Runaway Buddy!

[Uncle Pug]

The buddy numbers in your first post are all mixed up.

So I get diver #1's attention, point to where buddy #2 used to be, and give buddy #1 the thumb.

He returns the thumb and we make a slow ascent and do our safety stops on our backs looking up for buddy #1.

When we surface, buddy #1 is nowhere to be found. We look for his bubbles but don't find them. There is a mild current that we have to swim against to stay in the area we lost #2, so buddy #1 has us swim over to some pilings for us to hang on to. About ten to twelve minuets have passed now, and still no sign of buddy #2.

And are you sure it wasn't you who bolted to the surface while buddies #1 and #2 went looking for you?

 

[lamont]

Oh, another thing to realize about ascents from 20-30 feet, is that some instructors will do those kinds of ascents all day long with BOW students doing their CESA drills. Of course I think some of them eventually take hits from this practice, but the fact that you can do repeated ascents like this over and over with still a reasonably good avoidance of DCS indicates that a single rapid ascent from this depth is probably not very risky at all. All divers do this when they're learning on one occasion or another and its one reason why newer divers want to keep to shallower depths and shorter dives.

 

[TSandM]

Rereading this, another thing strikes me -- it seems pretty clear that the fellow who made the ascent is NOT comfortable underwater without a reg in his mouth. I recognize the symptoms, because this is something I've had to work on myself. Doing reg exchanges and air share drills has been very good for me to convince my reptile brain that it is OKAY to go a short period of time without anything to breathe. In fact, most of us would have close to a minute, if necessary, to locate that missing reg, or signal a buddy, before breathing became imperative -- and it is important to know that that is almost completely INDEPENDENT of whether your lungs are empty or full at the time that the reg is lost.

It seems as though recognizing this, and working on some simple drills to become more comfortable about being without a regulator, would be a very constructive thing to take out of this experience.

In addition, this is a great opportunity to talk about team, and learning to think as a team with team resources. As I found out with my little freeflow incident, and again on our recent trip when my newly serviced regulator had a hose come loose, being without air is almost trivial if one is accompanied by an attentive buddy for whom air-sharing is a routine event. This diver's first instinct when deprived of air was to bolt -- it would have been more constructive just to turn and signal his companions, get a reg from somebody, calm down and find his secondary.

It does still amaze me, however, that somebody can NOT find their secondary when it's on a necklace. Unless it had come out of the necklace -- something which has happened to me.

 

[Darnold9999]

Actually I think it was a bad plan, and he was over-focusing on the wrong safety issue. He was so concerned about getting DCS because he popped from a 20 minute, 30-foot dive that he put himself at risk of solo diving back to the shore and possibly getting himself entangled. If he can't swap his regs, I guarantee you that he'd have problems trying to untangle himself. That's the wrong judgement call and he needs to get a little bit less anxious about possible DCS. What he was displaying sounds like he wasn't thinking about safety, but that he was paranoid and afraid about DCS when there was no reason to be.

Actually agree that this was a bad plan, for all the reasons you give, however

at that particular moment

just after being paniced - he was at least thinking about safety. Worrying about DCS even if you are wrong, is thinking about safety. (As you point out it may be worrying about the wrong thing however!)

This was not just a 20 minute dive at 30 feet this was the second of two dives at "forty something" feet, and we know nothing about the previous dive or the SI other than Rick was uncomfortable about surfacing without doing a safety stop. Agree it was the wrong focus, and if you can't find your backup reg you shouldn't be solo diving, but in the moment, you can do the wrong thing for good reasons.

 

[*Floater*]

Just read this thread and I have to wonder how someone cannot find their bungeed backup? Me thinks buddy #2 simply panicked and bolted, and took it downhill from there. I doubt he was thinking very much...

By the way, is air sharing generally taught during basic open water?

 

[ItsBruce]

One rule by which I live when diving or sailing is to have preplanned responses to potential problems. Here, the divers had a preplanned response to buddy separation. One of the buddies seems to have abandoned this due to concerns from the rapid ascent. I'll add rapid "buddy separation with ascent" to my list of preplanned responses. I'm not yet sure what it will be, but two of possibilities are: (1) do a safety stop and then surface per plan, and (2) submerge, spend 1 minute looking for buddies, then go to normal buddy separation response. Both will probably work if everyone knows the protocol.

 

[Cacia]

that sounds smart. The reg thing seems hard to imagine but if your hands or lips are numb, it could happen. I had my lips so numb once in a quarry I could not feel the seal and sucked water. Like trying to sip through a straw after novacaine....and I don't know how you guys dive with gloves. I always know how to grab my bungeed but could I do it in thick gloves, if I was coughing...?

 

[Darnold9999]

Rereading this, another thing strikes me -- it seems pretty clear that the fellow who made the ascent is NOT comfortable underwater without a reg in his mouth. I recognize the symptoms, because this is something I've had to work on myself. Doing reg exchanges and air share drills has been very good for me to convince my reptile brain that it is OKAY to go a short period of time without anything to breathe. In fact, most of us would have close to a minute, if necessary, to locate that missing reg, or signal a buddy, before breathing became imperative -- and it is important to know that that is almost completely INDEPENDENT of whether your lungs are empty or full at the time that the reg is lost.

It seems as though recognizing this, and working on some simple drills to become more comfortable about being without a regulator, would be a very constructive thing to take out of this experience.

It seems to me that this is THE biggest difference between the training in the 70's and current OW training. At the end of the course was VERY comfortable without a reg in my mouth, and swimming to get air, but there was a lot of practice and drills in the pool, designed just to create this confidence, to get to that point.

Perhaps what is needed is a "self study" guide to take you from the end of your OW training to the next level - whatever that might be. i.e. a set of drills and exercises that you "should" practice X number of times over the next Y dives or something????

Just thinking out loud here - I ran into the same kind of thing recently when I had to do a mask replacement drill. I hate losing my mask, so I make sure I never lose it. Has never happened - ever, have a mustache so clear leaks all the time so was not too worried about it. However ... pull the mask off in the pool and get a nosefull of water, and spend the next minute or so recovering, in open water I might have been in real trouble. Realize that this is a skill I need to practice once in a while - not avoid which I have been doing by being so protective of my mask so no-one kicks it off.

What other skills have I been avoiding I wonder??? Doff and don - haven't done that since OW, CESA same, gear recovery, buddy breathing, air share? At least my rescue course covered air share and diver recovery stuff.

 

[Cacia]

That is a very good idea. But in my opinion one reason PADI doesn't teach buddy breathing (or reg exchange) etc, is that they don't want the liabilty so don't hold your breath. I am sure I will be toasted for saying that. I do agree with you. In my OW a long time ago, (NAUI) we had to swim to the bottom of the pool and doff and don all of our gear. Find the air...turn on the air...reg...find mask...That would weed a lot of people uncomfortable in the water out! (I am not talking about Rick's buddy, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt here...just people in general.)

 

[sea nmf]

that sounds smart. The reg thing seems hard to imagine but if your hands or lips are numb, it could happen. I had my lips so numb once in a quarry I could not feel the seal and sucked water. Like trying to sip through a straw after novacaine....and I don't know how you guys dive with gloves. I always know how to grab my bungeed but could I do it in thick gloves, if I was coughing...?

You know, Catherine, when I dive in Puget Sound (or Canada), I have to wait for my face and fingers to become numb in order to enjoy the dive. Even so, you would think that your hands could have verified whether or not the mouthpiece was in.