Team question

[dumpsterDiver]

How do you form a unified team if one member can't (for what ever reason) simply descend down a vertical line? Wasn't this discussed in the pre-dive?

If I was going down 100 feet on a line, I would want everyone to establish physical contact with it before, or immediately after, the descent was started. I think i would halt the descent immediately if I saw a guy leave the descent line. To me, that would be a very bad sign, usually when people are having difficulties, the line is a significant psychological crutch and it provides a place to rest and mitigates all but the very worst bouyancy problems.

I don't know what the DIR answer is, but if I was in a team of three and we said we were going to stay together and one guy started drifting off a "descent" line, I would signal to swim to the line. If he failed to immediately do that and actively swim back to the line, I think I would just grab his hand and swim him horizontally the 15 feet or so to the line and put the line back in his hands. That is assuming the current would allow it and the visibility is limited.

But after that, I would be kinda nervous about continuing the descent. It is hard for me to imagine relying on a team staying together on the bottom when one guy can't follow a line down.

Is it DIR, to grab people and pull them around in the water if they seem to be messing up?

 

[do it easy]

I had a chance to dive with some really great guys while I was up in Puget Sound last week. We were diving on a barge at about 100' just near the Lake Washington Locks. I got in the water as a team of three divers. One had a lot more experience as I did, and could probably be considered as DIR. The other diver was a little less experienced than I was, but hadn't been diving in the sound in a while (I'm still not exactly sure how long), so might have been a little rusty with his drysuit.

Anyway, we started out our descent, and the more experienced diver was right on the shot line, doing a more or less text book descent. I was a little task loaded with the descent (deflate, equalize, unclip light, inflate, kick towards shot line, inflate Drysuit, equalize, etc.). The third diver was not as close to the line as we started descending, and I believed he would start to swim closer to the line as we got deeper, but he started getting farther away from the line. I swam next to him and signalled him to swim toward the line, but I'm not sure he understood, and continued dropping straight down. At this point, both divers are at the edge of my visibility, and I could no longer stay within sight of both divers (I'm sure they couldn't see each other at this point.) What do you do here?

Tom

I would stay with the third diver who is off the line. A compass heading towards the line and pointing my light towards the first diver would be helpful. If the third diver is OK and just out of position, I would regroup at the base of the shot line.

Also, consider that the first diver on the line might actually be able to see the other two divers because 1) you have lights and 2) he probably isn't as task loaded and can concentrate- in other words, you see more when you slow down.

If I am leading a dive like this, I like to stop around 40'-50' to make sure everyone is OK and neutral, although it's more like a rolling stop. On deeper dives, we do a bubble check at 100' so that forces us to be in position and looking at each other.

It's probably not DIR, but I wouldn't thumb the dive just because the divers got separated. If we didn't reconnect at the shot line after a minute, then there would be at least two divers going to the surface. I'm assuming that thumbing the dive before that won't have any affect on the first diver since he is out of sight already.

 

[nadwidny]

Is it DIR, to grab people and pull them around in the water if they seem to be messing up?

I always found light communication enough to get DIR people back on track if things appeared to be going south.

 

[TSandM]

Brian, that depends on the skill of the divers and the degree to which their situational awareness is trained.

I agree that the best solution to a descent that's coming apart is to ascend and start over. My orginal answer was addressing what you do when you're trying to get that accomplished, or trying to keep the separation from getting severe enough to require an abort.

 

[b1gcountry]

If I wasn't clear in my dsecription, I had used light and hand signals to signal the third buddy. I gave him the "level off" and "this way" signals with my lighthead, then I gave the "stop" signal with my hands, with the "swim" (two fingers kicking), and "this way" (emphatic pointing) commands. I started swimming that way myself, and gave the "Come along" signal. The only signal he gave me was an "okay". He was not unresponsive, and he was not panicking, but he wasn't doing what I wanted either. I highly doubt that he would have responded to me thumbing the dive, but I don't think that would have been a good idea to do an unreferenced ascent with someone who was having problems with their descent. If I was going to give thumbs, I would have preferred to wait until we had hit bottom, and shot a bag to ascend along.

I didn't state it earlier, but this was not a DIR dive. I am not DIR trained. The third diver was not DIR trained, although the first one was. This was my first time diving with the third diver. He said he was very experienced, but I believe (now) that most of his experience came from Hawaii, and hadn't been diving in Seattle in several months ("descending along the line" can have a different meaning in the tropics). When we descended, we agreed to descend along the line, but not to hold onto it since it was a shot line, and we didn't want to pull it off the wreck.

I think BQ, and DD probably have the right suggestion about grabbing their arm, and physically swimming them back to the line. Never really thought about doing that. What would you say the best way, to grab their right upper arm with your left so they can still use their inflater with their left?

Tom

 

[Data]

I wouldn't grab somebodies arm and pull them to a line.
That could really put him over the edge and panic could set in.
Your team broke apart before it ever entered the water.
You didn't have a clear plan to descent.
I wouldn't call the diver below you the most experienced one, he took off and never turned around or waited for you, he was the one who got separated from the team.
You should thumb the dive and discus the procedures on the surface. If you're lucky, the third diver knows the procedures for being separated from the team and now being on his own and start an ascent on the line to meet you on the surface.
If the first diver feels fine, you continue your dive with a now clearly discussed descent and everything should be fine from there on.
Descents are in my opinion one of the most important and underrated parts of any tech dive and it's a good idea to practice them during reg dives too.
My team and I have come up with the following procedures.
If we need to dive bomb, get a visual of your team members at 10', and keep descending. If you can't see one of your team members at any time during the descent you thumb the dive and meet back at the surface, this is the same procedure as missing the wreck.
On scooters or a line, we meet at 20', establish neutral buoyancy, do a bubble check and give the ok signal and then descent together, if anyone has any problem, the whole team stops and sorts out the problem.

 

[b1gcountry]

Your team broke apart before it ever entered the water.
You didn't have a clear plan to descent.

Sorry, but I won't buy that.

Tom

 

[TSandM]

No, you don't want to grab somebody and pull them. But taking their upper arm and giving it a couple of strong pushes in the direction you want them to go might get the idea across when nothing else is working. I also agree that hanging onto somebody could absolutely freak them out. I had a weird experience on a dive a long time ago, where my buddy and I did a free ascent from about 50 feet, and as we were going up, he grabbed my left arm and pushed down on it. That put my dry suit dump valve down, so I couldn't vent my suit, and made it very difficult for me to reach anything to vent the wing, either. I can't remember why he said he had done it, when we surfaced, but it was something about helping my stability, which it didn't. I don't panic easily, but it was very stressful trying to cope with that hampering me.

One question from your last post, b1gcountry -- Did you go over the meaning of the light signals with your buddies before the dive? Because if these weren't trained folk, they might not have understood them. I'm not sure what a "level off" light signal is, myself, and our "this way" signal I've learned is far from universally used.

 

[b1gcountry]

No, that was also one of our mistakes. The one diver was definitely trained to use lights, every time I changed hands with my light he stopped immediately and put his eyes on me to make sure I was okay. I was also trained with lights.

The third diver had a can light, so I think I just assumed he could use it. There are certain skills I simply assume all divers, let alone experienced ones, will know. Light signals fall into this category, but I'm re-thinking that.

The "Level off" signal I gave was with my left hand, while illuminating it with my lighthead, so I misspoke when I said it was WITH my lighthead.

Tom

 

[David C R]

Your team broke apart before it ever entered the water.
You didn't have a clear plan to descent.

I agree with this, a DIR team concept doesn't starts on a descent, starts on the surface making a predive plan, including, descents, gas management, exposure, thumb rules, hand and light signals, equipment match, etc.

If you did it maybe the other two divers never pay attention, id they did so, it's just to keep reminding after every dive what went wrong, and refining trough practice, cause a real team concept takes more time than the most divers thought