Should I have done more?

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Ok, as a novice diver (the ink is still drying on my c-card), I’m not going to even attempt to critique you. From what I can tell, it seems that you didn’t do anything that would be considered incorrect. So, I’m going to play the part of the female diver because I can so see myself here. Starting off, this might be a stupid question but…. I noticed that once you all hit the water, you started down. If this was her first dive of the day, wouldn’t she do a weight check before descent? Since this was her first time with a steel tank I would think that would have been in order. I know I’m reading a bunch of stuff into the video. But if we splashed down and my team has started the descent, then I may feel like I don’t have time for a check – I gotta keep up with my group. As this was my first deep dive then I am nervous anyway. Before splash down, I’m told that I don’t have gloves and need them, so I have to borrow some. (embarrassment that I look like a rookie). And then as I go down, I realize I’m over weighted. And to add to the fun, my mask is leaking like a sieve. I’m descending but going butt first and don’t feel in control. At this point, I’m frustrated and this is a precursor to panic.


Yes, I can see myself here. Last month on my first boat dive, I forgot to bring my booties. I had to borrow a pair from someone else. I slathered my face up with sunscreen. We splashed down and on the descent sunscreen started running to my eyes. They felt like they were on fire. I let some water into my mask to try to get rid of it. My mask flooded. My group is still descending. I can’t see crap - can’t see my computer, have no idea if I am at 10 feet or 100 feet. If my group is beside me or miles from me. Yes, I admit it – I panicked. My training was enough that I recovered without shooting to the surface. I totally removed my mask, rubbed the sunscreen out off my eyes, replaced my mask and cleared it. I saw my group close by and recovered. But the girl in your vid could have very easily been me.


Thanks for posting it. Your intent was was learn if you could have done something different. However, I walked away with a better perspective of problem management from the other divers point of view.
 
Weight checks... What a novel idea... We are doing drift dives in a current and trying to hit a wreck 80 feet down. Play around on the surface or on the descent and you miss the wreck.. Each type of diving has it's own constraints and typical practices.

However, you are correct, she should have just jumped in and done a weight check, figured it out. Climbed back in the boat and then done the real dive. It was possible, advisable even, but many recreational divers will just make a guess and if they are not too light, just do the dive with some extra lead and adjust on the next dive.

The short answer is that if you are doing a drift dive into a wreck in 80 feet of water, you better have your weighting figured out, you better be able to clear your ears and swim down. I immediately descend after entry. I am safe from boats and falling divers 10 ft down and if I am just below her, she should be somewhat reassured and try to swim down to the target.. me.

FYI.. Bull frog sunscreen with an alcohol base burns a little when you put it on, but will not wash off easily and screw up your dive.
 
What method do you use and teach for clearing a mask?
 
What method do you use and teach for clearing a mask?

I grab the mask with one or two hands, look up and then pull the bottom skirt away a little and blow. I wonder if the newer super low volume freedive masks have such a "shallow" skirt that pushing at the top does not translate well to a significantly reduced pressure at the bottom of the mask??
 
Am I right in thinking you were there as her buddy rather than as instructor or DM or in any sort of professional capacity? If so, really you did more than one would expect of a buddy, helped her with her buoyancy, calmed her down, stayed with her when she called the dive, helped her on the ascent, etc. You would expect a certified diver will know to release air from bc if they are rocketing up on ascent, so no reason why you should anticipate her shooting up in the last few metres.
 
My 2 cents:

Biggest issue I see is you're pretty much ignoring an end of dive signal. If someone signals UP, you return the signal, get to them and go up. Especially if it's not an experienced person.

On the other hand, that person should never have been on a dive in something else than a pool.
Sounds to me like a big "don't dive with unsafe divers". You should probably have aborted the dive at 0:40, we can see that she's absolutely not in a diving position.

Who the hell told her to put her hand in her vision field to clear a mask? :confused:
 
You have too many tasks going on to be diving with an inexperienced and over weighted diver. IMO, her weighting issues should have been addressed before attempting this dive. Start with the fundamentals first. Lose the speargun, reel and camera and get her sorted first - on the surface. All descend together after she is sorted and collect yourselves on the bottom - then proceed to the dive plan.

Who is training these people nowadays? BCD dependent divers are potential victims of minor and major dive accidents
 
It looked to me like she was clearly out of her comfort zone and not ready for this dive. She lingered on the surface and her movements were jerky and stressed looking. When she finally did get down she stayed vertical (another tell tale sign of being stressed). She was having mask trouble, she was probably breathing shallow and rapidly, I saw a lot of hand swimming going on. I think she needed a refresher and/or some pool time to get the rust out.
None of this is really your fault, maybe you didn't know that her skill level wasn't up to this dive. The getting away from you and surfacing, at least she was exhaling the whole time as I saw a stream of bubbles so she remembered that.
The only thing I could recommend is maybe next time when you have a new diver with you leave the gun behind and concentrate on her and make her feel comfortable that an attentive buddy is there for her.
I could also have been she might have been a little intimidated thinking she was going to be left alone while you guys hunted and she'd have to fend for herself. Also being the last one to submerge can have a "hurry up" affect and stress people out.
I don't know what you guys talked about prior to doing the dive, but if she wasn't talking much maybe she should have let on more about her skill level and what she wasn't ready for. The new diver needs to communicate too, that's why I'm not putting all the blame on you.
If you would have known all this before hand then I would have ditched the gun and stayed with her the whole time even on the surface and considered it a newbie mentoring dive. You guys could have worked on positioning, you could have check her mask to see what was causing the leak etc, get her comfortable and smoothed out, then you could have followed your kid around the wreck and watched him hunt.

---------- Post added September 21st, 2015 at 09:47 AM ----------

Who is training these people nowadays? BCD dependent divers are potential victims of minor and major dive accidents
This is probably the most beat to death horse on the internet ad nauseum. There are hundreds of threads with thousands of posts discussing overweighted BC dependent elevator divers and the training agencies that leave them this way.
 
PADI IDC course materials say that (pp) "any person breathing off of a SCUBA unit while submerged in either confined water or open water is a "diver" - as we see here which you have documented so well - the statement is untrue. Accidents waiting to happen. How 90 percent of these people survive is beyond me.
 
Hi Dumpster

I sympathize. I don't think you could have done much differently during the dive. The issues here, I think, were mainly pre-dive.

We who dive in Palm Beach forget just how advanced and challenging these dives can be. Hot dropping in a strong current to hit a specific target is challenging, dealing with the current at depth can be tough, and for divers without much experience or recent dives can be very daunting. Because most dives are like this, we get used to it, but for many people these are some of the more difficult dives they have done. The main task is to sort things out before hitting the water. My specific thoughts are as follows.

First, I never dive a three-buddy team unless I know and have dove with the person for a long time (or they are GUE/UTD certified). In general three way buddy teams almost guarantee abandoned or lost buddies in any stressful situation, and probably in most situations as well. This is even worse with insta-buddies assigned on a boat. If my buddy and I are on a boat and the DM attempts to assign a third buddy, we decline. The one time a DM insisted, I informed the third buddy my buddy and I's sole attention would be on each other, and it was the third buddy's sole responsibility to keep with us, keep in our line of vision, and reach us if there were any difficulties, as they could not expect us to focus on them. The person chose to hang out with the DM, instead. If I am traveling solo, I get with one other buddy only, or hang with the DM if they try to three-way me. It is even worse when the third buddy has much less experience and comfort level with the dive. You experienced all of this, with losing track of your son, and plainly the third buddy not focused on him either, with the converse being that your son had to abandon the team and surface alone, while having some difficulties. You and the other diver ended up as the "team" and, in that context, I think you did everything you could.

The next issue is unfamiliar gear. She had a mask she had never used. That is a recipe for problems/flooding, which can unnerve any diver, but especially one who is nervous to begin with. To be sure, a mask is usually a manageable piece of gear, but I never do an advanced dive with brand new gear, I always do an easler dive to check out any new gear, even things like mask or fins.

The third issue was nerves. She had not had much recent practice and was nervous. A more mellow check out dive should have come first. My wife and I are pretty experienced with these dives. Still, when I was off for 6 months recently due to knee surgery, we did not start with dive-bombing the deep wrecks (which, I might add, we dearly love to do!). We did several reef drifts first, to get back in the swing of things. It was time well spent.

So, these pre-dive things I think might have needed more attention. This was not a good dive for her state of mind, and the equipment and other issues led to a bad experience.

As for her buoyancy getting away from her during the dive and ascent, I think you did all you could to calm her down and accompany her to the surface. Thankfully, she had the presence of mind to keep breathing, but there was nothing you could really do if she lost control of her gear and shot to the top. First rule--don't become a second victim.
 
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