It has been interesting reading the posts thus far. One can get a feel for the environments and the experience level from which divers imagine this scenario taking place.
In Doc's scenario, it struck me that he thought of the OOG team meeting another team of divers. In his mind, he was probably imaging a cave in North Florida.
In my mind, I created the scenario in a remote cave on an island. Not only would there not be help, but there might not be anyone to come looking for us for a while.
Others felt that they would never find themselves in this situation.
As you gain experience, you may be surprised where you will dive and what you will do. How many of us who are avid cave divers ever thought we would ever be cave divers in the first place? How many of us just wanted to take a cavern class or intro to cave, just to become a better trained diver? How many of us became full cave just to avoid the hassle of not being full cave at places like Ginnie Springs?
Remember when you promised yourself never to leave the gold line, or that you wouldn't die cave diving because you would only make one jump - ever? Then, before you know it, you're picking up your clothespin at T-72! (Even if you believe that cookies are the way to go!) Believe me, this just keeps on going. If you ever told me that I would be wading through waist deep muck, starting cave dives in zero visibility, exploring to see if the cave went anywhere or if there was visibility or blue water somewhere deep inside, I would have thought you were crazy.
I could tell you a two lost off the line story with a cave instructor as a teammate that we never saw coming when blue water became zero vis in a big room.
I've learned that you could dive by the book in caves 99.9% of the time, and the one time you stretch your margin of safety - even for what your brain tells you is an acceptable reason - to fulfill a professional mission, you get handed the whole can of Whoop-@$$. A decade ago, I would have said, "No way is anything going to happen to me in a cave. I'm going to follow 100% of the rules 100% of the time."
Experience often finds you thinking about questions like, "So, do you want to do visual jumps? Because, once we are on that line we know we can get out at point B, right?" when a 30 year veteran cave explorer's eyes say, Trust me.
I learned a couple of things in this thread. First, I never thought of isolating. Isolating in a situation like this as an added possibility. Fair is fair. You've got your 1/2 of all that is left. Interesting to ponder. Also, I like Doc's suggestion that a team discuss what the final option will be in the worst possible case. You then can perform whatever act you agreed upon if the impossible becomes real. The team will either stay together or one diver just might make it. But, if at the moment that diver reaches back to shut off his or her gas, both will know they agreed to it.
