Lessons What have you become entangled in?

[MacDuyver]

Oh, I was hooked by fishermen when shore diving. Once on the FL panhandle and once in Joisey.

Holy carp! He get you or just your gear?

 

[Doc Harry]

I've only been entangled once, but a knife didn't help me.

I was solo diving in zero visibility and total darkness in a reservoir. I was finger-walking along the bottom with my other hand out in front of my face.

I ran into a vertical pine tree trunk that was still there after the valley had been flooded by the reservoir.

I slowly tried to move around the tree trunk but instantly became entangled in branches. Tried to back up, but I was tangled up in branches. Couldn't move up, down, left, right, forward, or backwards, I was stuck in branches.

Took me a while to extract myself from that situation.

 

[PR_SMITH]

I got snarled up in a big tangle of fishing line. Viz was poor, didn't see it. My buddy was right on it with emt shears. I could have done it myself, but quicker to let him set me free.

 

[garyh]

Not really an entanglement but funny story none the less. Was doing a family vacation in MX and went for a dive with Chris M from Zero Gravity. Cant remember the name of the system but we were doing a circuit. Dive went fine, exiting I'm in the lead Chris is following. All of a sudden this guy comes flying out of a side passage and tackles me! He is clamped around my legs, needless to say I reacted and literaly kicked the s@#$ out of him. Upon surfacing there were lets say some very heated conversation between us and the other group. Turns out there were 2 divers just wrapping up their cave training and buddy thought it would be funny to mess with his buddy not knowing it was me.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

"What have you Become Entangled In?"

Our lifelong best friends...and dive buddies, got a divorce and it was impossible for my wife and I to take sides...so we just let them know right off the bat that they should just look at us as "Switzerland" ... War away, leave us out of it, and we love you both!

 

[John C. Ratliff]

My first experience with entanglement wis with my dive buddy and girl friend in high school, Elaine McGinnis. We (the Salem, Oregon Junior Aqua Club) had hired a dive instructor, Roy France (LA County) from California to come up to teach us diving. And, he did, coming on three separate dates. The last pool session with Roy he had us as a buddy team got the bottom in the deep end of the YMCA pool, and he dropped a gill net over us. We had to get out from under it. It took several minutes, as the net would wrap around the tank valve and regulator as well as our heads. But we were able to do it. This was our pool checkout dive.

Years later, in 1969, I had to disentangle two Korean pilots from their parachutes. They had inadvertently flown their F-86 into the Yellow Sea, which was smooth as glass. They had called in a defective altimeter, were going to descend to below the clouds, and then ask for directions into Kunsan Air Base, Korea. When they broke through the clouds, they apparently thought they were at about 10,000 feet, when actually they were less than 1,000 feet above the water (it looked high due to the mirror surface). So they descended, right into the ocean. They were ejected through their canopy, and when we found them, they were already dead. I had to cut through their parachute lines and riser in order to free them to put them onto the HH-43B Huskie helicopter hoist. This was when I was a USAF pararescueman stationed at Kunsan AB, Korea.

Since that time, I've been tangled in monofiliment fishing line, and one time in the throw line that was lost by rescue groups practicing (it made a half-hitch around my thumb). I've used my knife on many occasions to cut monofilament fishing line. The fishermen and women use weights on a rocky bottom that catches the line. I once pulled 8+ pounds of lead weights out of the Clackamas River from under one rock.

SeaRat

 

[SlugLife]

So far, just finishing line, relationships, and dead-end jobs.

There was one incident that kinda creeped me out: Visibility was about 24 inches; I was feeling my way along the bottom very slowly. Suddenly, there are several ropes hanging down in front of my face. I backed up, went up about 5 feet where the visibility was marginally better and discovered there was a fallen tree with dozens of anchors hanging from it.

I don't think I was in danger, but only because I have 4 cutting devices, including some 10-inch shears, was moving very slowly, and feeling my way along the bottom. However, it was a gentle-reminder that in very poor visiblity to continue to be very careful.

Back in 1974 when pretty much all diving was solo, I was spear fishing off of Catalina Island and my tank got caught up in the kelp at 30 feet. I was unable to reach it behind me so had to undo my harness and tank so that I could turn around and cut the tank free and then remount everything. Had I panicked I would have died there.
I still relive it every now and then in my dreams, lol.
Todays small knives make carrying one a no brainer.

View attachment 770667View attachment 770668

I recently got one of those tiny knives in the bottom pic. Great knife! I also have line-cutters, and when doing treasure-hunting I carry massive 10-inch shears which go through rope like butter.

 

[Marie13]

Does a web of lies my cheating ex told me count?

On Great Lakes wrecks we get downrigger cable - braided stainless wire (often made by ScubaPro's sister company Cannon) with an 8-15lb weight attached to it. When they get snagged on a wreck they have to cut the cable, leaving a nice long trail typically draped over the wreck. If the vis is bad, its quite easy to miss at less than a millimeter of thickness. I've never gotten wrapped up bad, but after a time feeling a strand I missed tug on my SPG I've started carrying medical shears in my drysuit pocket as a typical knife or line cutter can't cut it.

On my very first Great Lakes wreck dive, we came across 100ft of that steel stuff. Shears were the only thing that cut it. I’ve carried shears on every wreck dive since.

 

[SlugLife]

Fishnet. On the North Sea. Thought my life was over.

Knife was to blunt to cut through it, so had to take of my boot and fin and struggle my way out. Lesson learned: Only use you knife for emergencies, and not for anything else which makes it less sharp.

Same with my save-a-dive tools. My scuba-equipment is scuba-equipment. It would suck to need a wrench on the boat, to discover I had "borrowed" it for some home-improvement project.

Infinite disagreements on ScubaBoard.

nonsense!

Kelp, Kelp, and more Kelp.

Some sea-weed has taken over one of my favorite treasure-dive-locations. Its about 8-feet tall. 2-years ago, I actually dug through the weeds for sunglasses, iphones, etc, but it was only about 3 feet. Other divers wouldn't find those sunglasses, because they wouldn't dig through the weeds. But last-year the weeds were just ridiculous. I tried, but it was just impossible. Maybe if I brought a machette with me on the dive.

Early on in my diving, no one wanted to tow the flag so I volunteered. The friggin' thing wrapped me up faster and tighter than anything. Haven't towed one since.

Hah, now you know why!

These are some very informational stories, it has me wondering, once you are free from entanglement, is it a common practice to try and remove it/bring it to the surface as trash (if possible and safe) or is it just left behind?

It depends:

• Can you clean it up safely? Cleaning entanglements can be a big entanglement hazard.
• Do you have appropriate cutting tools for the job?
• Do you have plenty of air? and time?
• Is the line/rope/etc a hazard to other divers if left?
• Can you safely "bag" the rope or line?

For me:

• I carry 10-inch shears, which can slice boating rope like butter. Cutting dangerous entanglements is a no-brainer and easy for me. With an average knife or line-cutter, cutting the same rope would take too much effort (and air) to be worth it.
• I do have a mesh bag I can stuff it in, but I sometimes don't feel safe gathering the rope. Rope can sometimes act "weightless" and is super-easy to be entangled by when gathering it. It's safer for me to just let it rest on the bottom. I have become slightly entangled in rope because I tried to gather it.
• If it's an overhead-hazard, I consider it a safety-hazard and will cut it. If it's resting on the bottom, I'll move on, because I don't have time for hundreds of random anchor ropes.

 

[ROUS]

I was brand new to diving, so it must have been in '78 or '79. A buddy and I went for a night dive in a large Texas lake called Possum Kingdom. After our shore entry, everything was dark and disorienting. Suddenly, I was in pain and tangled up in something. I guess my flailing arms/legs/light attracted my dive buddy and he found me hooked up in some fisherman's trot line. (see diagram below)

I had a hook in my shoulder, one hook in my gear somewhere, and another hook in my thigh. He cut the line and dragged me back to the shore. Him pulling those hooks out of me was the opposite of fun. He poured rubbing alcohol (I think) on my bloody spots and then we went back in to continue our dive. It wasn't a great life experience.

Update: I remember my dive buddy telling me to stop whining and to get my gear back on. LOL. Good times.