Sometime – It’s Just One Things After Another

[Potapko]

Proper training and experience would have prevented this situation from arising in the first place.

Regardless, the problems continued throughout the dive. Once the OOA occurred for the second time on the same dive, the diver abandoned his rescuer and did a free ascent to the surface. This left the diver solo on a decompression obligation. .

Cmon now, he has already cleared this up in a prior post. The diver who helped him was not alone but hanging on a line with other divers doing a stop. Lets stick to the facts of the situation and not dramatize further in order to make a point.

 

[Northeastwrecks]

OK. The facts are that none of the other divers were on the rescuer's buddy team (the buddy had left). We don't know how much gas these individuals had or how they would have reacted to an OOG diver. We don't know if any of them stayed with the OOG diver through his hang, which was apparently at least 13 minutes (5 with Don, plus an additional 8 when Don left).

Hoping that someone in a gaggle of divers will be around to help is not a substitute for proper planning, training, and equipment.

 

[lamont]

The certification I went through included decompression schedules for dives past the NDL. Of course this is in the context of a recreational dive within the 130' limit, we're not talking technical diving. Although it's our club's policy not to do deco dives, a prudent dive plan should include the deco schedule if there is a potential of breaching the NDL and make allowances for additional air requirements.

When it is practical to do so we have a hang tank near the safety stop for these situations. Between this and allowing for extra air on the ascent what other special equipment is required?

IMO, "a little bit of deco" is kinda like "a little bit pregnant" -- you should either be trained to deal with a decompression dive, or you should stay away from it.

Its not just equipment, its also training. For deco you absolutely cannot do something like a CESA and must solve all emergencies while in the water. That takes training and fully redundant equipment (doubles). If your 'redundancy' takes the form of a hang tank that means that you're relying on your navigation skills to get you back to your redundant equipment.

I'm all in favor of hang tanks in theory. If you add a hang tank to a recreational dive, it should only make it safer in theory. What I worry about though is that its going to get treated the way that don treated his pony -- that people will slide over into 'a little bit of deco' thinking that the hang tank will bail them out -- then the tank doesn't work, or they can't find it and now you've got another incident or near miss.

 

[lamont]

here's a link to some stuff i wrote up on gas management:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=735077#post735077

learning all that made me a lot more confident that i wouldn't have an OOA due to bad planning or awareness...

 

[CBulla]

Thanks Tiggrr, Denny, BDQB and others who have been nice here....

I knew I'd take some thumping from some membes here, but I wanted to share in hopes of helping others, anyway. And like I said...

"The good news, I now realize that I'm not as good of a diver as I thought I was and now realize that I do need a lot of work!"

Does that mean you are ready to start making your way to the dark side? Feel the force Don.... Feel the force.....

 

[DandyDon]

Does that mean you are ready to start making your way to the dark side? Feel the force Don.... Feel the force.....

Oh, I have a lot of resistance to the stigma as I've heard about it, but I'll approach it again with an open mind. We did have a lot of DIR students on the boat, having their own mini-incidents and learning opportunities.

I did apply to the only Tech Instructor in my neck of Texas for Advanced Nitrox, Deco, and Deep training lasgt spring, but he put me off until we dived together this summer. Says he gets too many suicidal divers applying for such, but he approved me. Just waiting on a class. I could fly to Dallas for these classes, but I need to know the instructor for something as aggressive as this.

An additional piece of good news: I'm getting a new, free reg: http://scubaboard.com/t74325-my-oceanic-cdx-failed-again.html

 

[Potapko]

OK. The facts are that none of the other divers were on the rescuer's buddy team (the buddy had left). We don't know how much gas these individuals had or how they would have reacted to an OOG diver. We don't know if any of them stayed with the OOG diver through his hang, which was apparently at least 13 minutes (5 with Don, plus an additional 8 when Don left).

Hoping that someone in a gaggle of divers will be around to help is not a substitute for proper planning, training, and equipment.

No question!

 

[lamont]

Does that mean you are ready to start making your way to the dark side? Feel the force Don.... Feel the force.....

I've got his kool-aid I.V. all setup and waiting for him... =)

 

[Xanthro]

I'm glad you are ok and I can't really add anything that hasn't been addressed other than it seems your air usage is pretty high.

I'll hit NDL limits on an AL 80 with air to spare, you had 120 cf of air to start and went through it all, this means that a 19 cf pony would have vastly different breathing times for the two of us. With your air usage, anything approaching NDL limits might be too risky. Your breathing rate doesn't really allow you to safely ascend when things go out of control.

Xanthro

 

[Web Monkey]

Its not standard practice in my training.

Even if this was correct, and it is not, would you care to explain how you make this happen? In particular, how do you determine how much gas you will need in order to come up with 500 psi?

???

Not sure I follow you here. . .

The calculations aren't complicated, so I assume you mean something else . . .

Terry