3 times I've been in a situation where a diver needed to go up, or possibly get hurt. Or worse. 2 of those times, the diver had to be "dragged", meaning I had to physically grab their tank/bcd and take them up as they were unwilling/unable to do so themselves.
1. 12 minutes into dive, diver is at 110 feet and realizes he only has 400 lbs of air. He freaks. Didn't have to drag him up, but he wouldn't take my octo until he was OOA. On the boat, I explained why he should have taken my octo when I first offered it to him. He still doesn't agree with me about that. Total dive time = 18 minutes. (I stayed close to him during that dive because I saw trouble coming. He was constantly slow and late getting his equipment together, and found out he had 2900 lbs instead of 3000 lbs, which freaked him out. He air consumption was bad to begin with, but I knew this was going to throw him over the line.)
2. Diver is at 120 feet and narced, ignoring my request that he go up. He's frozen, putting no air in his bcd when I tell him too. He's not kicking. He has his inflator/deflator in one hand and his console in the other, just staring at me, looking like each was a gun pulled out of a holster. He's sinking fast. When I grabbed him by the tank valve, I was at 135 feet. This was the same diver as mentioned in #1 and this happened the day before incident #1. He didn't believe me until I showed him on his own computer that his max depth was 137 feet. I don't know what would have happened had I not grabbed him.
3. Diver is in a quarry that has a max depth of nearly 400 feet. We start the dive, with him ahead of me so I can keep an eye on him as the day before he ignored my request that he stay close enough to me that I can see him. He failed that, over and over. So, we go through the first thermocline, and I realize it's colder than I expected. That was at about 30 feet. At 45 feet, I stop him and tell him I'm cold and to go up a little. He turns and keeps kicking, never adding any air to his bcd, or even looking at his computer. At almost 60 feet, I stop him again, tell him I'm cold and to go up. He turns, making a bee line for the center of the quarry, without even acknowledging me. Finally, at 70 feet, I stop him again and sign the same. He just stares at me. I tell him to put air in his bcd. He stares. I signal OK. He stares. I signal go up again, he stares, so I grab him by the bcd strap, and "drag" him up. We get to the surface, and he says, "What's the big deal?" I explain what happened, and he is non plussed. He didn't think there was a problem, and to this day, he still doesn't understand what "the big deal" was. He has that luxury, as he's alive, which he wouldn't be if I hadn't dragged him up. Had I just gone up without him, he'd be dead. He was sinking like a rock and swimming toward the center of the quarry, completely narced and unaware of his situation. Our max depth was 77 feet. We had been over a shelf with a floor at 80, but when he changed course, there was no bottom at 80 feet. He had zero air in his bcd as he had never added any during the descent. When I remember this dive, it still gives me chills. I was compromised. We were both narced. Thank God I had him in front of me, on the other hand, stupid mistake on my part giving the guy some impression that he was leading the dive.
Both these guys were new divers with less than 20 dives each. In all cases, I had over 150 dives. They knew better though. Although in case #3 the diver has no recollection of anything but me ending the dive early, he would argue that I "dragged" him up.
So, it happens. With regard to the OP, I wasn't there, but being that the "experienced" diver had a slate, he could have explained what was going on. Also, I don't understand there not being clear communication from the experienced divers when everyone was back on the boat. I suspect the "pulling" at the safety stop was someone checking the tank pressure, but again, I wasn't there.
To the Original Poster, it's good (and brave) to question this stuff as you have done here. It means you're on a good track because you're trying to figure it out. People can learn from the conversation, etc. In the moment, on the boat, things aren't always made clear and people might not answer completely and it might not feel ok to question, so I *can* understand the lack of clear communication. If you offered that you were monitoring your computer, were constantly ascending in the green and was aware of your gas situation, you should have heard something like, "Gee, sorry about that, I was worried because you were using your air really fast and when you had trouble beginning your ascent I got a little more nervous and since we didn't break 100 feet the safety stop wasn't mandatory.", if that was the case.
-Blair