When would you ditch a buddies weights?

[SDAnderson]

and definitely worth reading: DAN Article: The Ups and Downs of Buoyancy Control

Here's a teaser, but I hope everyone will read the article...

...reported that 57 incidents were associated with buoyancy compensation devices (BCDs), and 27 with weight belts or weights. Many of the BCD incidents were due to diver error, and indicated that the divers didn't thoroughly understand the function of that important piece of equipment. In addition, of the 57 incidents, 21 (37 percent) involved harm to the diver. All these harmful incidents, with three exceptions, were associated with rapid ascents and its consequences.

Steven

 

[Big-t-2538]

Since there seems to be a bit of discrepency concerning what happens to an unconscious diver's body during a rapid ascent, I started a thread inthe DR. Dco section. hopefully the big guy will weigh in soon and shed a little more light on this situation for at least me, and I hope all of you.

 

[Big-t-2538]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
Everyone should take a rescue class.

One of the things you should have a chance to do during the rescue class is to try different methods with divers using different equipment. It sounds like many of you have never practiced this. If you don't practice and experiment with doing things like this your performance in a real situation will stink. At best you will be of no help to anyone at worst you will finish off the victem and hurt yourself.

this is something we did in both confined and open water. We did simulated rescues of unconscious divers in controlled environments. We were in a team of 5, each person being the main rescuer once. It really showed who was good at taking charge of a situation and directing helpers and who definetly benefitted from performing the necessary skills more than once. In the open water case, the victim wore a second pseudo belt and it was brightly colored so we didn;t confuse it with the diver's regular weight belt. We ditched this one at depth and performed the rescue from there.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Big-t-2538 once bubbled...


this is something we did in both confined and open water. We did simulated rescues of unconscious divers in controlled environments. We were in a team of 5, each person being the main rescuer once. It really showed who was good at taking charge of a situation and directing helpers and who definetly benefitted from performing the necessary skills more than once. In the open water case, the victim wore a second pseudo belt and it was brightly colored so we didn;t confuse it with the diver's regular weight belt. We ditched this one at depth and performed the rescue from there.

Dropping a fake weight belt at depth just doesn't have the same effect as dropping a real one. We practice surfacing a diver just as we would do it for real.

 

[Big-t-2538]

But we didn't want to jeopardize the safety of the "victim"....everything else was done to standard...towing back to shore, simulated rescue breathing, doffing of gear to pull victim out while continuing rescue breaths, and pulling the victim out onto the shore.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Big-t-2538 once bubbled...
But we didn't want to jeopardize the safety of the "victim"....everything else was done to standard...towing back to shore, simulated rescue breathing, doffing of gear to pull victim out while continuing rescue breaths, and pulling the victim out onto the shore.

That's my point. Something to think about...if you were able to surface the "victim" in practice why not do it the same exact way in a real situation? Most often there is no need to drop the weights. In fact dropping the weights will, I think, make control of the ascent that much harder. I diver in recreational gear is not hard to raise to the surface with all equipment in place.