Why Leave a Buddy?

[Zen1300]

I have read many times on this board of stories where a buddy leaves another. Sometimes a diver wants to ascend and tells his buddy he's going up and the buddy continues diving, usually because there are others below with them. Sometimes it's at the surface. There have been numerous stories.

I was a Staff Sergeant in the Army and I remember the sense of obligation I had to my team. It was my responsibility to make sure all were trained, prepared, and taken care of. In turn, their preparedness and training would be the key to them taking care of me.

I take this same approach to the buddy system in the diving. During my O/W dives, I was probably hyper-focused on my buddies, always concerned when I saw them ascend to rapidly or drop too fast. I remember the emptiness in my gut when one time my buddy and I were swimming and I started going to high - air trapped in my BCD would not vent. The instructor grabbed my BCD and jerked me back down and I was slightly disoriented, as I had no idea where he came from. I lost track of my buddy. This did not feel well.

I stayed calm and did my one-minute search in place and was about to ascend when my buddy showed up.

So, why do people find it ok to leave their buddy behind? As divers do we get so caught up in the dive that we think it's ok? Do we justify it because we traveled so far to dive this beautiful spot and paid so much money?

I realize there are all sorts of answers and each is a personal decision. Just something I think we all need to ask ourselves.

What value we put on the dive itself versus our buddy?

I ride a motorcycle and wear a helmet and ride in a safety conscious manner. I do this because I want to ride safe today so I can ride again tomorrow.

Can't we dive tomorrow?

 

[Walter]

From your description, it doesn't sound like your buddy felt it was OK to leave you. Did you talk it over with him later learn that he did feel this was OK? If so, he's the person to ask.

When your BC would not vent (what was the problem - poor design? faulty valve?), you started to ascend rapidly. It is likely your buddy wasn't looking right at you when this happened. He was probably wondering why you left him. He found you and came to you.

 

[drbill]

I rarely dive with buddies so I rarely leave them or have them leave me. Examples of when that has happened are:

1. Diving in Fiji with an Aussie buddy who proclaimed during the dive briefing that he was not going to follow directions. I left him when he descended beyond rec depth limits and kept on going. I returned to the group and signaled for the DM to retrieve him.

2. Diving with an assigned buddy on our local dive boat. She finished her dive while I was filming a somewhat rare subject. I surfaced with her and asked the boat crew if it was OK for them to watch her and for me to descend to continue filming.

3. Lost a pickup buddy when she disappeared while I was filming. I was watching her through the reflection in my rear port. When I finished I turned around and she was gone. Searched the bottom for a minute or two, then surfaced to look for her. Continued looking until I got to the exit point. By that time she was already dressed and heading out to get drinks with two guys she just met. I asked her why she left without signaling and she responded "I knew you were OK." I replied somewhat forcefully "Yes, but I didn't know YOU were OK... I've spent the last 20 minutes looking for your body!"

I greatly prefer diving solo unless I'm with one of my regular buddies (or a beautiful lady-go-diver I just met, tee hee).

 

[TSandM]

Zen Nomad, I dive in a diving culture that is totally built around the concept of "team". Yet even among us, we have occasions where separations are tolerated -- never UNDER the water, but occasionally allowing a teammate to return to land on the surface. To some degree, it is laziness -- the entire team doesn't want to swim back to shore to escort someone, and then back out to the drop point. But it is also risk assessment: If you have an able-bodied, fit diver, looking at a hundred yard surface swim in calm water to a site which is thronged with people (and divers) and is entirely without kelp, the risk of that swim is extremely low.

It can be really tempting to do the same thing underwater, when you're at 30 feet under the boat, and the upline is right there, and you can see the surface. I don't do it, but I won't say that it's completely unreasonable to allow someone to do that ascent alone, if they are experienced, comfortable, and wish to do it. Everyone's assessment of what is acceptable risk will differ.

 

[tkdgodess]

I will leave my buddy if they are a complete and utter idiot. By leave, I mean I will follow the dive plan, but they don't, they do stuff totally unpredictable and selfish.... bye bye....I won't bother chasing them down. I will then end my dive or buddy up with another team if they are close by, or will slop around in the shallows by myself.

 

[Zen1300]

From your description, it doesn't sound like your buddy felt it was OK to leave you. Did you talk it over with him later learn that he did feel this was OK? If so, he's the person to ask.

When your BC would not vent (what was the problem - poor design? faulty valve?), you started to ascend rapidly. It is likely your buddy wasn't looking right at you when this happened. He was probably wondering why you left him. He found you and came to you.

I wasn't so much trying to determine what went wrong in this situation, but rather was using it as a means to describe how I felt about my responsibility to a buddy. I was not indicating that she felt it was ok to leave me. She found me because the swim around the platform completed and we met at the platform. There were 10 of us swimming around the platform, so it was easily confusing.

The purpose of my post was more about all the instances we read about with "experienced" divers allowing people to go off alone or to ascend on their own. I'm just curious as to what people think and why some feel it is ok and others are so adamant that it is not.

 

[NC Wreck Diver]

There are times that we will separate as one guy is finished the dive, and we signal the buddy, so he knows. Usually it's close to the anchor line, or if we are close to the dock at the quarry. But, this has been discussed thoroughly before our dive.

We dive with redundant systems, and we are very comfortable with our skills to continue solo. When we dive just to practice, we typically exit together. Our redundant systems usually are double 85's (isolation valves on those) a slung bottle (30 or 40 cu. ft), and I carry a total of three regulators with four second stages.

When we spearfish, we go down as a team, but split up near or on the wreck site. We do this in blue water (NC). I can typically see my buddy, but I am not near him. If the vis is 60+, I'm normally 60+ feet away from him, with the same redundant systems I mentioned above. Hunting in groups typically does not work well. But as I mentioned, we are all comfortable, and have discussed this BEFORE the dive.

On the opposite side, if we have a friend along with us that is not comfortable diving alone, or if we have a 'new to diving guy,' we stick close. We don't want to be so close that we are bumping into each other, but close enough that we can see each other, depending on visibility. We are watching the new guy, and he normally doesn't even notice what we are doing. There are times I may signal my experienced buddy not to let the new guy go over a ledge in the Quarry that may go as deep as 100 feet, and he signals back OK, but the new guy has no idea we are communicating this unless he ventures over the ledge. Then we just stop him and tell him to stay around 60 or 70 feet (depending on his C-Card limitations). If we dive Jersey, all of us team dive. Jersey waters can be tough, and we stick a little closer (still using our 'vis rule').

 

[fnfalman]

I have read many times on this board of stories where a buddy leaves another. Sometimes a diver wants to ascend and tells his buddy he's going up and the buddy continues diving, usually because there are others below with them. Sometimes it's at the surface. There have been numerous stories.

I was a Staff Sergeant in the Army and I remember the sense of obligation I had to my team. It was my responsibility to make sure all were trained, prepared, and taken care of. In turn, their preparedness and training would be the key to them taking care of me.

I take this same approach to the buddy system in the diving. During my O/W dives, I was probably hyper-focused on my buddies, always concerned when I saw them ascend to rapidly or drop too fast. I remember the emptiness in my gut when one time my buddy and I were swimming and I started going to high - air trapped in my BCD would not vent. The instructor grabbed my BCD and jerked me back down and I was slightly disoriented, as I had no idea where he came from. I lost track of my buddy. This did not feel well.

I stayed calm and did my one-minute search in place and was about to ascend when my buddy showed up.

So, why do people find it ok to leave their buddy behind? As divers do we get so caught up in the dive that we think it's ok? Do we justify it because we traveled so far to dive this beautiful spot and paid so much money?

I realize there are all sorts of answers and each is a personal decision. Just something I think we all need to ask ourselves.

What value we put on the dive itself versus our buddy?

I ride a motorcycle and wear a helmet and ride in a safety conscious manner. I do this because I want to ride safe today so I can ride again tomorrow.

Can't we dive tomorrow?

First of all, this ain't the Army. I was in the Army, and rec diving isn't the Army. In the Army, the mission comes first. In rec diving, my safety comes first. If I don't feel comfortable and want to abort a dive and my buddy doesn't want to, I'm leaving. If I don't think that it's a good idea to deviate from the dive plan and my buddy were to go willy nilly (violating depth, violating bottom time, violating penetration agreement, etc.), I'm leaving.

As far as leaving buddies while in the Army, you'd do it in a heartbeat if it means that you are to Charlie Mike. If your buddy doesn't want to take that hill and you can't make him to, will you stay behind or will you Charlie Mike?

 

[Aerosynth]

I can't really speak from experience on this... and I am just O/W certified without millions of logged dives... but I can say hypothetically what I might do. If I were with a *group* of divers, in calm and safe water with no crazy currents (like a lake dive), relatively shallow, and I hit my minimum ascent PSI before anyone else... I don't think I would have a problem ascending solo so that the rest of the group could enjoy the dive. I'd be pretty comfortable doing that as long as I wasn't leaving anyone alone.

 

[Zen1300]

First of all, this ain't the Army. I was in the Army, and rec diving isn't the Army. In the Army, the mission comes first. In rec diving, my safety comes first. If I don't feel comfortable and want to abort a dive and my buddy doesn't want to, I'm leaving. If I don't think that it's a good idea to deviate from the dive plan and my buddy were to go willy nilly (violating depth, violating bottom time, violating penetration agreement, etc.), I'm leaving.

As far as leaving buddies while in the Army, you'd do it in a heartbeat if it means that you are to Charlie Mike. If your buddy doesn't want to take that hill and you can't make him to, will you stay behind or will you Charlie Mike?

Agreed, This is not the Army. Safety in my mind allows you to complete the mission. Not entirely sure I agree that you would sacrifice a buddy to CM. I know I wouldn't. I would find another way.


But do you want to dive with people you don't trust? Obviously nothing is black and white. I'm just trying to understand the thoughts others have on the topic. Not a right or wrong issue for me; just more of a research question.