Simple safety exercises?

[Storker]

Being a beginner diver, I'd like to improve my awareness and ability to respond correctly to any emergencies. A diving fatality in Norway this summer where a buddy wasn't able to inflate the victim's BCD and/or drop his lead - an accident very similar to this one - made me a lot more aware of the contents of a pre-dive safety check and doing it as a real safety check rather than just going through the motions (as we did in my OW course).

I'd like to start a routine where more or less every dive contains one or two short, simple exercises where correct response to an incident or emergency is trained, going from an easily forgotten book theory to something ingrained in the lizard parts of my brain. I'm thinking that the safety stop could be a good time to do some of those exercises.

So far, my list of possible exercises contains:

• Mask on/off (during safety stop)
• Drop/relocate regulator (during safety stop)
• Share air (during safety stop)
• Inflate buddy's BCD (after surfacing)
• Inflate BCD orally (after surfacing)
• Inflate buddy's BCD orally (after surfacing)
• Drop buddy's lead (in shallow water close to shore)

Any other things I could train as a part of a normal dive?

 

[dtownsend2000]

Deployment of dsmb/lift bag?

Just be careful. It is easy to get into trouble even in such shallow waters. The best place to practice many of those skills would be in a pool.

 

[danvolker]

How about an exercise where if either you or your body lose actual sight of each other for more than 5 seconds, you both get a mild electric shock

 

[Mantra]

How about an exercise where if either you or your body lose actual sight of each other for more than 5 seconds, you both get a mild electric shock

An out of body experience?

 

[Robert Gillcash]

I suggest to my students that every dive, they practice a mask flood/clear or R&R, plus some sort of reg replace / recovery. Every dive, until the skills are as easy to do as breathing.
But, make sure you discuss with your buddy first, on the shore.
"Hey, at some point during the dive, I'm gonna give you a double OK sign. Please get close to me, but don't freak out when I take off my mask/remove my reg/flood my mask, cause I want to practice those skills. Just stick close, in case something goes wrong. When I am finished I'll give the double OK sign and we can continue the dive"
The reason for this? When it happens for real, it's probably gonna be both at the same time. Your buddy will slow/stop - to look at something - and you don't notice. When they start again, you get the fin in the face routine, and out goes your reg and off goes your mask.
If you don't know these skills cold, like breathing, you're gonna freak out and shoot to the surface.
Practice, practice, practice.
Please warn your buddy first though......

 

[Storker]

Deployment of dsmb/lift bag?

Good point, I forgot that one.

Just be careful. It is easy to get into trouble even in such shallow waters. The best place to practice many of those skills would be in a pool.

Well, I don't have easy access to a pool. But we've got a couple dive sites which are nice and sheltered. Not really controlled environment, but no current, short distance to the shore and a nice, sloping bottom towards the shore.

make sure you discuss with your buddy first, on the shore.

You bet your...

Joking aside, that's what I'm planning. My buddy is also my son, and we took our certs together, so we're equally (in)experienced. Anything out of the ordinary underwater will be discussed during dive planning, and anything out of the ordinary on the surface will also be discussed with the bubble-counter who's sitting at the shore and will be done only after we've established that everything's OK.

 

[TSandM]

That's a very good set of drills (btw, we use the signal of "drilling" the forefinger into the palm of the other hand to signal a drill, rather than a double okay. Less chance for misinterpretation.). You can actually make a practice of orally inflating your BC when you surface from every dive -- I have a friend who does this.

The other thing I would add for safety is to read the articles on gas management and buddy behavior on nwgratefuldiver.com Bob has some VERY good information there. If you plan your gas and monitor your gas, you should never need to orally inflate or drop weights.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

That's a very good set of drills (btw, we use the signal of "drilling" the forefinger into the palm of the other hand to signal a drill, rather than a double okay. Less chance for misinterpretation.). You can actually make a practice of orally inflating your BC when you surface from every dive -- I have a friend who does this.

The other thing I would add for safety is to read the articles on gas management and buddy behavior on nwgratefuldiver.com Bob has some VERY good information there. If you plan your gas and monitor your gas, you should never need to orally inflate or drop weights.

Unless of course you have a failure with the BC holding air OR the power inflator sticking (which requires you to disconect the inflator hose)...There are lots of potential situations which would require oral inflation either under or on top of the water that are unrelated to gas management issues. And of course dropping lead could be necessary with a BC failure.

I personally would teach my son and myself to buddy breath (share one single reg) and then learn to do that with no mask on too. This is what I make MY son do, but it is practiced in shallow water with a hard bottom, not something you want to do on a safety stop in open water.

I also make sure both of us can remove and replace the scuba unit underwater (again with hard bottom and shallow, calm location).

 

[Dsix36]

I don't know what gear configuration you used in training vs. what you have now. I trained using a weight belt and when I bought my BC it was weight integrated. On a shallow dive with my regular buddy I did a gear removal and replacement drill to make sure that I could with my own stuff. I had quite a surprise and it was a valuable experience. If I would have let go of my BC, I would have shoot to the surface like a rocket. I found that the only way I was able to get it back on was to roll into it like it was a weight belt. This one little exercise has been a source of comfort a couple of times since I have had to do it for real.

 

[Storker]

we use the signal of "drilling" the forefinger into the palm of the other hand to signal a drill

Great! I just loved that signal, gonna adopt it as of now!

The other thing I would add for safety is to read the articles on gas management and buddy behavior on nwgratefuldiver.com Bob has some VERY good information there.

If only those examples were in metric...

I personally would teach my son and myself to buddy breath (share one single reg) and then learn to do that with no mask on too. This is what I make MY son do, but it is practiced in shallow water with a hard bottom, not something you want to do on a safety stop in open water.

Good point. I didn't mention it, but since most of my dives so far have been shore - or close to shore - entry with a sloping bottom. we've usually had our safety stops close to the bottom in rather shallow water. That's the scenario I was thinking of when I said we'd do the drills during the safety stop.

I don't know what gear configuration you used in training vs. what you have now. I trained using a weight belt and when I bought my BC it was weight integrated.

Except for the pool session during OW, we were trained on BDCs with integrated weight pockets, just like the gear we bought.