When to render assistance and when not to?

[Degenerate]

Really? Here are screenshots of an example. You mentioned above the instructor who put his finger down a hole a mantis shrimp went in, but you left out the part where you stated, "I was pissing myself laughing" when "his fingernail was gone and he was in pain from a broken finger".

I would certainly say that qualifies as laughing at other people's demise.

most of them just need to learn how to get into horizontal trim

This cracked me up, as the OP has been pretty vocal about horizontal trim being "a hoax", even made a whole thread about it.
Lmao.

 

[VikingDives]

Actually, I think, there is a signal you could give although your buddy may not interpret it precisely to mean "give assistance", at least maybe not right away. The signal is to give the trouble sign and then the sign for "come here". This can be followed by pointing to the equipment that needs adjusting, tightening, moving, etc. It shouldn't take long for your buddy to figure out that you can fix it on your own or perhaps they need to render assistance. The problem I have with "a problem that I can identify" requires that they can see you and are close enough to identify your problem as a problem. But, why take chances. Tell them directly you have a problem. So, the first task is to get their attention. This is very important if the buddy swims in front of you and makes occasional glances back to you. While there are many trivial problems we could probably fix on our own, IMO tank slippage is not one of them.

I agree with what you are saying, but you're misunderstanding my point. We have have a surface signal for help. Why? Because we may need to communicate that directly. Underwater, we can communicate that there's a problem. If I signal you that there's a problem, it's implied that you are going to come to my aid if I need it. The point is not that we can't communicate it, but that telling you there's a problem, or your independent identification of a problem on my part doesn't require an additional request for assistance, because we know we are going to assist one another underwater.

It's also counterintuitive to request help, when it's implied. For example, when I was taught the out of air drill in open water, we were required to signal out of air, then signal share air. That's complicated and counterintuitive.

If I signal out of air, I've indicated that there's a problem and we both understand what needs to happen.

 

[Raphus]

In 2019 I had a diver blow out his inflator module from his BCD at 30m. Quite a shocking moment for him and I went and attached my DSMB to his BCD ring inflated it and we did a nice slow controlled ascent.

No one is commenting on that one?
Assisting a diver with a dsmb is fine. But attaching it to his bcd and inflating it..
Thats even in a non US court hard to justify

 

[johndiver999]

No one is commenting on that one?
Assisting a diver with a dsmb is fine. But attaching it to his bcd and inflating it..
Thats even in a non US court hard to justify

Don't push it, he probably has a 30 second video of him doing it!

I think it would be safer to just inflate your own BC and provide the necessary lift from your own BC. However, if you are too weak to kick them up with the additional lift from your BC, I suppose you could do that? It probably would not be one of my first choices.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Don't push it, he probably has a 30 second video of him doing it!

I think it would be safer to just inflate your own BC and provide the necessary lift from your own BC. However, if you are too weak to kick them up with the additional lift from your BC, I suppose you could do that? It probably would not be one of my first choices.

I could have used my BCD and held onto him and used it for both of us. I didn't. There are always other options to consider. For instance the diver did not have a DSMB. He went and bought one before the next dive and we did some time practicing its deployment and use. He realized that a DSMB could be used in a self reliant manner to assist himself in future. The DSMB had a purge valve you can handily use to dump air if required. I also have a nylon cord for my dsmb and do not use the thin lines that come with spools. I found it useful on cleanup dives to use my DSMB as a lift bag I have been about to bring up heavy car tyres this way.

The thing is to have more than once choice imho. This diver did not have to struggle or go into a panic and was glad to be assisted. We stayed calm and there was no rush to surface we even did the safety stop Also once on the surface he was not going to drift down again when I let go of him while we waited for our boat to come pick us up as we had to hail it as we were not at the expected pick up point. Fortunately not a strong current a gentle drift but giving him a device for buoyancy meant if we did separate then he would not sink into the depths. Why use my fins to kick us up when air does a great job for less energy expenditure?

We all have different ways to deal with situations and yes I enjoy the comments about them. This diver I helped now realizes a dsmb can be used for other things than a normal end of dive safety stop. Video's make good training tools for real life situations however I didn't take one as I did want to have one hand free to monitor our ascent rate on my DC.

 

[Blackcrusader]

This cracked me up, as the OP has been pretty vocal about horizontal trim being "a hoax", even made a whole thread about it.
Lmao.

It made for good discourse

 

[Blackcrusader]

Well, you have to do it in your OW confined water class, underwater, and again in the OW dives, at the surface.
DMs have to do it -- now required while neutrally buoyant! -- and exchange it with another person. You need to do it to execute the Warhammer Maneuver. I've thought about asking for it as part of the Solo/SRD classes...but have not yet done that.

Thing is many things are taught in a class only for a diver never practicing the skill on a dive which can be important for them. Divers being confident about sorting out their own issues is a good thing I believe. A tank slip yes nice when your buddy sees it and puts your tank back and adjusts the strap a bit tighter. Sometimes divers with new kit get tank slips. Would it be fair to say that divers with experience just take some things for granted as being easy to do? How do other divers gain that experience if they always have another person take care of their problems for them? Do we want them to be dependent on other divers always?

 

[tursiops]

Thing is many things are taught in a class only for a diver never practicing the skill on a dive which can be important for them. Divers being confident about sorting out their own issues is a good thing I believe. A tank slip yes nice when your buddy sees it and puts your tank back and adjusts the strap a bit tighter. Sometimes divers with new kit get tank slips. Would it be fair to say that divers with experience just take some things for granted as being easy to do? How do other divers gain that experience if they always have another person take care of their problems for them? Do we want them to be dependent on other divers always?

So you let someone struggle with their own loose tank?

 

[Blackcrusader]

So you let someone struggle with their own loose tank?

Struggle? A slipped or loose tank is an issue for any diver. I've had a slipped tank and had my dive buddy put it back. I've helped other divers with slipped tanks. Some divers have indicated they would sort it themselves. I've put a slipped tank back by myself. There's no drama involved just a minor nuisance when it happens. After all what is the point of being taught then not being able to do what we have been taught when the need arises?

 

[TMHeimer]

Struggle? A slipped or loose tank is an issue for any diver. I've had a slipped tank and had my dive buddy put it back. I've helped other divers with slipped tanks. Some divers have indicated they would sort it themselves. I've put a slipped tank back by myself. There's no drama involved just a minor nuisance when it happens. After all what is the point of being taught then not being able to do what we have been taught when the need arises?

Buy the Apollo Bio Tank Lock. They are correct-- a tank will never slip. No wetting the straps first. I even had to review how to bust a gut tightening those damn straps when I started DMing courses.