What would you do: Molested at 100' by an OOA Diver

[chrpai]

In a recent thread, an instructor posted that he practices CESAs from 100' because he has been molested by an OOA diver that took his regulator, gave him a bear hug and prevented him access to his AAS.

Here's the original quote to make sure I retell the story correctly: (He's referring to 100' CESA when talking about the useful skill )

It's a useful DM/guide skill when one guides in warm clear water because the DM needs to be able to lose their reg to an OOA diver at any recreational depth, and not lose their head.

Once someone does 10-15 CESAs from 100 feet, they become convinced that breathing out continuously for 4 minutes is possible, so they no longer need to fight to recover the reg or free themselves from an OOA who has taken their primary and bear-hugged them.

And yes this happens. It's happened to me, in fact, several time: an diver who chose to go without a guide, because "diving in Hawaii is easy, so who needs to pay for a guide". So they drop to the bottom, because "Hey, as long as I can see the boat it's not deep right?", and then they run out of air, hard, at 100 feet, and grab the nearest guide looking person's reg, and bear hug the guide to keep the reg in the mouth. I tend to actually offer myself to those people who look like they are about to do it even though they are not my divers.

As long as DM starts up with them right away and the OOA diver is convinced they are going to be OK, they usually calm down in plenty of time to swim together to to the hang tank, and have the OOA diver switch to that to let the DM get back to their own group.

As a Long hose, Rescue and Solo diver, I have a lot of issues with this scenario. But rather then post the choices that I would make, I thought I'd ask:

What would you do? Would your answer be different due to legal / agency duty if you were or weren't a "PRO"?

I'll join in later.

 

[danvolker]

In a recent thread, an instructor posted that he practices CESAs from 100' because he has been molested by an OOA diver that took his regulator, gave him a bear hug and prevented him access to his AAS.

Here's the original quote to make sure I retell the story correctly: (He's referring to 100' CESA when talking about the useful skill )




As a Long hose, Rescue and Solo diver, I have a lot of issues with this scenario. But rather then post the choices that I would make, I thought I'd ask:

What would you do? Would your answer be different due to legal / agency duty if you were or weren't a "PRO"?

I'll join in later.

Clearly this is not aimed at the DIR/GUE divers, as it would be absolutely a non-issue....they guy takes your primary and bear hugs you, and your necklace reg is right at your jaw already...Sounds like the divers with the traditional short primary and clipped off octo may need to consider their options

 

[tomfcrist]

If a dive takes my reg and bear hugs me, they are getting head butted. If they have no concern for my life, I have no concern for theirs.

 

[Scott]

beanojones always shares some great stories.

 

[beanojones]

Clearly this is not aimed at the DIR/GUE divers, as it would be absolutely a non-issue....they guy takes your primary and bear hugs you, and your necklace reg is right at your jaw already...Sounds like the divers with the traditional short primary and clipped off octo may need to consider their options

Yeah that thought (a necklace would be nice now) runs through one's mind at those times. I don't wear the neck bungie for practical reasons when guiding, but at those times in could come in handy if one needed it.

On the other hand, practice does in fact make it not a big deal to deal with this situation. Which is what the OP in the 'recent thread' was talking about: getting used to dealing with the unexpected on deep dives.

 

[flots am]

As a Long hose, Rescue and Solo diver, I have a lot of issues with this scenario. But rather then post the choices that I would make, I thought I'd ask:

What would you do?

First, I dive sidemount. If the guy can get his arms around me, I'll be really impressed.

However both regs are on necklaces, so it's not a big deal. The reg is right there under my mouth.

flots.

 

[Steve_C]

if I am at 100 ft I have a slung pony with the reg close by. I would breath off the pony while we make a normal ascent and I try to calm them down and switch him to my spare reg. If they calm down enough I might unclip the pony and give it to them.

If I saw them coming I would have offered them the spare reg and protected my own.

 

[Rhone Man]

There strikes me as a serious BS component in the original quote. I'd love to see this calm OOA ascent from 100' by the person who carries no alternate air source whilst they are being bear hugged by a panicking diver. More likely I envisage trying to culture a sense of justification for repeatedly showing off by doing ascents from 100' for "practice".

 

[MrChen]

Yeah that thought (a necklace would be nice now) runs through one's mind at those times. I don't wear the neck bungie for practical reasons when guiding, but at those times in could come in handy if one needed it.

On the other hand, practice does in fact make it not a big deal to deal with this situation. Which is what the OP in the 'recent thread' was talking about: getting used to dealing with the unexpected on deep dives.

Discussing the 100 ft cesa makes a little more sense in this thread. Talk me through it, what's going on in your mind? How hard are you kicking, how fast are you exhaling, etc. What tells you in your internal clock that everything is ok or not ok? And doing this with another person attached to you seems insane .

 

[James R]

I may have to practice some underwater-JiuJitsu or KM in this case. There's no way someone will bear hug me like that at 100' for any amount of time.

Also, for where I dive 90% of the time, they'd never find me to do that anyway since viz is usually around 5-10' at 100ffw.