case, a separation isn't a particularly big deal), or if they were essentially one large buddy group (in which case, any separation should have ended the dive like a normal buddy separation). It sounds like the divers weren't on the same page in knowing if the 2 "buddy-teams" being separated was a critical situation or not.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that the man and his wife weren't buddies, so even if they had decided "don't end the dive if the teams get separated" the flagman may have been too concerned because it was someone he loved who he couldn't keep his eye on.

 

[DanBMW]

Seems pretty simple to me!

In a normal drift dive on the East Coast, it is the responsibility of everyone following the "flag person" to stay with them. The person carrying the flag should not have to heard the cats. In a situation where you are swimming and not drifting, I would still follow the above situation. You are carrying the flag. They need to stay with you. Four people might be too much if the visibility is limited. Should have been two buddy teams.