What's the most dangerous situation you've been in?

[shoredivr]

Finding myself at 110 ft on a cold water wreck (39F below thermocline) that goes down to 155 ft, with an instabuddy on an aluminum 80, wetsuit. Me, twin 100s with drysuit. Instabuddy has a camera. It had taken him about 5 minutes to get down to 70 ft depth, clearing issues, stressed. I ask what his gas pressure is, he blows me off. I snag a look at his SPG, he's at 1000 PSI and intends to go to the stern in 155 to take a photo. I grab his fin as he heads off, pull him back, point at his SPG and thumb the dive. When we surfaced he had 300PSI and the really idiotic part was he was pi$$ed that I stopped him from his trophy photo of the stern. No awareness. He sulked all the way to the next wreck.

The other idiotic part was that he intended to do that dive to the stern again.

 

[TSandM]

Probably the most potentially dangerous situations I've been in have been DMing OW classes, or diving with brand new divers. Being dragged to the surface from 50 feet by someone who has lost buoyancy control in a dry suit is not fun.

I can think of quite a list of dives that involved stress, including being exposed to unexpected powerful current, getting somewhat lost, or having equipment (generally lights or scooters) fail when it wasn't convenient. None of them have been dangerous, simply because we apply dive planning tools that keep the dive within parameters such that we can cope with all those things without being really in any danger.

Danger, to me, is when the environment serves up something you couldn't have predicted and with which you cannot cope. Powerful down or upcurrents fall into that category.

 

[Scott]

Meeting a young womans father at the door at 1:00 am when I said I would have her home at 11:00. :ar15:

Most dangerous diving situation.......see above.

 

[vshearer]

Dive off Roatan in 81. Normal easy dive to around 90' off the wall. Boat dropped me off and I was going to swim back in to shore. Swim in seemed easy until I got close. Gas gone now and surf and coral were pretty severe. Almost drowned getting weights/gear off in 5' of water.

EDIT: This was pre-BC diving, not that that would have necessarily made a difference.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

During a boat dive a really nasty storm blew in unexpectedly. The storm was supposed to arrive hours later. Waves and surge so high it was impossible to get onto the boat. Boat crew threw us a mermaid line with float and told us to hang on so they could tow us somewhere a bit more sheltered. Never did body surfing in full scuba gear before! They managed to drag us around to a bit of shelter where it was possible to get on the boat. Even then the boat was bucking and rolling. Timing it and getting up that ladder was the hardest exit I have ever done!

Next worse was a 45 - 50 minute boat trip back from another dive site. The boat was rocking so bad it felt like we were about to capsize at any moment. There were a fair number of people on the boat who shared later that they were terrified the whole ride back. There were a bunch of us had gone there on a dive trip arranged by our LDS. The next day we refused to go out due to conditions. Had they not gone out due to conditions.. they would have had to refund people's money but since they went out and it was our choice not to go they would not refund. We certainly let them know we felt it was unsafe to go out and the dive conditions would not be worth the risks! We found out later that they had breached their "charter" by going out those days with the conditions and weather predictions. Needless to say we have never dived with that operator again!

Sometimes things happen you can't predict as in the first case but it is unforgivable that when you go on a dive trip you can not trust the Operator you have booked with to read and respond to the conditions appropriately as in the second case.

 

[tstormdiver]

One episode,... in my book the worst, for me was born of my own stupidity & ignorance. Long story short, I followed a buddy into the cave at Vortex Springs, with no overhead environment training. We went down to the grate & back,... whe we got back to the entrance, it had turned dark outside & we couldn't find our way out. We swam back & forth for quite a while trying to find the exit (we were for the most part in open water, but we didn't know it). My buddy figured it out & abandoned me. It took me several minutes later to figure things out & I made my way out,... but was critically low on air. My brush with becoming another statistic & a well deserved butt chewing from my instructor (also a cave instructor), woke me up to the importance of proper training.

The other episode was last year in the Galapgos. I was the only diver in our group wearing a drysuit. We were on 1 dive with VERY strong currents. My drysuit caught an up current like a sail. It took me from about 70 ft to 40 ft in no time, before I was able to latch onto a rock. I tried with all the strength I had to get back down to my group & buddy, to no avail, until a rock I grabbed broke off & the up current sent me to the surface in only a few seconds. It was "blow & go",..... I had absolutely no control. I came up next to a sheer cliff with waves pounding against it & decided it was not a good place to be, so I then swam away from the island in 12 ft seas, until I could signal the Panga driver & then waited for him to pick me up. There were no ill effects from my rapid ascent (thank goodness) & I enjoyed the rest of the trip & will always remember that "E ticket ride".

 

[Hoomi]

Most dangerous situation I've encountered since learning to dive, has been the drive to a dive site. I'm not sure the ocean can throw anything much more dangerous at me, than a freeway loaded with a bunch of distracted drivers in control of a ton to two tons of high-speed rolling mass. Hungry sharks or even Humboldt squid are less dangerous than an idiot trying to light a cigarette, talk on their cell phone, and juggle their coffee cup, all while speeding along at 75+ on the road.

 

[drbill]

A third dive, planned to a depth of only 40 ft so I didn't mount my pony bottle. Ended up following a bat ray down to 80 ft when my tank valve stopped delivering air after I had exhaled. CESA from about 75 ft (instinctively began ascent when I couldn't breath). Turned out the debris (dip) tube on the valve had clogged with a particle, stopping ALL air flow out of the tank.

 

[spectrum]

Well, there was the time were doing a shore dive. The beach was adjacent to a jetty, then a river channel. We headed out along the side of the cove away from the jetty as planned. On the return leg were traded navigation back and forth and got a little sloppy. Being novices, the unfamiliar bottom didn't tip us off. Anyhow, about the time we expected to be transitioning to the shore zone a big boat thunders overhead while were in 15 feet of water. I suddenly realized that we had taken the cove wide and got past the jetty and were in the river channel. A hard right hand turn quickly got us to the jetty wall where we surfaced away from traffic. There the ebb tide current was such that we could not get back out to the beach. We chose to do a drift upstream to where we could exit and then haul the great back up piecemeal.

A combination of natural and compass navigation beats one or the other alone, especially in current.

Pete

 

[Tortuga68]

I dared to suggest that Jill Heinerth should combine her threads