The Basis of a Training Program and Lessons Learned

[GDI]

I was asked by a student what it is that forms the basis of my training techniques. My answer to this is really quite simple: I train people based upon the following guidelines.

First I use the training techniques and current standards that were used on me during my various levels of diver training;

Secondly I use the lessons learned from doing an analysis of diving incidents and accidents, trying to understand what may or did go wrong;

Thirdly I use examples from my own diving experience. Again this is sort of a lessons learned but can be classified into potential things that can go wrong, usually with some humour applied into it. And;

Forthly as determined by others it appears I must possess a warped sense of apropos malevolence.

So just for fun and as a learning tool, I thought I would pull out of my experience banks a dive which we as a diving community can look at and see what lessons could be learned.

The day was sunny temperatures at 75 F for the air and river water at a comfortable 55 F. The dive plan was to descend and perform a move of a anchoring block, a 45 gallon drum full of concrete with a anchoring eyelet set into it. The depth of the drum was at 45 ffw. The drum was prelocated and marked. Water visability was less then five foot starting and somewhat tannic. Dive flags were deployed and markers for the working area set out to keep boat traffic clear of the site. The site was a marina and used for small watercraft. The lift bag of correct size was pre-rigged at the surface including it's own air supply fill bottle. Bottom composition was a mucky silt of a few feet thick. To assit in the move a small barge with a crane was placed over the area. The intent was to use the crane to lift the drum free of the muck and position the drum assisted by the lift bag so as to anchor a docking section. The divers were equipped with the new Al 80 cylinders except me I had a steel 72 (this dive was back in May 1977), a horse coller style BCD, appropriate weight, 2 piece 5mm beavertail wetsuit, hood, 3 finger mitts, mask, fins and a double hose reg, a harness belt with rigging tools, lights. Dives were made of two man teams. There was surface support

Concept of Ops: The divers were to secure the crane to the drum and attach the lift bag without inflating it and then exit the water for the crane to pull the drum free, make a repetitive dive unto the drum and inflate the lift bag only so much as to permit ease of movement to the anchor position then lower the drum into the silt bed.

The events of the day: The first dive to secure the drum to the crane went without a problem. Upon exiting the water ,the crane lifted the drum free from the silt. The drum was suspended by the crane in the water. the crane barge was troublesome to move (this was actually the second dive as the drums were already located by previous dives)

The third dive was made following the crane cable down to the drum. The lift bag was inflated until the drum was neutrally bouyant. On the crane's cable there was a bell attached to a rope to be used as a signalling device to the surface. The signal was given to the crane operator to let out some cable. The drum continued to hover as the cable was payed out. The viz was reduced to less then a foot but the drum was managed to be placed where it was wanted and the lift bag was deflated and the drum lowered into position.

During the disconnect of the crane and lift bag rigging, the viz was further reduced.
In making this disconnect I found that I had managed to pull myself into the mucky silt. I remember thinking "NO problem", I just went about my business and completed the task at hand. The crane was disconnected and so was the lifting bag. I reconnected a marker float for the dock section to be connected on a later dive.

Now I needed to exit the water EXCEPT I was mired into the muck waist deep. The crane cable was still suspended by me. I reached back to notify my team mate whom I now realized was not there and I was alone. Pushing on the drum and pulling on the crane cable I was able to free myself with all my equipment intact. I remember I purposely moved slow in doing this so as not to waste my air or lose equipment and I never let go of the crane cable, it had the bell. Now after a few minutes I was free of the mud I made my way back to the surface covered in silt. My dive team member, Jim M. was already on the surface and out of his wetsuit.

Jim departed the bottom because he was running low of air. He failed to communicate this to me and just departed. Jim had been on the surface already at least 15 minutes. I was alone down there waist deep in mud in the dark water 45 ft from the surface.

Now what lessons can we learn from this example?

Lets as a dive community critique it and learn from it. I can tell you I learned many things from those dives made in my early days of diving.

If you have any lessons from your diving past, share them and lets take a look at them as well so that we can all learn to be better prepared as divers.


So today when a student or someone asks why I train people the way I do I respond because of worst case scenario.

 

[TSandM]

Well, my reaction to reading this is that you were in a situation which could have been disastrous, but was completely remediable by several methods, almost all of which depended on the presence of a functional buddy. That buddy could either have aided in extricating you, or served as an intermediary to communicate your predicament to the crane -- You indicated you were near the cable, and I imagine it could have helped to pull you out of the sediment if that were necessary, and IF they had known.

Your buddy should have been watching his gas, and signaled you when he was approaching the point where he needed to leave, so that you could ready yourself for the exit.

The second lesson I see was one you state, but rather subtly, which is that you remained calm and worked to extricate yourself, and were successful. Becoming frightened or frantic in the face of being mired might have landed you in the same position as your buddy, low on air and increasing stressed by that as well as the visibility and the sediment. Staying calm got you out of the situation. So many things underwater can be solved if one remains calm and continues to think.

I'll contribute one that I've actually posted before: We were diving on a wreck, a team of three experienced divers, and a team of two novices. The three splashed first, and were requested by the captain to assess the position of the anchor, and make sure it was free of the wreckage so that it could be pulled up later. We descended and left the anchor in place as the second team was coming down, although it was in the wreckage and would have to be moved later. When we came back to the anchor, we moved it. It was heavy, and Peter used the lift of his wing to get it free of the wreck. It was moved to open sand, and the novice team later were unable to find it and had to do a free ascent under a bag.

Several lessons in this one, too.

 

[bfw]

While there are many possible approaches to having prevented the circumstances you described, and we could debate them forever, the one central fact responsible for yournot having "run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile" is that, when you found yourself in a potentially dangerous situation, you did not panic. You kept your wits and calmly solved the problem. Accident analysis looks at a number of factors, but almost always, panic is the missing link between a problem and a tragedy.

I think the situation shows that your fourth basis is mischaracterized. What you see as malevolence is actually a very valid consideration that I consider an important basis of training. Training, when it confers a credential that grants some sort of access, has a function of both imparting knowledge and skill AND filtering for personal characteristics that are incompatible with the activity in question, then either deny credentials or work to change the attribute.. It's perfectly appropriate for a training program to stress students and probe for an unacceptably low panic threshhold, and there's nothing malevolent about it - in fact, it's the height of kindness.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

You picked the wrong buddy, you failed to monitor your buddy's air supply, you did not have in place a viable emergency plan (as evidence by the fact that your buddy ascends solo and nobody goes down after more than 5 minutes to see what's up with you).

As for the crane operation, I really don't understand exactly what was going on, but I would not want to be in the water (in bad vis) when anything heavy is being moved by a crane operator who can't see or communicate with the diver.

You also didn't state that you had any redundant air supply for a working dive where the muck and entanglement hazard would seem to warrant it.

I'm not sure exactly how you got stuck in the muck, but that is a very dangerous situation. I myself was (solo) golf ball diving and got stuck waist deep in muck with my head only 2-3 feet below the surface. It took me a good 5 minutes to somehow extricate myself from the suction, but I could tell that it required nearly 100% of my physical capability to accomplish the extraction. It was scary and I knew that if my scuba unit somehow failed, that is exactly where my body would be found. I HATE putting myself in situations where I am betting my life on a single piece of equipment underwater.

I'm not so sure what kind of lessons this dive would provide to a recreational scuba diver other than don't do commercial dive work unless you are trained for it.

 

[GDI]

bfw and Lynn you are correct in siting the importance of remaining calm. That day made me realize the significance of that fact during this dive. My first ever dive had already taught me this. My first ever dive was through a hole in the ice and only a few feet down and a minute into the dive I had a free flow. Standards were much different back then. Here I credit my instructors Paul Dumas, Al Wilson and Al Shamus. I was the only teenager in my class and they rode my butt every chance they got. Paul years later told me he saw something in me and for me to be a good diver and enjoy the sport I needed to be challenged, and he was correct. We did many dives together following my basic class I learned alot. I laugh as I think if I knew then what I know now. The knowledge available today is much more then what was used to make dives back in the mid '70's, the pioneers learned hard lessons.

Other lessons learned here were the importance of "self reliance" in that in the end until you have a situation where your buddy may become relied upon you have no idea how they will react in a stressful scenario, training can only accomondate for so much. Poorly practised diving skills are no better then not having the skill and the importance to think with a clear head, that is staying calm, cannot be overstressed.

Bfw you referred to several ways of handling this situation, that is very true. If we look at the environment and the equipment used for the environment and task at hand one can see that my air supply was not as limited as may appear. I had the availability of the cylinder rigged to the lift bag for extra air, I had the lift bag for extra lift and pulling power, the crane cable was there and so was the bell cord. I could have dropped tools to lessen the load. I thought of the muck as a platform of which stablized me for the derigging so I thought no problem, what I never did think of was the after effects of that situation, that being being mired waist deep in mud

From here I learned to "anticipate the changes in situations" and better focus on "situational awareness" in diving. I also learned that it is best to know the status and location of diving equipment. Communication and the importance of it especially when doing specific functions during the conduct of a dive. These are things many divers never think about as they just blindly jump into the water breath down their air and safely return to surface, complacency runs rampant during a dive.
Today I can tell you I have much more to learn and feel that at the level I am diving I have only just began to learn

Lynn your situation is also interesting. Here I see communication between to teams as a problem. Had the second team and the first team acknowledged the anchor then the ascent may have been easier. A similar sort of mis-communication a few years ago cost some cave divers their life. It doesn't take much. Another point you mentioned is that Peter used the lift of his BCD to assit in moving the anchor, think of how fast he would have needed to respond should he ahve dropped the anchor with a full BCD, Was there another way excluding a lift bag that he could have moved it? A safety marker sausage has more lift then some think if Peter had one that may have been a possibility(?).

Guys thanks for sharing I hope others share as well. I have lots of "LEARNING DIVES" I can share.