What to do if you lose your buddy on a deep dive???

[TSandM]

If you lose your buddy at 110 feet . . . figure it took thirty seconds to a minute before you noticed he was gone; if you do your ascent at 30 fpm, it will take you almost four minutes to reach the surface without stops. If your buddy is OOA or unconscious or seizing, by the time you reach the surface, realize he isn't there, and descend again (unwise) or recruit help to go look for him, he's toast. Only in the event that he is trapped in the water with adequate air supplies is he going to survive the incident, and in that case, doing your stops (or perhaps a truncated version thereof) is not going to make a huge difference, except in your buddy's anxiety level.

To me, this is one of the reasons that diving skills -- including buddy skills -- have to be better developed to make deeper diving safe. The stakes really do go up when you are all the way down there, even if you are still in "no decompression" "recreational" diving.

 

[S. starfish]

My $0.02
I don't think there's really any one right way to go about it. Personaly I'm a big advocate of searching for a minute, if it's bad viz your buddy could be six feet away from you, depending on the topography they could be behind a large rock or in the worst case scenario tangled up in something AND behind a rock or having some other underwater troubles. In my experience though usualy they're just behind a rock. If they just lost you and went to the surface they'll be fine, if they corked they're in a lot of trouble so I'd forgoe the safety stop, if you make a slow ascent it's not going to hurt you to miss it.

To sum it up - If your buddy's in trouble at the bottom and you leave them, their chances of survival go way down, if they're at the surface and in trouble at least there's air - Just give the safety stop a miss, I've done it (not really willingly i'll admit) on dives to 130ft. There were no ill effects, kept the ascent rate slow. Also, it depends on your comfort level, if you really don't like being down there, ascend, ultimately, as everyone else has said, your primary concern is you.

 

[MoonWrasse]

with my regular buddy we BOTH use subDUCKS..... we've developed a very basic set of signals...

1 quack is simply getting his attention like "HEY COME LOOK AT THIS"

2 quick quacks means "WHARE ARE YOU?" if i hear 2 quick quacks i know he knows that i'm looking for him and the search is on. if i DON'T hear 2 quacks i know the poop has hit the fan and the search is on for 1 minute and THEN surface if needed. has saved a trip or two to the surface....

3 quacks in a row means come see the mermaid.

4 quacks in a row means i'm being eaten by a shark.....

yes, I know, but before anybody jumps in about how irritating subDucks are we use them extremely sparingly.

Anybody up for underwater duck hunting?

 

[alpaj]

I think I would be inclined to look longer PROVIDED there isn't any extra risk to you because if you are leaving them on the ground tangeled in a net for example there is very little chance of survival unless they are capable of freeing themselves. I'd hate to live with the fact that I left my buddy down there to die in a net after looking for him for one minute when I reasonably safely could have looked for longer. Now if you get to the surface and he is there saying, "I couldn't find you anywhere". I'd smack him silly and would seriously consider not diving with again. (or her). And I'd also ask my self if I was to blame or if your buddy was chasing a fish. If my good buddy is missing then I'm going to assume the worst. If you are diving with someone who doesn't understand this system then the only person who you can point the finger at is yourself should something go wrong. When you are deep the only solution to an OOA really is only your buddy. So if my buddy is gone at that depth I'm going to assume something like complete loss of bouyancy (so now they are behind that last rock) or busted fins? or something that caused them to lag behind somewhere. If they are OOA I expect them to be swimming to me ripping my stage out of my mouth. In anycase it is also your responsibillity that you are checking on your buddy frequently enough that you will not loose sight of them should they for one reason or another not be able to catch up with you.

Though if diving in two foot vis. I'm probably not going to assume the worst but simply assume the obvious which is that they are OK but ya just can't see em. That's what i thought on the subject

 

[Cacia]

Does anyone know the background of the " search for one minute" protocol? I mean we know where our CPR recommendations come from... research, international medical recusitation commitees anylizing the data, etc.
Is this rule based on actual numbers (how could it be?) or is it just our "best practice" educated guess? When a training agency makes protocol do they have a standard they have to meet before making a recomendation?

 

[Shaka Doug]

My Safety Rule about this is very simple "Stay Together as a Group! Don't Get Separated in the First Place!!! Particularly important when it comes to deep diving for all the reasons we're discussing here. If you can't seem to follow this very basic, simple rule, you have no business diving unless you plan on going solo (also not recommended, but....). A lost buddy is no good to anyone and when it turns out to be carelessness that causes the separation it puts divers in some pretty uncomfortable and many times dangerous situations. If it's a really low visibility situation, be extra cautious to avoid separation or abort the dive. Recreational Diving is supposed to be FUN!

 

[MoonWrasse]

Does anyone know the background of the " search for one minute" protocol? I mean we know where our CPR recommendations come from... research, international medical recusitation commitees anylizing the data, etc.
Is this rule based on actual numbers (how could it be?) or is it just our "best practice" educated guess? When a training agency makes protocol do they have a standard they have to meet before making a recomendation?

I assumed the 1 minute time frame was so that additional search resources could be mustered ASAP. If the missing diver is truely in dire need - say unconscious - time before brain death starts ticking pretty quickly.

 

[Cacia]

yea, but Alpaj had a good point about the entanglement issue...just wondering.

 

[MoonWrasse]

I would guess many actually violate the 1 minute rule. I know I have at least once.

 

[Doc Harry]

What to do?

You and your buddy should do exactly as your planned, i.e., before the dive you both should have discussed such a contingency and come up with a game plan.

Search for a minute or two? Meet back at the mooring line? Ascent directly to the surface? Shoot a buoy?

Contingency plans depend on the details of each particular dive.