Rescue Diver True Stories

[dumpsterDiver]

One day in a popular spring in Florida, I was practicing my ditch and don of scuba gear from a depth of around 60-65 feet or so. There were a lot of students around with instructors etc. The sides of the spring were pretty much straight vertical, with some natural little ledges and overhangs, but pretty much vertical.

Anyway, as I recall, I had just removed my tank and dropped it to the bottom and was preparing to begin my slow ascent when I look over at this large fellow scuba diving. He was beginning to rise up, was somewhat separated from his group and he was looking forward, staring blankly right at me and hammering on his inflator.

It was clear to me that he was not aware of what was going on and was pressing the up button when he most likely intended to press the down button on the BC. In just a few moments, he was starting a fast ascent, but he just kept looking straight ahead and holding the inflator. Bubbles were starting to vent from the OP valve, and I could hear the inflator blowing.

He was VERY close to the wall and as I swam the few feet over to him, I looked up and could see that he was going to absolutely split the back of his head open in a few seconds since his current trajectory was on a collision course with a small overhang. I shot over to him super fast, grabbed his BC with both hands, laid on my back, straddled his ample waist with my legs and kicked like hell pulling him horizontally as he had both of us shooting up pretty fast.

I pulled him away from the edge of the rock wall in a few moments, and decided that I might as well ride him to surface and hope that he doesn’t embolize. I maintained my horizontal, face up position and rode him to the surface as I tried to present the most surface area and drag. The whole time he just kept staring forward and never released the inflate button! He never seemed to make eye contact with me or even ”see” me.

It was pretty amazing! I released him when we got to the surface.. I knew he was not going anywhere with the BC so full and he seemed to snap out of it and was kinda bewildered, but no bloody froth

A frightened instructor/DM? showed up within about 45 seconds and he looked more scared than the student!

 

[EastEndDiver]

Probably the most extreme situation I've had in 39 years was 3 weeks ago. During a training dive with a single open water student, I had him going through his demos.
Three advanced divers were about 15-20ft away and I was watching them over my student's shoulder. We were all neutral at about 25' in 150' of water.

One of the three ascended leaving the other two. One of the two handed the other 2 weights and turned his back to the one holding the weights.

The one holding the weights began a descent unseen by the other. I turned to my student and pointed to the surface and gave him the go sign.

I turned and began swimming hard after the descending diver. I saw her drop the weights and grab her Air3 as she still descended. As I swam down after her, I saw air bubbles coming out of her up raised left hand.

Damn, she dumping instead of inflating, I thought, as she continued down. Now panicked, she frayed knocking her mask askew flooding it, just as I caught her, at 112'.

As I took her arm, I saw her choking, her eyes roll back and she split out her reg. I inflated my BcD some and put my alt air in her mouth and kicked hard for the surface.

Little fast coming up but could hold her and dump.

At the surface we were just a few feet from the floating dock and I called for help.

I pushed her, as two others lifted, she was out but when she hit the dock, she came to and began puking and coughing out water. I called for EMS and gave her O2 as we waited for them to arrive.

No 2nd dive that day.

Just a question..If I am reading your post correctly..not knowing the area....why was an OW student in an area where the bottom was 150' and were the "advanced" divers attempting a 150' dive?

 

[Darnold9999]

Did my OW many years ago and it had a significant rescue componant. Later - 25 years later - I did the PADI rescue course. While very little was new, it was still a great course. It probably would not hurt anyone to take it multiple times - every 5 years or so. A CPR refresher is a good thing (and standard practice changes over the years), practicing in water retrieval is a good thing, practicing a search pattern is a good thing. Very few of us do these things outside of a course.

 

[Islandheart]

Eastendiver, you are not reading the post correctly. Adv dive students don't make 150' dives. Not everyone who dives goes to the bottom.

There's also no limit to the depth of water that a student, any student can be in.

Specifically this location has mesh demo stands hanging under the floating dock at various levels of 20, 50 and 70'.

 

[EastEndDiver]

That makes more sense than what I read.

 

[AdvancedAquarist]

I'm kind of like you with only about 20 dives. But I'm only 15 years old though. I don't have a rescue diver certification but I am a lifeguard so surface rescues are fairly straight forward for me. The only time I've had to use my skills is when I was helping out my instructor with some things (just standing by keeping an eye on things) we were at about 40 feet and two of the younger students (maybe 12 or 13) started making a rapid ascent by themselves (your typical panicked diver). I ended up catching up with them before the rose beyond 5 feet above me and dragged them back down by the ankles before making a regular controlled ascent.

 

[TSandM]

I think the biggest thing Rescue does is make you think about how to avoid needing one. Rescue makes you more aware of safety considerations for all your diving, and it may be the first time since OW that most people have practiced things like air-sharing ascents. I don't think Rescue should have a high dive count prerequisite, because being prudent and aware is something that doesn't start at 50 or 100 dives.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

I'm kind of like you with only about 20 dives. But I'm only 15 years old though. I don't have a rescue diver certification but I am a lifeguard so surface rescues are fairly straight forward for me. The only time I've had to use my skills is when I was helping out my instructor with some things (just standing by keeping an eye on things) we were at about 40 feet and two of the younger students (maybe 12 or 13) started making a rapid ascent by themselves (your typical panicked diver). I ended up catching up with them before the rose beyond 5 feet above me and dragged them back down by the ankles before making a regular controlled ascent.

@AdvancedAquarist: In my book, rising 5 ft. up in the water column hardly qualifies as a rapid ascent, but I wasn't present during the incident.

How certain were you that the students making the rapid ascent were not doing so on account of a gear or medical issue? Something to think about...

Divers who lack the training and/or experience to assess risk and respond thoughtfully to a perceived UW emergency situation probably shouldn't be preventing another diver from heading for the surface. I hope that your instructor discussed the pros and cons of your actions during the post-dive debrief.

I do think it's great that you noticed other divers were having a potential issue. Was your buddy helping you when you responded to the incident?