Buddy system question

[partridge]

I have shared air 3 times. Two of those, the guy may have been able to make it back but the last one was really an out of air.

As a side note, do not feel peer pressure not to be the one to shorten everyones dive. If you dive with a guy who uses less gas and are afraid to turn the dive, you will run out of air. Period.

Also had my buddy cut me out of mono net once. A good buddy is priceless.

Check the close calls section of the accidents forum. More than a few are about buddy saves.

 

[Kim]

I have had to be helped once when I dropped my weight belt in a short swim through. As there was an overhead I didn't rocket to the surface - but I was rocketing to the roof! It's possible I would have been able to extricate myself - but I was happy to have help.
That said - I think that there are other situations that buddies are very useful for prevention of problems. On more than one occasion I have had to warn buddies about their depth while diving Nitrox. Other times I have warned buddies about leaking hoses or connections/valves that they couldn't see themselves - or did know about but didn't know how to react and started to panic. Another one I've seen a few times is a free flowing reg. As I dive quite often with very new divers maybe most of these are more about inexperience though.

 

[DivingCRNA]

I left the definition of "Buddy" vague on purpose. I was looking for a broad spectrum of responses to see how buddies are helping each other out there.

Obviously the "same ocean, same day buddies" are rarely of help, but anything else is game.

 

[Charlie99]

On my 10th dive, and my first night dive, a guy came out of nowhere looking panicked. Not having a clue what the problem was, I offered him my octo,which he took. Just low on air rather than truly out of air, but rather freaked out. At that point, my much more experienced buddy looked at SPG's, figured out what was going on and swapped him over to her reg and we ascended. He was diving with two others off our boat, but they had wandered apart.

On the Adolphus Busch, after descending, swimming around a bit, then going into the open hold area around 100' depth, I did the normal SPG comparison I do at around 2000psi when diving with an insta-buddy. He was on a 100cf tank while I was on an AL80, so I figured he would have lots of air. Amazingly, he was at 900 psi. He had blown through our agreed upon "be at the upline" psi of 1100 without knowing it. We shared air during the ascent, leaving him with enough air to swim over to the ladder and exit.

In both these cases, the problem was easily solved. Who knows what might have happened were I not there.

 

[guppy boy]

I had to rescue my buddy once. He had about 50 dives at the time and I had about 20. He got tired, hit the surface, pushed his mask up, spit out the regulator, and gulped some water while trying to keep his head up (didn't inflate his BC). He reacted exactly like the panicked diver in the PADI videos. I had to grab him, spin him around and inflate his BC to keep him afloat. I towed him back to the bank (we were in a river), and drug him up on shore. I have since become rescue certified, and have learned to watch closer for signs of possible problems with buddies.

 

[tangfish]

I think Rescue Diver is a great cert to get, its the first time you really focus on what to do should the worst scenario actually occur. Its not only about rescuing others either, you learn skills to be a safer diver yourself. I'm curious, I heard that there is a Solo Diver Certification from PADI, does anyone know anything aboout this? All I heard is that it teaches self-rescue and stresses redundancy.

 

[OE2X]

I have had the occasion in the past four months to share air with two different buddies. In both cases they got low, but both had enough to get to the surface. Since I had way more gas, it just made sense to put them on my long hose. Both divers finished up with around 500 psi in their tanks. Not what I'd call an emergency...

I had another incident where I had not opened my valve all the way on a single tank. The reg was getting hard to breath in 70' of water and without taking my rig off I could not get my hand on my valve. No big deal I ascended to 60' and my buddy turned on my gas. We continued the dive.

So thus far, I've never had a real emergency.

On the other hand I find it's way more fun to dive with a buddy. You get to witness together some really cool things and build some great memories. See Uncle Pug's recent post about us seeing a six gill shark together. I was glad I could share that with a friend.

 

[kittyjg]

My son and I were recently on a dive trip where one dive had vis. about 5 ft. My son is new to diving. The limited vis, surge and inexperience had him down to 800 psi when I still had over 2000. I shared air with him to conserve what was still in his tank through the safety stop and most of the surface (3 ft under) swim back to the boat. The current had carried us a ways from the boat during the safety stop. He switched back over to his tank for the final approach to the boat and exit.
Not exactly an "emergency" but definitely had the potential to become one.

 

[Amanda]

Your question is very interesting since, in France, we don't use the buddy system. We have a "palanquée" (a group of divers that are supposed to stay together within eyesight). A "palanquée" can include from one to 5 (if I recall well) people, instructor ot included. But they're not "paired up".

To my opinion, it works just as well but of course I've never been in an accident situation, so I wouldn't know about the safety aspect.

What I do know is that I had some lousy dives when I was diving abroad and didn't have a buddy and therefore was given an arbitrary buddy... who turned out to be a pain in the ***** with an "OK signal" question every two minutes. AND he kept swimming so close to me I couldn't move around as I usually like to do.

So, basically, I think the buddy system is a great one, but only if you already know your buddy ! If you don't, then I would say it's useless.

 

[Haiko]

When I did my OW (5 years ago) classes, my buddy was pulling me down, just after we went in the water. I had some troubles getting my ears popped and was trying to get up a little and try again. My divebuddy saw me and thought I had difficulty to get down (maybe not enough weights?) and started pulling me down.
At that moment I was trying to let him know that I was fine and just popping my ears, but he didn't got a clue what I was signalling about. When he tried to pull me down once again ( i didn't pop my ears yet, and after being pulled down a few feet more my ears really felt like they were gonna burst) I kicked him straight into the face and signalled that I was about to survace.
At the surface I told him what the problem was made VERY clear to him NEVER try that move on me again... Okay, maybe it was a bit harsh, but I don't like being pulled down to the bottom when I'm capable to do so by myself.

Diving with a buddy is ok, stay close, but do not tough!