What should I have done?

[Ben_ca]

Perhaps it’s too late for me to comment on my recollection of this dive....snip

Thanks for providing your viewpoint on the event. Feedback and debriefs are good tools to help all of us (not just your team)to learn to be better divers... beside we're all human and screw up sometimes... that's why we keep working at it so we can be better next time.

 

[ehuber]

This post was highly informative...

This is what I read: You split up the married --and clearly distracted-- couple and practiced DIR drills after having gotten off to a bad start. At some point, one of you managed to go OOA while at the precise moment another managed to kick her fins off in an uncontrolled ascent, at 20-30 feet, while neither buddy was within helping distance of the other.

You all three left the diver without fins, in an uncontrolled ascent, to fend for herself while the out-of-position husband offered no assistance to either. All three stayed under after an OOA emergency and made the panic'd diver with no fins descend to you?

Good to know guys.

 

[headhunter]

DoubleDip,

Thanks for your willingness to openly share your account of the circumstances.

I for one found it helpful as a mental excercise and hope it will help me or someone else avoid a situation on one of our own teams.

In my opinion, Unified Team Diving is a process that gets better with experience from both training dives and non-training dives. I think that both types of dives afford us an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and our team mates.

Christian

 

[TSandM]

ehuber, I hope you realize the OOA was a drill? And the diver who corked wasn't panicked at all? And we started the dive with the married couple split up and working with other buddies (as is our usual practice)?

The whole thread has been a series of mea culpas on the part of almost everybody involved, for the purposes of allowing others to learn from our mistakes, and your tone, in my opinion, is uncalled for.

 

[sunnyboy]

ehuber, I hope you realize the OOA was a drill? And the diver who corked wasn't panicked at all? And we started the dive with the married couple split up and working with other buddies (as is our usual practice)?
...

The remaining team did not know that you were not in trouble. They were not "situationally aware", which is a common problem with drills. Another problem with drills is that situational awareness is almost never a part of such drills. Something to think about when planning your next drill session?

-S

 

[headhunter]

The remaining team did not know that you were not in trouble. They were not "situationally aware", which is a common problem with drills. Another problem with drills is that situational awareness is almost never a part of such drills. Something to think about when planning your next drill session?

-S

I think that this is a good point and the reason that this thread exists.

When doing drills, I think that many teams think of this as an "artificial environment" in which "real" things won't happen. Because of this thread, I think that many of us are now understanding this and adjusting our "viewpoint" accordingly.

It would be interesting to develop a drilling procedure that would have multiple teams underwater with each team doing a different drill that they would decide upon without the other teams' knowledge. After each drill, you would do a slow accent to the surface and ask each team what drills each other team was conducting and how it looked like they were doing with that. This may be a way of artificially building situational awareness.

This idea just popped into my mind and I have not thought about it much. I'm not sure what the downside may be. Poor vis would obviously hamper this process.

Christian

 

[MonkSeal]

Another problem with drills is that situational awareness is almost never a part of such drills.

I'm interested to find out how you came to such conclusion. Obviously, you're not familiar with GUE training. FYI situational and team awareness are the most important things that are trained during such drills. If it was not the case in this particular situation it means only that team must work harder to achieve its goals.

 

[Ben_ca]

Another problem with drills is that situational awareness is almost never a part of such drills.

-S

How so? What's your experience with drills? Do you do drills?

In Fundies they pound situational awareness into you... this goes with the drills you do.

 

[rjack321]

Kirk, don't beat yourself up.

Part of all of this is having skills eventually become second nature. For now you're a bit overfocused on the gauge and Bones - no biggie. Over time, relaxing a bit will allow your mind to have "wide angle" perception.

Its amazing how much comes back to the team-environment-equipment triangle of DIRF. You learn which leg you've leaned on too much by having the stool tip over in relatively controlled situations - aka practice. In this case you leaned on one part of the team (Bones) and equipment (your gauge) over the rest of your team and to some extent environment. So the stool tipped over a bit.

Just set it upright and dive again a little bit wiser.

 

[sunnyboy]

I'm interested to find out how you came to such conclusion. Obviously, you're not familiar with GUE training. FYI situational and team awareness are the most important things that are trained during such drills. If it was not the case in this particular situation it means only that team must work harder to achieve its goals.

I have had GUE training. I am well aware of the emphasis that GUE puts on situational awareness, and also the way in which it is demonstrated (or rather the lack there of) for the amusement of all during the debrief video sessions.

Having said that, I have also noticed with some regularity how even GUE trained divers will fail completely in situational awareness during a dive. And this is not even during something stressful.

Truth is - TRAINING and DOING are completely separate events. Sadly, there are far too many "skills" that are abandoned immediately after a class, in all walks of life (like, how many people ever parallel park again after the driver's test.).

-S