Incident report

[wetvet]

You guys are helping me put this in perspective. All this week I was feeling that I must have f***** up severely to have this situation get as out of control as it had. I had realized that emergency situations were hard to control, but I thought that the spiral we got ourselves into was due in large part to me. For the record, I am very confident in our training organization and our instructors. I am positive (even though I was not at this students pool classes) that he was briefed on freeflow proceedures, and that they were practiced in the pool. We did mention the possibility of free flow before the dive, but looking back, I should have gone into further detail. JBD: I appreciate the comment about the reg not necessarily being in the student's mouth, but, in all honesty, it is much easier to look back and know what the situation was, rather than evaluate it at the time....I truly wasn't sure if he was conscious or not on the way up, so I wouldn't have dared to let the octo go. I started on the right side of him, and never considered switching positions on him. I hope there is NEVER a next time, but if there is, these comments are valuable.
Happily, tomorrow my wife and I are leaving for the Bahamas, to do some laid back warm water diving. Im sure that this will "get me back on the horse" and get my confidence back. Thanks for the input and the support.

Wetvet

 

[MASS-Diver]

is also on the cold water. Anything in the 30s is really cold water.

Weird stuff happens to the brain as your core temp drops.

 

[Boogie711]

Wetvet and others:

I had problems on that dive - I discussed them here.

I have to say, though, that my problems were decidedly minor - I had no idea this incident as Wetvet describes even happened.

That whole fifth dive ended up being the dive from hell.

Talk about people losing confidence left right and centre. I know I went on a little 'puddle jump' in Gullivers yesterday, just so I could get wet again. (Max depth in Gullivers is about 25 feet.)

 

[Diver0001]

wetvet once bubbled...
<snip>

Questions.....Could this student have been narc'd?

When I read your story I thought exactly that. He sounded narced. But I think it was too shallow. Slapping your hand away and equipment rejection (not taking your octo) are more likley indicative of highly elevated stress levels.

Is that why he thought he had a free flow, and that my octo wasn't good?

No, I think this incident started when he went too deep and didn't notice/care and slapped your hand away when you went to stop him.

Should I not have purged my octo when I gave it to him the second time?

Judgement call. Hard to say. With someone else it would have convinced them that it was working. Had this student indicated before that he was worried about a free flow?

Did he likely lose consciousness on the ascent, or could he have been in a state of "passive panic"?

I would have to have seen it but from what I *have* seen you can tell immediately if someone is losing consciousness on their eyes. If his eyes still looked normal I'd suspect panic.

How could I have better handled the situation?

Tough one. Easy for a cyber-diver to answer when you have 5 min to think about it behind a keyboard but when the **** is flying you need to work with your intuition.

Having said that, I would have grabbed his BCD strap firmly and jammed my reg in his mouth, not just offered it. If he then still started to push it away I might have smacked him on the top of the head and jammed it in his mouth again. I'm not recommending that you do this but I know from experience that I would have reacted like this. (assert authority - make him take the reg, don't just ask him if he wants it).

And I would have turned his tank off to stop the chaos.

And I wouldn't certify him He's obviously not ready to deal with even minor problems under water and you don't want that on your conscience. If he's prone to panic then you need to be sure he's going to follow his training and you've seen evidence that he won't (at least not yet).

And getting back to the root of the moment, when he was obliviously going deeper you *might* have gotten a different reaction out of him if you would have given him OK first and then signalled to look at guages and go shallower. What I also find really helps with divers in stress is to put a hand on their shoulder. Some like it some don't. Sounds like this one would have slapped it away but I still would have tried it. (I've actually seen someone stressed out from a partly flooded mask give a dm a shove like they wanted to start a bar fight when he tried to help. It's no guarantee of success )

 

[Groundhog246]

Just tell me he DID NOT get his C-card. :wacko:

Braunbehrens once bubbled...
There were probably some "holes" in the training. Weighting was not right, which is typical of OW certifications, but that is no excuse. Of course this may not have anything to do with what happened. The other question is whether the student was trained to deal with a free flow. I don't know why no one practices this at least once. It's easy. Just push the button.

I and my wife trained with the same group, although possibly not at the same store. Our 14 year old has one more class to go. I have no doubt that how to breath off a free flow was covered. As for other possible "holes", there might be, but not compared to the gaping holes I've seen diving with people trained elsewhere.

Sounds to me like a case of panic when the stresses of cold, deep, (dark?) probably got dis-oriented. Other than going back to the old "rip their mask off unexpectedly in the pool" routines, I don't know how you would detect the likelihood of someone panicking. People under stress do strange things. I've seen someone on a stretcher with injuries from a car accident, fight to keep a doctor and nurse away.

To Wetvet, from what I read, you dealt with it as it came and in the end you suceeded. Not much more you could ask. If such happened to be the case, I would have no worries if you were to be staff diver for our 14 year old when the time comes. I hope you enjoy your trip and look forward to hearing all about it later in the summer.

 

[MikeS]

wetvet once bubbled...
Questions.....Could this student have been narc'd?

Based on my very limited experience it sounds to me like he was simply overstressed and finally went into full panic mode.

wetvet once bubbled...
How could I have better handled the situation?

You were presented with a life-threatening situation and confronted with a series of things that did not go “right”; you didn’t panic and kept adapting to the situation. Your decisions and actions resulted in neither of you getting hurt; sounds to me like you handled the situation well.

In the lessons learned category it sounds as if the situation resulted in a string of stressful events that resulted in his panic. It might have been possible to recognize this and intercede before panic set in. With students, there’s a fine line between the necessity of letting them figure things out and keeping them from killing themselves. With the classes I’ve DM interned, I’m constantly surprised that the students not only survive the training but actually show potential for becoming divers near the end of the class.

Mike

 

[Kev Martin]

wetvet

My tuppence worth.

Congratulations - you were tested in a hostile environment and and came out with a result.

You were shaken and doubts as to your suitability as a rescue diver came to the fore.

Now go and talk to the guy you rescued. Does he have any such doubts as to your capability? Was he unhappy that you were there and decided to intercede? I'll bet he wasn't. I would suggest that, to him, you were really a hero that day.

Some of the earlier threads I read were really food for thought and, as an instructor myself, I love picking up on new ideas.
I think I agree, in principal, to what most people have said. Certainly I think that the overweighting may have played a part in the incident. Certainly the cold and limited visibility.

What would I do differently? Well, firstly don't worry about whether the guys mask is flooded. When you are making a rescue ascent a flooded mask takes a very low priority on the scale of things to do. Secondly, how about the next time you make a descent with students - your buddy and yourself beginning the descent first so that you are underneath the student? This would mean that you have full control over their depth level. You can maintain a close contact to ensure that there are no 'escapes' either up or down. Finally, I noted that another of your divers, Boogie711, had written a report on his final dive with your group on the same day. One thing I did notice was that he was diving with staff who he had not worked with in the pool before. Could this have also been the case with you and your students. Time with them in the pool not only gives you an idea of their diving skills but it also allows you to assess their mental approach to diving also. Bottom line, I always make my DMs work with the students from start of course to qualifying dives.

Remember. It is far easier to treat a casualty on the surface than it is to go and look for a deceased diver on th bottom. You did well and should acknowledge that fact.

Enjoy your holidays. I hope that they are indicent free.

 

[tinman]

Thank you for sharing your experience Wetvet. Your rescue skills are first rate - several good comments already made about additional tactics.

I'm unclear on a few things:

Was this diver also diving in drysuit? If not, staging cert. dives in waters less than 50 oF in wetsuit seems ill advised for OW cert. dives, although I know it is a common practice (my AOW was in 44 oF waters). I just wonder if we will see a lawsuit someday that cites this as another factor to try and demonstrate negligence...

Post dive did you have 100% 02 to provide and if so was it given?

Was the diver urged to seek medical assessment?

A follow-up call made to the diver next day?

As this sounds like it was an organized OW cert dive, I'm wondering about your "near drowning" procedures and what would be consider adequate "duty of care" in this instance. For you and your club/store's protection, I would think that this diver requires a medical assessment if nothing else.

 

[jbd]

during rescues. Boyles law applies here. A partially flooded mask will on ascent force water up the nose and into the pharynx possibly coming into contact with the larynx and causing coughing/choking response or laryngospasm. This may hinder ventilation should you need to do rescue breathing at the surface.

I know when I am the victim for my students during the unconscious diver recovery portion of the class the water goes up my nose and triggers the coughing and choking response if the student failed to check the mask for partial flooding prior to bringing me to the surface.

 

[Kev Martin]

jbd

Right on the money! However, how do you clear the mask of a panicked/unresponsive/unconscious diver?

I still stick with my statement that it is easier to treat whatever ails the casualty on the surface than it is wasting time and subsequently bringing up a deceased diver.

I had the misfortune of finding someone lying at the bottom of a 36metre quarry some time ago and having to bring them up to the surface. Not knowing how long he had been down there I ditched his weightbelt and made a fairly rapid ascent to the surface. Once up top I was able to summon assistance whilst giving in water air ventilations. Luckily, the diver survived and both he and I did not suffer any permanent injury (other than my hair turning grey and subsequently falling out!!)