What would you do if your dive buddy was in trouble

[osagediver]

I recently had this discussion with diver recently, I found out that the diver I was speaking to informed me that in the event his dive buddy was in trouble he would not risk his safety saving his dive buddy. My first thought was you will never dive with me. This individual was honest with his reasoning but doesn't excuse his way of thinking. I have personally been in a situation that I could have used the help of my dive buddy. I was caught in a rope at about 45 below the surface. I was able to untangle the rope that was wrapped around my tank at the valve. I was tricky and I had to pull some tricks out my sleeve, but I managed to get out. I did have a dive buddy but due to the visibility he was not able to see that I was caught up. By the time I surfaced my dive buddy was on his way down to find me. I feel this way if you are going diving you know there are risk, and I have been in the position of being put in harms way to save a life. If you go diving rather you assist a diver in distress or you are in distress its part of the dive, and you have taken that risk. If you don't want to assist a diver in distress, then why go diving. Would you want your dive buddy to say "your life is not worth me risking mine" I know there are incidents where you may not be able to assist your buddy. Example cave diving and your not certified cave diver is dangerous. I understand if you don't know what you are doing you wouldn't assist a buddy. You could instead call for help. In my situation all I needed was to have a third hand to untangle the rope around my valve. What do you think? Just curious to know how many divers would say "Sink or Swim".

 

[ptyx]

To put it bluntly: one dead diver is better than two.

That said, in most cases rescuing someone doesn't expose the rescuer much more than regular diving does. In your example, I'd have helped you disentangle (actually, I'd probably have told you to stop trashing and do all the job myself - easier and safer).

On the other hand, if you're sinking like a rock way beyond reasonable PPO2 depths, will I try to catch up and rescue you anyway? Probably not. And I wouldn't want my buddies to try to either.

 

[Chris12day]

I have heard of others not willing to assist a dive buddy. I could not turn my back on someone who needed my assistance. In order to be able to assist my buddy and not place myself in harms way, I have enrolled in a Rescue Diver course. I have a wife of 25 years and two boys in college I am responsible for them as well.

Happy Diving

 

[imwright1985]

Depends on the situation. If your dive buddy is being circled by a bunch of sharks, id stab him then swim away.

But seriously, you should make sure that your going to be safe in the situation when you go to assist your dive buddy. I have seen people do dumb things and they are helpless and I probably have done things people would classify as dumb. Communication is a major part of diving safely and that eliminates some of the issues.

While lobstering one of my buddies was trying my back inflate BC to see if he liked the way it felt since he was in the market for a BC. He couldnt get all the air out while ascending and caused him to go into an uncontroled ascent. I told him to make sure the LPI hose was at the top and he might have to dip his shoulder and made sure he knew where the rear dump was, and it didnt sink in. chasing after him could have caused myself issues aswell since i was properly weighted and not over at all so couldnt counter act his bouyancy.

another instance i had a brain malfunction when i stumbled upon our edible treasure and didnt realise i was outa air. We found a patch of coral loaded with lobster and i was at 1k in 30ft of water. When we came across it I immediatly showed my dive buddy and he gave me an OK and signalled to stay down, he was at 1500, and popped his octo out. We stayed in about a 6ft range and grabbed all the lobster we could legally take and at the very end (1 short of day limit for both of us) i ran empty, swam over grabbed his octo and we carefully ascended. This senario we both knew what our collective air was, (yeah i shouldnt have ran out but we were prepped for it) Knew amount of air needed to surface, could see the boat directly above us, and neither of us panicked and we anticipated the problem.

These are 2 totally different senarios but have drasticly different risks. The OOA was dumb but we knew what was going on and knew it would very likely happen. Since neither paniced there wouldnt be a real risk to my buddy assisting me. If i had been panicing i would have not expected my buddy to help as effortlessly and would have tried making it to surface risking bends.
With my buddy in the uncontrolled ascent there is very little that could be done since he took off almost like a rocket and didnt try fighting the ascent while pulling every dump valve on the BC (which i had to do once, until i was empty and could control the climb)

In a senario when someone is panicing your risk of sustaining an injury along with them increases drasticly. If you dont have an octo easily accessable they may take your reg and you would be stuck on whatever air you just sucked to get you through, If they are ascending too rapidly you may get bent chasing them, and if they are staying down too long and having issues ascending or are narced and just being goofy, you may run OOA or have a tissue loading problem.

 

[spectrum]

Osage diver,

You seem to be describing 2 scenarios together.

When you were entangled it sounds like a breakdown in the buddy system. Since he headed back down I can glean that he had air and was not compelled to surface. In bad visibility you can loose a buddy in an instant. Other than back tracking or running a pattern you can still not locate the other diver. At some point the buddy separation plan, usually to meet on the surface kicks in and the diver goes up. Often on the surface you can spot the other diver's bubble plume and follow it down.

The opening statement that the other buddy would not risk his safety is spot on. Sure there are shades of gray and one may bend the rules to assist or save a buddy. The golden rule amounts to one dead diver is better than 2. This is the basic teaching of a Rescue Diver course. The course objective is to avoid bad situations, deal with them safely and effectively when they occur and to recognize that no diver is omnipotent.

When you go diving you are already risking your life. If an incident or accident occurs you strive to make the best of a bad situation.

Pete

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I'd spit out my reg, scream "oh my God we're all gonna die!" and then bolt for the surface. Oh wait...I'm a cave diver and we generally try not to do that.

Cave divers and technical divers in general are trained to configure in a manner that leaves them as competent and self sufficient as possible, but then blends that with a strong emphasis on teamwork and coordination with countless drills for various emergencies, failures and multiple failures - to the point they are pretty much a non event.

Even then, there are limits to what you will do to support a team mate as multiple fatalities just don't make sense. As a team member, you strive to not screw up to the point you'd put other team members at risk and generally speaking most cave divers will shy away from diving with, or greatly scale back the difficulty level of the dive when diving with someone they are not familiar with and or do not fully trust.

That type of common sense pre-screening and planning approach makes sense in recreational diving as well. For a recreational diver, I'd recommend a solo diving course. Not to promote solo diving, but to improve your self sufficiency when the buddy system fails and to improve your skills and the resources you bring to a buddy tream.

 

[rstofer]

The standard answer from the Rescue course will be to do everything possible short of putting yourself or someone else in danger. There is no benefit to creating a second victim.

But your scenario is just a misplaced buddy problem. Your buddy would have been at no risk helping you untangle the rope. They were just inattentive.

Here's a different scenario: You and your buddy are diving along a deep wall - a VERY deep wall. You both jump in together but your buddy's inflator elbow breaks and he quickly sinks. It takes you a few seconds to come to the conclusion that this is a disaster in the making. How deep do you follow your buddy before calling it off? I don't propose that this is a REAL scenario but what if you just couldn't catch them before you got to 100', 150', 200'?

There is a limit to how much risk you should take. At the end of the day, you have an obligation to your family to return at the end of the day.

Of course, if you are diving with family, the risk threshold is moved.

Richard

 

[joker31]

First is his gear better than mine? This will make a huge difference in my decision.....

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Within our circle of dive buddies, we treat each other like family. There's an understanding that we'd do all that we could to help each other out in a life-and-death situation. This creates a certain trust among dive buddies and it's something that certainly makes me feel more comfortable when I'm in the water with them.

We all have limits that we have to acknowledge in a true rescue situation. I agree that having two victims is far worse than having one victim...but wouldn't it be preferable to have no victims at all?

I think sometimes the very act of discussing hypothetical rescue scenarios can erode trust between dive buddies. That's horrible. You don't want to hear your dive buddy invoke the "I'm not becoming another victim" mantra. You want to hear your buddy say: "I'll do everything in my power to help you." I'd just leave it at that.

 

[idocsteve]

If you don't want to assist a diver in distress, then why go diving. Would you want your dive buddy to say "your life is not worth me risking mine"

Why go diving if you don't want to assist another diver in distress?

Because diving is fun, good excercise, you see some great stuff underwater that you dont see on land, you get the feeling that you are flying, it's a great distraction from the daily stress of life...etc...etc.

I enjoy diving, and for the most part I dive Solo, because I would not risk my health and well being to assist another diver in distress unless it was a diver with whom I was voluntarily buddied with such as my newly certified girlfriend or the occasional vacation trip when I meet up with other family members such as we did last month.

If I can assist another diver without significant risk to myself then I will do so, but like I said, that's as far as it goes.

It goes without saying that I expect no more from any other diver.