"What if ..?"

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What is the point of buddy diving if you plan to bail out when you're most needed?
I don't think that anybody here plans to bail out a the least hint of danger.I'd advise all to re-read this bit:
In an air share, you reach a point on the exit where you know you normally use 500 psi to exit on your best day and there is 200 left in the tanks and a difficult restriction ahead, or whatever would make you certain both of you aren't going to make it. You are 100% certain, and not only are you 100% certain, you are 100% correct. You may not even make it and it would take all of your skill, all of your tricks, all of your experience, and to make it out would be a miracle in itself at this point, but you are good enough, that maybe you just might, but in that air share there is absolutely no way. It's not Ginnie. It's not a popular cave. It's in the Bahamas. You know the only three cave divers on that island and they are not planning to go diving that day. Are you really a coward? Are you cutting and running?
And as buddies are concerned,someone once said"buddies are for fun,not for safety".
The bottom line for me is:I never ever think or hope that when **** hits the fan my buddy is gonna be there to help me out of trouble.He only might be,that's it.
Anyways,this is all pointless speculation,none of us know how we're going to react in a situation like that until it happens.Remember Lucretius:"the mask is tore off...."
 
The best post I've came through regarding a similar scenario was:

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So, I have left my buddy and made it to the surface, he's dead in a wreck somewhere.

At the inquiry I point out this post and how I followed the sage advise.

I get sued by his lawyers because we were diving on holiday and end up broke. Your friends disown you because they think you are a coward. You take to drink to try to forget your buddy's face as you left them there to die. Your wife leaves you because of the drinking and the kids hate what you have become.
You are kicked out of the family home and take to living on the streets. Unable to afford proper booze you drink meths which kills your liver.
Four years after the diving incident you die in an alley in agonising pain.

You might as well have died trying to save your buddy.
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:D :D :D
 
And as buddies are concerned,someone once said"buddies are for fun,not for safety".
whosaiddat? As a self sufficient diver that's how I choose to view things myself but I've always had the feeling that I was going against the prevailing winds.

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I still am curious whether it would always be the other guys fault if he turns out to be the one with the lower gas levels. In Traces example could it not have occured due to both divers error? In which case is the "abandonning" diver not stealing the gas from the buddy? So the question could both be "would you leave the buddy" or "would you steal his air" to survive.

Unless Trace wants to further define that part of the scenario.
 
whosaiddat? As a self sufficient diver that's how I choose to view things myself but I've always had the feeling that I was going against the prevailing winds.

It's just somebody's signature from another forum(I think to remember;)).I don't think he's a diving"personality" unless he quoted someone else.
I tend to agree,in the sense that I don't enter the water relying on my buddies whoever they may be.I'm a solo diver too(more occasianally now then in the past).
And yes you and I are going against the pravailing winds:D
 
This thread has produced responses from the beginning that I didn't anticipate.

I assumed that most divers who might have an understanding of cave diving had probably taken diver rescue courses at some level along the way and that these courses would have produced more of a lifeguard mentality in the diving population.

Any, amateur or professional rescuer, whether an emergency medicine physician, a firefighter, a USCG rescue swimmer, or a lifeguard or a PADI Rescue Diver has been trained and knows that there comes a point in some situations when you can no longer continue due to physical exhaustion, external danger, or that you must abandon a victim to save yourself or another, more hopeful victim.

I am an emergency physician.

I am a rescue diver.

I am a cave diver.

Doesn't change my opinion.
 
Trace,

the one that tries and dies is dead
the one that leaves and lives will die one day anyhow
the one that tries and lives and saves is a hero and yet will die one day as well.

That said i would kill to get home to see my daughter grow up, that means if needed isolate and cut the long hose.

before my wife and daughter my choice would be to die trying.

how about i just dive plan in a very conservative manner instead of having to make the choice?
 
...

how about i just dive plan in a very conservative manner instead of having to make the choice?
That's really it, you adjust your life and your risks to your responsibilities.
 
First off, I dive mostly with my wife as my buddy and should some unforeseen, bizarre set of circumstances jump up and force the decision, she goes and I stay. No equivocation or hesitation. I know that is easy to say from the comfort of my office and should the time ever arrive, I can only pray that I will have the courage to do it without hesitation.

That said, my dive plans simply don't include putting me or my wife in situations where the slightest opps moment puts our very lives in danger. Caves are on the list of places I simply would never ask my wife to dive. Many people love to dive them and thankfully, some even shoot some amazing video for me to watch.
 
What would you do?

Coming late to the party.

Honestly, I don't think I could just let my buddy die. I'd do everything that God forbid (skip breathing, skipping deco, breathing hot mixes, using the BCD as a make-shift rebreather ... ) whatever it took to get us both back to the surface alive or die trying. That might mean sending the OOA buddy to the surface some time before me, or visa versa, so (a) one diver had the extra time on deco and (b) the surface crew only had to deal with one victim at a time and (c) they had prior warning that a second victim was on the way.

And then hope for the best.

If it were a case like described in the book "The Last Dive" where the divers still had gas and one of them chose Lfor whatever reason -- probably panic -- for the fresh sea breeze, then I would let them go, if I couldn't stop them, and try to grind out as much deco as I could.

In this scenario, however, as irrational as it might be, I would take extremely big risks to get the result I wanted. Both divers alive (in some form or other) on the surface. If I played it safe and got myself out unhurt but my buddy died then I'd never forgive myself for not doing more.

R..
 
It was pointed out earlier that people are generally assuming that the OOA diver is at fault, which does not have to be the case. I am sure we can all think of many situations where that might not be true.

How does it change things if the OOA diver is not only not at fault but the diver with the gas might arguably be at fault?

Let's consider a scenario where an exit through a restriction is blocked by falling rocks. The lead diver works hard to clear a passage and so uses up a lot of air in the process. The diver with the gas is not at fault for the situation, but the OOA diver got into that situation by making it possible for the donor to survive.

We could consider any number of situations in which one diver has to work harder than the other during an exit. I was in fact just thinking of when I was doing lost line drills as a student while my instructor casually floated there watching me work. He had a much better SAC rate than I did to begin with, but with me working hard while he watched,..... Let's say he had let this sort of activity go on past a safe level and some sort of disaster had happened on exit. Whose fault would it have been if I had gone OOA? (I am sure the imagination can conjure up a scenario that does not involve training exercises.)

So, how does it affect one's thinking if the OOA diver is not at fault but it could be argued that you yourself bear more of the responsibility for the situation?
 

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