The best thing this diver did was go back down to recompress and then decompress properly. Divers have died who have had uncontrolled ascents to the surface and then stayed at the surface.
If you have a similar incident, go back down within 3-5 minutes or less - that's a safe time window before bad things can start happening. Then do a several stops at depth and along one at 20 feet. As this examples shows, going down immediately is better than staying at he surface. I know this is controversial, but the statistics, including this case, show immediate in water recompression is the best course of action in these types of cases. If there is a long surface delay and symptoms start setting in, then that's a different kettle of fish.