We are our brother's keeper...

[DeepSeaDan]

I am pondering this day how many of the good divers who frequent this board have had occassion ( or two, or three... ) to react to a possible "problem-in-the-making" while diving. More specifically, have you ever reacted to a situation you've observed u/w where a diver ( not your buddy ) appeared to be having problems & seem to be heading for trouble? If you have, I'd be interested to hear the story.

I recall an incident where myself & two other divers were decending a shot line on the way to explore a wreck which sat in about 100' of water in the St. Lawrence River. About 30' from bottom I signalled my partners to halt the decent, & pointed to a pair of divers off the stern of the wreck. What we saw was one diver heading steadily upward & angling toward the shot line; the other diver was holding his inflator above his head ( no air was issuing forth ), & was steadily sinking to the bottom, though he was finning steadily. Significant exhaust bubbles bursting forth from his 2nd stage suggested to me this diver's breathing rate was likely getting out of control. All this time, his buddy remained oblivious to these events & continued to make his way to the shot line.

I signalled to my buddies to intercept the ascending buddy & I would make haste for the sinking diver. I left the shot line & made my way quickly to the sinking diver who was now just a few feet off bottom & beginning to churn the bottom sediment.

Coming around him on his left side & keeping about 5' of distance between us. I signaled "O.K.?" & got a quick shake of his head in response. His eyes were wide & staring. I cautiously approached this diver, my left hand angling for his bcd strap, my right hand up & signaling a calming motion. As I grasped his bcd strap, I felt him almost slump in my grip, & his legs ceased their churning. I quickly added air to his bcd & got him stabilized. His breathing rate started to drop noticeably & his eyes narrowed & seem to re-focus. I quickly scanned his kit & looked at his computer & pressure gauge. He had sufficient air in his cylinder for a safe ascent & his dive time was well within the limits for his max depth. His fatigue seemed almost palpable as I turned him towards the shot line & located my buddies. They had retrieved the ascending buddy & were holding depth on the shot line, observing my actions. I signalled my new friend that we were going to ascend to the shot line; he gave a limp affirmative response but seemed to regain some strength as we made our way up to the others. At the line, my new friend seemed to have regained his composure, so I signalled both divers to ascend slowly up the line , maintaining contact with the line & each other. They slowly made their way up & we watched them until they joined several other divers completing their 15' safety stop. We then proceeded to complete our planned dive.

Back on board our charter, I had a chance to speak with the divers we had assisted. They were part of another charter, and were only recently certified as advanced divers. The young lad I assisted was but 22, & freely admitted that he'd been nervous about making the dive, but hadn't told anyone. They had made one quick tour of the wreck after which he decided he wanted to ascend. He admitted to feeling a bit panicy at that time, got confused with the operation of his inflator, & had pressed the exhaust button instead. Before he new it, he was sinking & his buddy was not with him. He couldn't understand why he was sinking & the panic really began to well up inside him. He thanked us for our intervention & promised he'd work on his skills in shallower water before once again moving deeper. His buddy promised to pay closer attention to proper buddy diving procedures on future dives.

As an aging Firefighter / Medic, I know one thing for certain - when it comes to saving life, proactive beats reactive every time. Better to nip things in the bud than try to repair the damage post-event.

I look foreward to your stories...

Regards,
DSD

 

[Kevrumbo]

My Divemaster/Guide on a Raja Ampat divesite had his yoke tank valve O-ring fail at 12m early in the dive. I donated my 7' long hose, shut down his tank-valve, presented my SPG (like you're always supposed to do during a S-Drill ) with 180bar showing --and both of us deciding to continue the dive sharing air at 12m on what was a gorgeous reef. 20min later, we were back in the vicinity of the liveaboard and surfaced together with no buoyancy issues, after doing the requisite safety stop at 6m.

If it was a novice diver instead though like above . . .I would've aborted the dive and began the ascent to the safety stop as soon as he was calm and with his own or assisted control of buoyancy. . .

 

[shoredivr]

Buddied up with an insta-buddy for an underwater pumpkin carving competition. Finished my pumpkin at the platform in 20 ft, watched the other diver work on hers. Noticed the diver had increasing amounts of water in her mask and was getting agitated. She kept trying to clear it and it kept filling up. She started up to the surface without signalling.

I went up with her. At the surface she was near panic and swimming to keep afloat. I reminded her to inflate her BC so she didn't have to work so hard. It turned out she had a bit of her hood under the mask skirt, preventing a good seal. It was also the first time she'd dived in cold water and with a hood, and she hadn't got the hood completely over the mask. Once she'd got this figured out and calmed down, she was ok to continue the dive.

Not really a big story, one with a happy ending and two carved pumpkins, but one that made me think about enrolling in a rescue diver course.

Moral: ask instabuddies if they've dived in the conditions you're diving in now before the dive.

*I think that some instabuddies can fall into the "non-buddy" category*

 

[fisheater]

Well done.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

I have had more than my share of fixing potentially large problems. If we are all aware and realize that we are, in fact, our brother's keepers, things would be very simple. Good job to all of you who are alert, aware, problem-solving divers. Any diver in the area can have problems and often, a little help is all they need to keep the dive a good safe dive and not a tragedy.

One other thing, I always tell others to be proactive and anticipate instead of react.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

1. Deepwater save: In 1977, diving off of the Kona coast, in the pre-BC days. In a scenario slightly similar to DeepSeaDan's, a diver had combined overweighting, inadequate fins (Churchill bodysurfing fins!), narcosis and lack of experience that resulted in him slowly sinking deeper and deeper despite finning upward. I reached him at 80', realized he was not going to make it up under his own power, so I grabbed his harness with both hands and swam us both up... at around 40' his wetsuit had regained enough bouyancy that he could get to the surface on his own. I was 19 at the time, and had been diving for about a year.

2. Surface save: Same year, a few months later. Less dramatic, but ended up towing a fatigued diver (not my buddy) in to shore because she had over-exerted herself on the surface. She was in no real danger, but believed she was in trouble and was near-panic when I reached her. I got her reg back in her mouth, blew some air into her safety vest for her, got her calmed down, and then towed her into shore on her back.


3. No other true "saves", but lot's of tiny problems corrected early.

I do believe we are our brother's keepers, and I have had great buddies and mentors that helped me along the way, and kept me from making serious mistakes by pointing out small problems when they saw them.

Good topic.


Best wishes.

 

[Lonefox]

Not had anything major, did watch a buddy pair release an SMB, one held the reel, and the other, pre-occupied with the SMB began to rise above his buddy. Quite quickly, line began to wrap around tank stem, and legs were looking dangerously close to becoming tied also, I finned over, unhitched line from tank stem, pulling the slack away from diver while he got his buoyancy under control. Given it was a first practice SMB lauch, and as a result was in 9 metres of water, it was a relatively controlled environment. Though the entranglement started to unfold in front of me quite quickly, and I could see how a lack of reaction on my part could have allowed things to quickly result in a potentially serious situation, every move the diver made to extract himself adding a new tangle. Interesting educational experience, but not worthy enough to put my underpants on over my wetsuit just yet.

 

[MartianBeerPig]

Only one small incident for me in Malaysia. Similar to DeepSeaDan though not so dramatic.

I was already at about 20m and halfway through the planned dive. A large group of newbies had just descended. There would have been about fifteen of them and I don't think a single one of them was weighted properly. Some were up; some were down; they were all fiddling and fussing about with their gear. It was quite a schmozzle. One girl in particular was having trouble with her bouyancy. She was holding her BCD inflator hose but kept sinking 'til she hit the coral. She'd then fin up off the reef only to descend a moment later. So I swam over and showed her the correct button to press and she was okay after that. Fortunately, she hadn't cut herself but she did a little damage to the reef.

The big sin in all this was on the part of the dive outfit that took them out. They're notorious in the are for taking on large groups of newbies without adequate supervision. There were only two experienced divers in the group and the rest had probably only just got their OW. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Unfortunately the local attitude is 'tidak apa' (doesn't matter). Sort of like mañana but without the same sense of urgency.

 

[scubadude79]

Buddied up with an insta-buddy for an underwater pumpkin carving competition. Finished my pumpkin at the platform in 20 ft, watched the other diver work on hers. Noticed the diver had increasing amounts of water in her mask and was getting agitated. She kept trying to clear it and it kept filling up. She started up to the surface without signalling.

Underwater Pumpkin contest, sounds like a GREAT idea for my Local Club. I had the same issue with my hood the first time. It is especially hard when it is a new hood and hasn't really had a work out yet.

 

[divin'dog]

Nothing too serious or major.

1) I had towed a tired diver back to shore. We dove our plan (3 of us) in an area I was well familiar (~20 dives). We usually swim way out then dive our way back. We came up just a little short and probably had a 1/4 mile swim to shore in a current that had picked up. One of the buddies was huffin' and puffin' and had that look of "I don't think I can make it". The pain in his face was unbelievable. The current was about as swift as I had seen it for that dive site. I ended up towing him in but we also worked our way to several lobster buoys to hold onto to rest in between swims. Only thing I was afraid of was getting shot by a lobsterman thinking we were robbing his traps.

2) I was swimming along the bottom about 45 ft leading the way. I would look back for my buddy about every 30 seconds. One time I turned around and my buddy was no where (vis was about 25') so I back track and find him. He's on his knees on the bottom with his reg out of his mouth looking confused. I took the reg and just put it in his mouth and asked if he was ok. He signals yeah... so we continue the rest of the dive. Turns out he had a bit of vertigo and was confused until I came back. I'm glad I looked back so often. Any longer and he might have had a more serious problem.

3) I'm in the caribbean on vacation and we're getting back in the boat. We're all waiting for our turn on the ladder. All of a sudden I see this guy hand up his fins, and then his BC... he still had his weight belt on! He was half on the ladder in somewhat rough water. I swam over as he started going under and put his feet back on the ladder and held him up until he got a good grip. I told the DM on our boat that he needs to learn to take the weight belt off first... He replies that he's already told him that. He didn't even acknowledge my help to him. Some people can't be helped.

dd