San Diego accident

[Scared Silly]

TC, speculate is the wrong description, the word you are looking for is assume. As in to assume to make an A$$ out of U and ME. But what the heck this is ScubaBoard after all.

 

[TSandM]

I'm not speculating. I'm responding to the information provided in the original article that was quoted. Two divers made a dangerously rapid ascent after one of them ran out of gas. Running out of gas might not be the fault of the original diver -- a freeflow or blown o-ring or something MIGHT have been the cause. But there are only two reasons for a dangerously rapid ascent after establishing an air-share. Either the second diver didn't have enough gas to get them both to the surface (which seems likely), or they didn't have enough skill to execute an air-sharing ascent and control their buoyancy.

 

[Oside Jimc]

No need to speculate here, inattentive , inexperienced diver, OOA, buddy shares air but diver in blind panic drags both to surface at breakneck speed (she was much smaller than he was), paniced diver still freaked out on surface passes out for a moment, both divers get trip to chamber as a precaution.

 

[DandyDon]

Ok so I was speculating on the initial problem, but they failed the ascent, for whatever reasons. TSandM called it well.

 

[tc]

You also speculated about a deco obligation in your first post Don, where did that come from?

 

[tc]

I'm not speculating. I'm responding to the information provided in the original article that was quoted. Two divers made a dangerously rapid ascent after one of them ran out of gas. Running out of gas might not be the fault of the original diver -- a freeflow or blown o-ring or something MIGHT have been the cause. But there are only two reasons for a dangerously rapid ascent after establishing an air-share. Either the second diver didn't have enough gas to get them both to the surface (which seems likely), or they didn't have enough skill to execute an air-sharing ascent and control their buoyancy.

The article said that the ascended rapidly, where did your SPECULATION about loss of buoyany control come from?

 

[Catt99]

If one omits equipment failure as the cause of OOA,
then No neither of them are qualified to leave the pool.

If you run out of air for any reason other than equipment failure,you loose the privledge of being my dive buddy pretty much forever in my book.

This is a senseless/needless problem and just shouldn't occur.

If this is the outcome of their planning, I hold no pity for them.
But,I would still feel sorrow for the victims family.

Darwin's Theory is always on the prowl for the inept people of the world,
and if not this it would only be something else later on down the line.

Multitudes will weep when confronted with their lost privileges to dive with you as their buddy. And clearly the divers' failure in planning the dive, if that's what it was, presented an irrestible target for the forces we know as Darwin's Theory; unfortunately for them, if they survive, this same Theory will apparently stalk them in the near future through non-diving aspects of their lives. Thank you for clarifying exactly how this particular accident produces reactions / emotions / opinions in Brewone0to, which, until your post, was shamefully lacking in this thread.

 

[TSandM]

TC -- Assume you are at 75 feet, and have initiated an air share. Now what's important? You need to execute an ascent; nothing else is reasonable at this point. How do you get out of this situation unhurt? By controlling your ascent so that the ascent itself doesn't hurt you.

If you don't do that, one of three things happened -- Either you didn't have the gas to do a controlled ascent while air sharing (which I suspect, as, if one diver was out of gas, it's likely the other was low). Or you didn't have the diving skills to control an ascent while air-sharing, and lost control and surfaced too fast -- This is also sadly likely, as almost no one practices this kind of thing once they are out of class. Or the third, and worst possibility is that, having had an OOA emergency, at least one diver lost emotional control and bolted for the surface, dragging his companion with him.

All three are evidence of poor training or poor practice, or both. There is NO excuse for anyone to get hurt from an out of air. Being out of gas should never happen, except as the result of an unforseeable equipment failure. But once you are out of gas, the simple solution is to go to your buddy. An attentive and well schooled buddy will immediately remedy the situation, and then, as Diver0001 (one of my favorite, and alas these days largely absent SB members) once said to me, the emergency is OVER. At that point, you have an inconvenience, and you deal with it calmly.

The problem is that few divers practice these scenarios. If you get out of OW and go do 300 dives and everything goes really well, then the day something doesn't, you will find out how well you cope with the unexpected. Not everyone does well when tested, and if you're lucky, you won't get hurt. My personal opinion is that practice is the cheaper alternative.

 

[Rick Inman]

Yes, you can only speculate.

But clearly that's once again what everyone is doing based on very little information.

And two mods joining in too...........wow.

Yeah, wow.

Not hard to make the connection. Here's a post a made from a year ago:

Last Tuesday on the regular weekly dive, a new guy ran OOA at 60', and after getting air from his buddy, in a panic dragged them both to the surface where they did a flying leap from the water and made a real big splash. Then the panicked diver tried to sink back down and drown, but his buddy (who has even less dives - six total, I think), managed to swim them both to shore and saved the day.

I think the incident we're discussing is more common than we think This one just made the papers.

 

[DandyDon]

In a shared air situation, even if we speculate that the donor did have plenty of air for both to make a safe ascent and the two possibly excited divers did not burn thru the available air too fast, the donor has to watch his ascent rate on his gauge or computer while holding his buddy and controlling air in his BC/wing - all of which can be challenging if not practiced. Too often the inflate and deflate buttons can be confused starting a snowballing ascent; I use short pulls on the dump valve to avoid that risk.

It'd be nice to hear from the divers themselves, but that's not likely. The best we can do is discuss how to prevent what happened to them in various details.