Uncontrolled ascent

[RJP]

So much for the "safety" of the buddy system.

Were you somehow under the impression that a buddy is some magical, universal safety guarantee prior to reading this thread?

---------- Post added June 11th, 2015 at 07:32 AM ----------

Why do you consider that the left arm immobilized will stop you from venting your suit or your BCD? I vent my left shoulder DS valve with my right hand and use my right hand more than my left to vent my BCD. Not that I want someone locking up one of my arms.

You shouldn't need EITHER hand to vent a DS... but the point is that with your left arm immobilized it's much harder to get the valve oriented properly to vent, whether you can reach it with a hand or not.

 

[Steve_C]

Thanks for the post

With my BCD I can vent with either hand. Simplest is to just tug on the regulator.

Depending on the dry suit, water temp, and orientation, there is some times the option of burping to quickly dump a greater volume of air.

Put more line on your reel/spool. Gives the option of shooting smb from depth rather than in mid column while controlilng other things. [realize this is controversial]

 

[Malpaso]

I'm going to look at this from a different direction. In Rescue Diver class, one of the focal points is distancing yourself from a panicked diver, so that there are not two divers in distress. While your buddy was not in a "panic", the situation for you was the same. You, in effect, became a second victim. I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but a Rescue class may have given you a way out. You probably would not have been able to vent your buddy, but you would not have been pulled to the surface either.

The ideal in a rescue situation is to control the person in distress without putting yourself in the same situation. The best possible outcome is to control them, preferably by the tank valve, so that they can not control you but you can control them. At that point you have the ability to work their gear, whether it is inflating, deflating dropping weight, etc.

 

[kelemvor]

Thanks for the post

With my BCD I can vent with either hand. Simplest is to just tug on the regulator.

Depending on the dry suit, water temp, and orientation, there is some times the option of burping to quickly dump a greater volume of air.

Put more line on your reel/spool. Gives the option of shooting smb from depth rather than in mid column while controlilng other things. [realize this is controversial]

Not all bcd/wing have a pull dump. It's something I gave up when switching to sidemount and it's a real bummer. Pull and butt were my goto dumps. I miss it in sidemount .

---------- Post added June 11th, 2015 at 02:37 PM ----------

Why do you consider that the left arm immobilized will stop you from venting your suit or your BCD? I vent my left shoulder DS valve with my right hand and use my right hand more than my left to vent my BCD. Not that I want someone locking up one of my arms.

OP said they were diving wet and the buddy was diving dry. OP had a problem dumping BCD (not DS) quickly with left hand incapacitated.

 

[hilljo88]

Thanks for posting. My 2 cents: you dont say how long your dive was, but at 30 m max depth, and with a rapid ascent you most likely were not too far from being in trouble. You may have dodged a bullet there. Floaty feet is very common in dry suit diving and kind of scary that someone would go to 30 m not knowing how to prevent or deal with it. Lastly, I would have thought you might have let go of your camera, SMB or buddy in some order. Unless you thought you could take them all in the chamber with you! I know its easy to see alternatives in retrospect, and harder to do so in the heat of the moment. Again, thanks for posting.

 

[Steyr]

Well it seems I learned something from the experience.
Diving with a different person today - a friend of a friend, but someone I've never dived with before. While gearing up he told me he had just bought a dry suit and was trying it today (30m/100ft wall dive). I asked if he had done some pool or shore dives in it first and he said two short dives to give it a go. Uh oh! So I discussed various potential problems with him and we planned for what to do if they happened. I decided to leave my camera on the boat and he followed my example. The descent and bottom time was uneventful, but sure enough once we started the ascent he had trouble maintaining a slow ascent rate. But this time I was expecting it and watching for it. When I became concerned that he was feet up and unable to correct it himself, I grabbed him, pulled his legs down and stopped our ascent. Once correct buoyancy was established and we both signaled "ok", I launched the SMB and he stuck right with me in a head up position as I slowly wound up the reel, completed a safety stop and surfaced safely. Much better than last time I encountered this problem!

 

[rivers]

Well it seems I learned something from the experience.
Diving with a different person today - a friend of a friend, but someone I've never dived with before. While gearing up he told me he had just bought a dry suit and was trying it today (30m/100ft wall dive). I asked if he had done some pool or shore dives in it first and he said two short dives to give it a go. Uh oh! So I discussed various potential problems with him and we planned for what to do if they happened. I decided to leave my camera on the boat and he followed my example. The descent and bottom time was uneventful, but sure enough once we started the ascent he had trouble maintaining a slow ascent rate. But this time I was expecting it and watching for it. When I became concerned that he was feet up and unable to correct it himself, I grabbed him, pulled his legs down and stopped our ascent. Once correct buoyancy was established and we both signaled "ok", I launched the SMB and he stuck right with me in a head up position as I slowly wound up the reel, completed a safety stop and surfaced safely. Much better than last time I encountered this problem!

personally, i wouldn't have dived with him. I would have called the dive on the boat, or asked another buddy pair if i could team up with them.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

All I can say is, this is why they have good drysuit classes. Some are more thorough than others, get the best one you can find.
The solution is for the person wearing the drysuit to recognize and deal with the problem, not the buddy.
Roll into a ball and get your feet under you, if the bubble has expanded beyond normal venting parameters then pull the neck seal.
That's pretty hard to do clutching onto your buddy for dear life.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I'm rather disappointed in myself after this experience, but thought I would post to help others not make the same mistakes (plural).

I was diving off a boat with a regular buddy, down to 30m. Me in a 7mm wettie (11c/52f water - I was the only person on the boat without a dry suit, haha) with an i3 BCD (inflater lever near my left hip, rather than the standard inflator hose over the shoulder) and carrying a bulky camera; her in a brand new dry suit purchased the night before. She had dived in a different model of dry suit on several occasions before and did jump in the water at the pier for a weight check before boarding the boat.

The descent and bottom time was uneventful. On ascent I indicated for her to shoot the SMB as I had my hands full with the camera (I can let the camera hang to launch an SMB myself). She started unrolling the sausage at 24m, so I indicated for her to stop until we reached at least 15m (only 15m of line on the spool). We ascended at a normal rate... 20m... 17m... 14m. I dumped some air to get neutrally buoyant. Then my buddy seemed to be shoving the SMB at me and grabbing my arm. After a bit of confused "WTF" on my side I let my camera hang and took the SMB while she clutched my left arm. I fiddled with the SMB for a bit. 12m. Realising we're still ascending I tried to dump some air, but my buddy was clinging to my left arm which is the arm I use for my inflator. With my right hand I reached for the dump cord, but with the SMB reel in that hand it was difficult to find and grasp the cord. 7m. With my right hand I reached across and pressed my deflator lever (thankfully a lever is easier to push with your hands full than a button on a regular inflator hose). But it was all a bit too late, and suddenly we're at the surface!

What had happened? My buddy had got air trapped in the legs of her dry suit and couldn't dump it. She was not practiced at maneuvers to get her feet back down. The previous dry suit she had used fitted more tightly around her calves to prevent air trapping there, so she had never experienced this problem before. As we started ascending, the air expanded and kept increasing our rate of ascent. At around the 14m mark she became a passenger, unable to stop her own ascent and clutching on to me. I failed to realise what was going on. With average visibility, in midwater I could not tell we were ascending except by looking at my computer (coincidentally on the same arm that by buddy was holding). With the additional task loading of trying to inflate the SMB while juggling my camera I was not monitoring my computer frequently enough. Once I realised we were ascending I struggled to get access to my dump valves, and by the time I did we had already ascended to the point of no return.

In the end our ascent wasn't all that quick. With me as extra drag, only the last 5m of our ascent edged just slightly over PADI's stated maximum ascent rate (though it's the last 5m that matters the most). We missed our safety stop of course, but it was just a safety stop, not mandatory deco. Back on the boat they pulled out the oxygen as a precaution, but I don't think it was actually needed.

What could I have done better?
1. Before even getting in the water I should have been more conscious of any problems my buddy might face, discuss them and any planned solutions. Not being a dry suit user myself, I wasn't thinking about her buoyancy management.
2. I must monitor depth constantly during ascent. Normally I stay slightly negative and gently fin to ascend slowly (or just wind up an SMB reel). This was the first time that stopping finning didn't stop my ascent.
3. I should have been more aware of what her problem was, rather than fixating on the SMB that she handed off to me. If I had realised her problem I may have been able to pull her feet back down and solve our issues in an instant.
4. When struggling to dump air I could have flared myself out more or even inverted and finned downwards.

I know some people may also say I should have broken free and let her ascend alone rather than risking us both ascending too quickly. Honestly, that's a personal choice. Sticking with her risks us both, but it also slows her ascent and could save her from DCS.

I welcome any other constructive comments people may have on how to better handle such a situation. It galls me that I had a rare opportunity to help get my buddy out of a tricky situation and I blew it.

I think 3 and 4 are especially applicable. You became distracted by the SMB, and lost concentration with respect to what was happening with buddy. I also think you could/shoud have tried to flare out -lay on your back- once the ascent was unavoidable.

However, when your buddy looses control of themselves, it may not always be withing your ability to provide meaningful help. It sounds to me like you did 98% of what you should have done - and next time, you will be more aware. Your profile says you have just 50-90 dives.

I think the most important and generally applicable lesson from the problem, is that it is so, very easy to concentrate on the wrong thing during a dive and without perfect situational awareness, problems can get out of hand very quickly. Nobody has perfect awareness, but we all have to be reminded that ascents can be challenging and we can all use the reminder that paying attention to "issue B" when we should be looking at "issue A" can get us in trouble. The problem is sometimes we can't distinguish A from B, until an error is already made.

 

[danvolker]

I'm rather disappointed in myself after this experience, but thought I would post to help others not make the same mistakes (plural).

I was diving off a boat with a regular buddy, down to 30m. Me in a 7mm wettie (11c/52f water - I was the only person on the boat without a dry suit, haha) with an i3 BCD (inflater lever near my left hip, rather than the standard inflator hose over the shoulder) and carrying a bulky camera; her in a brand new dry suit purchased the night before. She had dived in a different model of dry suit on several occasions before and did jump in the water at the pier for a weight check before boarding the boat.

The descent and bottom time was uneventful. On ascent I indicated for her to shoot the SMB as I had my hands full with the camera (I can let the camera hang to launch an SMB myself). She started unrolling the sausage at 24m, so I indicated for her to stop until we reached at least 15m (only 15m of line on the spool). We ascended at a normal rate... 20m... 17m... 14m. I dumped some air to get neutrally buoyant. Then my buddy seemed to be shoving the SMB at me and grabbing my arm. After a bit of confused "WTF" on my side I let my camera hang and took the SMB while she clutched my left arm. I fiddled with the SMB for a bit. 12m. Realising we're still ascending I tried to dump some air, but my buddy was clinging to my left arm which is the arm I use for my inflator. With my right hand I reached for the dump cord, but with the SMB reel in that hand it was difficult to find and grasp the cord. 7m. With my right hand I reached across and pressed my deflator lever (thankfully a lever is easier to push with your hands full than a button on a regular inflator hose). But it was all a bit too late, and suddenly we're at the surface!

What had happened? My buddy had got air trapped in the legs of her dry suit and couldn't dump it. She was not practiced at maneuvers to get her feet back down. The previous dry suit she had used fitted more tightly around her calves to prevent air trapping there, so she had never experienced this problem before. As we started ascending, the air expanded and kept increasing our rate of ascent. At around the 14m mark she became a passenger, unable to stop her own ascent and clutching on to me. I failed to realise what was going on. With average visibility, in midwater I could not tell we were ascending except by looking at my computer (coincidentally on the same arm that by buddy was holding). With the additional task loading of trying to inflate the SMB while juggling my camera I was not monitoring my computer frequently enough. Once I realised we were ascending I struggled to get access to my dump valves, and by the time I did we had already ascended to the point of no return.

In the end our ascent wasn't all that quick. With me as extra drag, only the last 5m of our ascent edged just slightly over PADI's stated maximum ascent rate (though it's the last 5m that matters the most). We missed our safety stop of course, but it was just a safety stop, not mandatory deco. Back on the boat they pulled out the oxygen as a precaution, but I don't think it was actually needed.

What could I have done better?
1. Before even getting in the water I should have been more conscious of any problems my buddy might face, discuss them and any planned solutions. Not being a dry suit user myself, I wasn't thinking about her buoyancy management.
2. I must monitor depth constantly during ascent. Normally I stay slightly negative and gently fin to ascend slowly (or just wind up an SMB reel). This was the first time that stopping finning didn't stop my ascent.
3. I should have been more aware of what her problem was, rather than fixating on the SMB that she handed off to me. If I had realised her problem I may have been able to pull her feet back down and solve our issues in an instant.
4. When struggling to dump air I could have flared myself out more or even inverted and finned downwards.

I know some people may also say I should have broken free and let her ascend alone rather than risking us both ascending too quickly. Honestly, that's a personal choice. Sticking with her risks us both, but it also slows her ascent and could save her from DCS.

I welcome any other constructive comments people may have on how to better handle such a situation. It galls me that I had a rare opportunity to help get my buddy out of a tricky situation and I blew it.

First of all, for a recreational dive, unless there is a boat running overhead, there is no IMMEDIATE danger from even a really rapid ascent from 60 or 100 feet --due to a drysuit or stuck BC inflator...as long as you fix the buoyancy issue, you can go immediately right back down to the depth you were at prior to the upward rocketing....and begin a slow ascent and safety stop/deco stop at 20 feet and or 10 feet.

It takes around 2 minutes for your blood to supersaturate with nitrogen, assuming you are very saturated at depth, prior to the sudden ascent. This leaves lots of time for a quick re-descent should something like this happen.

Sure you have to exhale on the fast ascent, but it is among the easiest of all skills....you have been breathing your whole life, and you should have exhaling nailed by now


I do believe that everyone should have good buoyancy skills, and that you should not have a polaris missile episode...BUT....it is not nearly the end of the world most divers think it is....