Spiegel Grove??

[TheRedHead]

Yes, buddy team failure involves the entire group.

That's not how people dive in Florida and not realistic. Generally, people have traveled to dive, some with buddies, and some not. If you don't have a buddy, the DM/Instructor will assign you an insta-buddy who may be clueless about dive planning. The other buddy pairs will go their own way and not give you a second thought. On shallow dives, you are expected to navigate the site with your buddy and there is no guide or DM in the water. On deeper dives, sometimes you'll find a DM in the water and sometimes not. You can always hire a personal DM buddy to be at your side.

You can't apply your local diving conditions to places like the Florida Keys.

 

[Scuba]

Reread what you quoted with the emphasis on with him and poor awareness of dive buddies or students.

And personally I wouldn't dive with casemanager or anyone who was in the water with him that day. Nobody noticed he was having trouble, nobody noticed when he had a fast ascent, nobody got to him at the abbreviated 20 foot stop. That indicates poor awareness of dive buddies or students and poor reaction to an incident in the water.

There's blame to go around for everyone involved here.

I think "anyone" is what caused this misunderstanding, and I would say I understand what you meant except for the following comment.

Yes, buddy team failure involves the entire group.

If you mean buddy team members, or others bound to the team/diver whose failure to perform certain duties became a contributing factor - absolutely. But surely one can not place responsibility on another team or divers who do not have any responsibility to said team/diver, just because they happen to be in the vicinity at the time of the incident. If this is indeed what you mean, I would like to know the rational behind it.

The issue of who comprised the group and what everyone's duty was certainly appears to not have been clear to Casemanager. At any rate, he has not provided further information to better understand exactly what transpired, and he appears to have found the explanation he sought.

The End

 

[RonFrank]

I took a break from this tiring thread several days ago. Now I come back to hear the same song and dance. Casemanager blaming EVEYONE but HIMSELF.

Dude, you went on the Grove under Unusually calm conditioins, freaked out, fillied your BCD with air, got bent, and now want to blame EVERYONE. Unfortunately DUDE, YOU are YOUR worst dive buddy, and YOU are at fault for this incident. NO ONE could have prevented you from rocketing to the surface. Your Obvious lack of buoyancy control screams incompentance.

The fact is that you were in VERY calm seas, with good vis, with dive buddys five feet away (regardless of if they were LOOKING at you) and you freaked, filled your BCD, and rocketed to the surface.

Maybe your instructor should have been more attentive, however had he been, WHAT could he have done? As for your Nitrox ramblings, it just goes to show how little you paid attention to verifiying mixtures. When I dive with Nitrox, I don't dive them BEFORE I do a verification. THAT is the DRILL, and if you don't get it, you need to read the MATERIAL. It is all there, and it is NOT the insturctors fault you are incompentant.

You are a nightmare diver. You are on SOME sort of medication, that must be uncomfortable for you to discuss as you refuse to say what it is.... which makes the entire incident impossible to evaluate... my guess is that it ain't asprin.

Dude, if it has been recommended that you not dive in the future by doctors, by advice is to follow that excellent advice, as you obviously do NOT have what it takes to dive.

 

[octgal]

I took a break from this tiring thread several days ago. Now I come back to hear the same song and dance. Casemanager blaming EVEYONE but HIMSELF.

Dude, you went on the Grove under Unusually calm conditioins, freaked out, fillied your BCD with air, got bent, and now want to blame EVERYONE. Unfortunately DUDE, YOU are YOUR worst dive buddy, and YOU are at fault for this incident. NO ONE could have prevented you from rocketing to the surface. Your Obvious lack of buoyancy control screams incompentance.

The fact is that you were in VERY calm seas, with good vis, with dive buddys five feet away (regardless of if they were LOOKING at you) and you freaked, filled your BCD, and rocketed to the surface.

Maybe your instructor should have been more attentive, however had he been, WHAT could he have done? As for your Nitrox ramblings, it just goes to show how little you paid attention to verifiying mixtures. When I dive with Nitrox, I don't dive them BEFORE I do a verification. THAT is the DRILL, and if you don't get it, you need to read the MATERIAL. It is all there, and it is NOT the insturctors fault you are incompentant.

You are a nightmare diver. You are on SOME sort of medication, that must be uncomfortable for you to discuss as you refuse to say what it is.... which makes the entire incident impossible to evaluate... my guess is that it ain't asprin.

Dude, if it has been recommended that you not dive in the future by doctors, by advice is to follow that excellent advice, as you obviously do NOT have what it takes to dive.

Um DUDE or sorry i mean Ron, all else aside, looking at your dive history i would say you are in no position to be giving advice like that. You are certainly no expert.
I am laughing at the fact that this thread is still going strong! Let it die please let it die!!! LOL:05:

 

[asaara]

I can't speak for the other divers. I do not know.

Why am I starting to think that just *maybe*...that was his point??

He's stated a few times he doesn't have a panic disorder (well, perhaps *now* he does, but I'd wonder if that was as much from the dive as the experiences on the board) and isn't on any meds for it. Neither nicotine gum nor the scopolamine patch, as far as I am aware, have been approved for the treatment of panic disorders, so it may actually be safe to say he was probably taking them, curiously enough, to help quit smoking and prevent motion sickness.

You seem pretty reluctant to explain what these meds were, and anytime you're asked for more information, you say you don't want legal/confidentiality problems, etc., but apparently when the original poster is concerned, you don't give a flying you know what about that sort of stuff.

Have you ever considered the possibility that you may have misheard things from the conversation you were eavesdropping on?

While you may be a competent first aid provider, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to share a dive boat with you should I end up in an accident, if there's a chance you could see me eating my little pink smints and would later tell emergency personnel and the entire board that the accident happened because I popped half a dozen Ativan just before going in the water...

 

[2Tours N Iraq`]

Since the question of the sea sickness patch was posed on this thread earlier I thought it would be beneficial to post an answer to the very question about using the sea sickness patch when diving from the November 2005 issue of Dive Training Magazine under the "No Dumb Questions" section answered by Alex Brylske.

Q: Natasha Kravtsov had a follow-up question to a subject I addressed in a recent issue concerning seasickness. "On a recent cruise vacation, I was wearing a transdermal patch for motion sickness and I went diving. After a few days I was feeling ill with ear pain and went to the ship's doctor. He diagnosed me with an ear infection and noticed I was wearing the patch. He told me the patch had more side effects than other motion sickness medications, and he specifically would not recommend it to divers, mostly because it may cause hallucinations both above and below water. In a recent column, however, you seemed to say it was fairly safe, and the articles from DAN [Divers Alert Network] also seemed to suggest this. So my question is, what to use next time?

A: As I'm not a medical expert, I thought the best approach was to go the source. So, I asked DAN's vice president for medical services, Joel Dovenbarger, to wade in on this issue. Here's a synopsis of what he had to say:

The transdermal scopolamine patch is widely used in recreational diving and by many boaters. It has the same side effects as any other antihistamine medication, including drowsiness, dry mouth and, if you get it in your eye, blurred vision. This last side effect is very disturbing as it can last for several hours. In addition, there is a small risk of psychological problems, particularly agitation at depth and hallucinations, but this occurs in only a very small number of users.

The patch actually has an advantage over oral medication because it delivers a sustained dose at therapeutic levels for 72 hours. You can then switch to a new patch without a drop in medication levels. By contrast, oral medication levels can peak and drop depending on how often and when they are taken. You should also know that you may get a sedative effect within 30 minutes to an hour each time you take these medications, making it important to carefully consider exactly when you take the drug.

The best advice without recommending any particular medication is to use what works for you. Plan your medication and diving activity to avoid a peak or valley in levels, and monitor yourself for any side effects. Most importantly, always do a land trial of any medication that you're considering taking while diving; never take a drug for the first time before diving. Finally, always read the packet instructions, and discuss your plans with DAN or your physician.

I would like to point out I am not pointing fingers, I am simply stating the answer from DAN found in the November 2005 issue of Dive Training magazine in the "No Dumb Questions" section for the edification of all who read this thread. The above information was obtained off of the Dive Training magazine website at http://www.dtmag.com/11-05-NoDumbQuestions.shtml and is the thrid and final Q&A on the page.

 

[lamont]

For the record, I'm a systems engineer/architect, and I didn't major in English in college.

Also, for the record, the people who had an obligation to casemanager were his immediate buddy or buddies and the DMs and/or instructors. Other buddy teams, or other divers on the wreck I don't think are included, other than 'best effort' attempts to come to the rescue of anyone they happen to see in distress, and subject to the golden rule of not creating a second victim.

(and yes, clearly casemanager had an obligation, too, and blew it, but that doesn't give those who had an obligation to him a free pass)

 

[String]

Its stretching the definition to say a buddy has an *obligation* towards another diver too imho.

Self-rescue is first and foremost. Dont rely on anyone and certainly outside of an instruction structure i cant see how even a buddy is ogligated to act.

 

[Sideband]

Its stretching the definition to say a buddy has an *obligation* towards another diver too imho.

Self-rescue is first and foremost. Dont rely on anyone and certainly outside of an instruction structure i cant see how even a buddy is ogligated to act.

I agree. Even in our Rescue class it was stressed that we had "No obligation to act".

Another side here is what was to be reacted to. It wasn't an OOA where handing off an octo would solve the situation. It wasn't an entanglement where a buddy could free him. It wasn't an equipment malfunction where a buddy could step in and fix the problem. It was panic. The only outward sign besides rapid breathing was probably the BC inflation and rapid ascent. Not much of anything that can be done except meet him on the surface in a couple of minutes. Even if he did display signs that the non Rescue trained buddy would have recognized there isn't much he could do except initiate an ascent and offer assurance by his presence. I would argue that a diver with no Rescue training should not even do that. They should keep their distance. If he had grabbed at the buddy in his panic he could have easily drug them both to the surface and there would have been 2 people in a chamber. It was Casemanagers duty to recognize hs panic and to abort the dive before it got where it did. He was the only one in a position to know he was uncomfortable.
I dive with OW and advanced students every week. I consider both to be solo dives. I do not expect them to be able to get me out of much of a mess. I rely on my own self rescue skills and familiarity with the dive site to keep me out of trouble. Would I step in with a student starting to bolt? Yes, as long as I could keep myself safe. If it looks like he is going to get me hurt I'm kicking him away and meeting up on the surface.

Joe

 

[String]

Fast ascents are difficult for anyone to do much about. If someone REALLY wants to go up there is little or nothing someone can safely do to stop it.

Ive had to chase and catch a number of students going to the surface either via dry suit inversions or just lack of buoyancy. So far in all bar one case ive managed to stop them and recover, the one point i slowed the ascent to acceptable level but could not stop it totally. All of these were from shallow depths due to the inexperience of students and so on therefore minimal risk to them or the buddy. I can think of one other incident similar. From approx 130ft on ascent buddy had buoyancy issues going up/down by many meters. I got him as far as 6 meters relatively ok but at that point it was obvious he was going up no matter what. Due to my previous dives of the day and previous days by that time id accumulated about 10 mins of mandatory deco. The buddy had none as first dive of the week. I made the call and let go of him. In my view he would not have been injured due to not being near deco and slowish to 6m whereas i would have been if id have followed due to stops. I spent 10 mins drifting under a bag worrying if he'd hit the surface or sunk without trace but on surfacing found him already on the boat drinking coffee so situation turned out to be perfectly ok.




NONE of these were a panic "elevator button" problem. All could be fixed. If someone had decided to bolt by filling the BC and/or dumping weights chances are by the time you get to them, IF you can reach them they'll be going too fast to stop and you'll be taken along for the ride.

From any sort of serious depth this becomes dangerous as opposed to an annoyance so the issue is not just CAN you stop them its also weighing up the risks to the rescuer themselves - you dont want to create 2 casualties out of 1 incident. I do everything in my power to assist BUT i do have limits. There are situations that in my own view i'll deem isnt possible to recover from and in those i am not going to put myself in great risk by trying.

If i ever get a similar problem happen to myself i would not expect a buddy to injure themselves desperately trying to get the problem sorted. Im repsonsible for me and do not expect anyone to put themselves at risk for me.
Theres a general understanding with club diving buddys here that yes by all means a buddy will do everything practical to help but there is a line between helping and endangering themselves and nobody expects someone to do the latter.

The moral of this long rambling is people are responsible for themselves and themselves alone. Dont rely on someone else to get you out of trouble unless its under instruction. Buddys have to make the call (i) whether they CAN act to help and (ii) if it places them at an unacceptable level of risk in attempting to act. There is not and should not be an obligation for them to act in every situation regardless of training. Its their own call.