What do you do when......

[Sean326]

I have led a sheltered life as a diver, except for helping out with some students at Dutch, (a local quarry)
I have always dove with great divers.

I started diving with my brothers about 22 years ago
(give or take a year)

Since then all of my diving has been with either my brothers, (very skilled and experienced divers). Or more recently the friends I have met at Dutch, also for the most part very good divers.

Last weekend I went to Turks & Caicos with my wife (non diver), during our stay we fell into a routine where after breakfast I would head out on a 1 tank boat dive and she would hit the spa.

All of the divers on the boat were fairly inexperienced OW and AOW with only a few resort dives a year each. Since I was a dive master candidate and a rescue diver the dive master asked me to bring up the rear.

These dives were uneventful until one day about 90' down on a wall dive my buddy for the dive took off for the surface, not quite uncontrolled but pretty quick and I could see him trying to dump air, fin down etc...
I rolled over on my back and started a slow ascent to follow him up. As I watched him struggle to regain buoyancy control I probably had gone up about 15' when he surfaced and started to very calmly surface swim following the rest of the divers below. Since he seemed to be swimming calmly I stopped my ascent and moved forward and back down to meet up with the dive master. I pointed to my buddy 90' away on the surface. She the (dive master) & I shrugged our shoulders at each other, then she and my buddy flashed each other the OK sign (the vis was great) and we all headed back to the boat.

When we all got back I asked my buddy what happened he just said a "little buoyancy problem"

The dive master was polite but seemed a bit off for the boat ride back....

What should I have done?

What would you do you do when you are down 90' in this situation...

 

[MikeFerrara]

Stay with your buddy the best you can without ascending at a dangerous rate yourself.

Buoyancy control problems like that can be caused by or cause other problems where assistance might be needed.

If you're close enough to your buddy when the ascent starts you may even be able to slow or stop the ascent, Again, avoid a rapid ascent yourself.

 

[H2Andy]

all i can answer is from my perspective, but if i accept the pairing with a buddy
(even for just one dive), i would have followed him (safely) to the surface and
stayed with him until i had a chance to discuss what was happening with him.

sounds like you did that, to an extent, when you saw he was swimming calmly.

obviuosly, following him to the surface would have meant the end of your dive, and
you are not getting paid to blow your dives.

i think the problem is with the outfit. if they want pro DM's, they should pay
pro DM's.

 

[ScubaRon]

There are a bunch of problems here:

[1] Your buddy was totally irresponsible. Except for certain emergencies you never ever leave your buddy UW without properly communication and buddying him/her up with someone else.

[2] You should have stayed much closer to your buddy, while he was ascending. Assuming he ascended no faster than 60'/min and you followed him at half that rate, you should have been at 45'.

[3] Once your buddy surfaced you should have communicated with him - while continuing your own safe ascent. If he gives the OK sign and indicates that he is ending the dive, you then have 2 choices:
-a- notify the divemaster and your buddy, ascend and end the dive; or
-b- notify the divemaster and your buddy, descend, get paired up with another buddy (could be the divemaster) and continue the dive.

[4] The divemaster should have paired you up with another diver or herself (perhaps she did, but you didn't state so)

[5] The divemaster should have severely reprimanded the buddy and possibly refused him any further diving.

 

[gj62]

I somewhat disagree with H2Andy - you should have ascended safely to insure your buddy was OK. That's not being a DM, that's being a buddy. The DM (and everyone else) should go up if you signaled a problem and could not reach the boat.

That your buddy could give the OK sign was encouraging, and meant that you could surface conservatively, but unless the boat picked your buddy up right away, you need to stick with them.

"I will not leave my wingman..."

 

[H2Andy]

no, that's what i think too. i just didn't say it as clearly:

all i can answer is from my perspective, but if i accept the pairing with a buddy (even for just one dive), i would have followed him (safely) to the surface and
stayed with him until i had a chance to discuss what was happening with him.

 

[gj62]

Andy - that's why I said I "somewhat disagree". The qualifier of watching them to the surface was what concerned me. I've seen people completely out of it that give the OK signal...

But hey, I'd be your wingman anytime...

(OK, that's enough bad movie quotes for this thread... :54: )

 

[Sean326]

i think the problem is with the outfit. if they want pro DM's, they should pay
pro DM's.

Thanks for the feedback,

It's not like they drafted me as a substitute DM.
As the DM was reading the roster off there was a space for our level of cert. out of about a dozen divers everyone was OW except maybe 2 AOW and I was the only Rescue Diver. All she said after she buddied up the boat was would I mind bringing up the rear.

Had I seen my buddy thrashing or struggling I certainly would have slipped into rescue diver mode and assumed some level of personal risk to help him. But in this case It felt like it was a bad decision to do a rapid ascent and blow the safety stop just to check on him.
(honestly I just said the word decision but it was more intuition, I just hate making my dive computer beep and try to make every dive without any violations)

I guess that the DM kind of agreed with my decision because when I brought the situation to her attention she didn't go up either. (although I guess she had 11 other divers to look after)

This is the first time I've been in this kind of situation which is why I was interested in getting feedback from you guys.

 

[Diver0001]

I have led a sheltered life as a diver, except for helping out with some students at Dutch, (a local quarry)
I have always dove with great divers.

I started diving with my brothers about 22 years ago
(give or take a year)

Since then all of my diving has been with either my brothers, (very skilled and experienced divers). Or more recently the friends I have met at Dutch, also for the most part very good divers.

Last weekend I went to Turks & Caicos with my wife (non diver), during our stay we fell into a routine where after breakfast I would head out on a 1 tank boat dive and she would hit the spa.

All of the divers on the boat were fairly inexperienced OW and AOW with only a few resort dives a year each. Since I was a dive master candidate and a rescue diver the dive master asked me to bring up the rear.

These dives were uneventful until one day about 90' down on a wall dive my buddy for the dive took off for the surface, not quite uncontrolled but pretty quick and I could see him trying to dump air, fin down etc...
I rolled over on my back and started a slow ascent to follow him up. As I watched him struggle to regain buoyancy control I probably had gone up about 15' when he surfaced and started to very calmly surface swim following the rest of the divers below. Since he seemed to be swimming calmly I stopped my ascent and moved forward and back down to meet up with the dive master. I pointed to my buddy 90' away on the surface. She the (dive master) & I shrugged our shoulders at each other, then she and my buddy flashed each other the OK sign (the vis was great) and we all headed back to the boat.

When we all got back I asked my buddy what happened he just said a "little buoyancy problem"

The dive master was polite but seemed a bit off for the boat ride back....

What should I have done?

What would you do you do when you are down 90' in this situation...

Even if it's a drag you should stay with your buddy. Any time weird s*it happens you have to assume he/she needs you. At 90ft away you might as well be on Mars.

Funny that the DM didn't send you to the surface too when you came and asked.

R..

 

[Sean326]

[4] The divemaster should have paired you up with another diver or herself (perhaps she did, but you didn't state so)

[5] The divemaster should have severely reprimanded the buddy and possibly refused him any further diving.

No... I just continued the dive, we were on the way back to the boat. It did not bother me to finish the dive without a buddy, I stayed with the group right through the safety stop.

No.. I did not notice the DM even ask my buddy what happened, but I did, he seemed to think it was no big deal.