Santa Barbra Island trip incident

[crestgel]

This happen to my wife a friend and I. We examined this many times in hope of learning from it. I would like to share it here for further discussion.

It was a LDS 1 day 3 dive trip to Santa Barbra Island. Our first time diving with Sea Lions, very excited at the prospects. We try to hit the gate early so that when we get back we have more room to take our gear off.

The first dive went well. Sea Lions everywhere. Just beautiful.

On the second dive 2 other divers joined us. We have never dive together before. We know each other from other trips. We were the second group at the gate. My wife and the 2 other divers went in first. At the gate our friend had a equipment issue which took a couple of minutes to fix, I was helping.

When I looked up afterwards I notice that our group had drifted pretty far away. Maybe 50 feet. Surface current I thought to myself. Not thinking too much about it I ready myself to enter the water.

Vis was great, I could see straight to the bottom. We regroup for a descent to the bottom. We are now further away then before. We descanted and to my surprise it was not a surface current. The bottom was about 50 feet and the current was strong the entire way down.

We could not maintain our position in the current by kicking. Once we hit bottom we started to crawl back to the boat. It was quite a workout. I had never sucked air so hard underwater. Half way back my wife runs low on air first. Decision #1 we went up with little concern of accent rates no safety stop. I pointed to the drift line once we got about 15 feet. I waited till I saw her catch the drift line. Decision #2 For some reason I felt an obligation to make sure that everyone was going to be okay. I went back down to the group. Once there, a quick checked on my gauge and RED. I’m in the RED. I had to leave them.

I went up fast blew my safety stop and grab the drift line. I pulled myself up the line to my wife who was scared and exhausted. We were about 75-100 feet from the boat. She keeps telling me she could not hold on any longer. I grab her by her BC raised her head above water by placing my body under hers and waved for help. The DM jumped in and helped her back to the boat.

I’m holding onto the line trying to catch my breathe slowly pulling myself back when the DM came back for me.

No body made it to the anchor line. We all ran low on air and had to asscent. Between the DM and a rescue diver. 4 other people had to be pulled in and a few more were pulled in when we pulled in the drfit line.

I made some real dumb decisions. But at the time, in the water I felt the obligation.

 

[Nay]

Off the channel islands we dive in currents all the time. Do you feel like you made a mistake going back down to check on people? Did you suffer any ill effects other than exhaustion? I can understand blowing off the safety stop too because you would have just been carried off with the current.
It sounds like you weren't at more than 50' and not for very long so nitrogen loading probably wouldn't have been that much of an issue. C02 buildup might have been a consideration from breathing so hard and so long as you didn't hold your breath ascending, you were probably mostly safe from lung overexpansion.
I can understand how harrowing something like that can be though. And it's no big deal that you had to be assisted in. It happens to everyone.

 

[crestgel]

Back on the boat I felt that I should have went up with my wife. But at 15 feet I thought she was the safest of the group at the time. That is why I went back down. I knew that diving up and down as a no no, but did it anyways. Their safety first I guess. Most of the divers had headaches after this dive.

 

[Stirling]

In any kind of serious activity, when something works out especially well or something goes wrong, I think it's a good idea to think about what happened and why it turned out the way it did. I hope you don't mind if I speak plainly.

Wanting to help others is admirable, but you have to be honest and clear with yourself about what you can do and what you can't do, and not make bad decisions based upon vague feelings about wanting to help out. In this case, I am left wondering what *exactly* you thought you might be doing to help the others in the group when you returned to the bottom. Was there some reason why you thought they could not help themselves at least as effectively as you could help them, and - even if they couldn't - how exactly did you propose to help by rejoining them?

Especially if you were already experiencing difficulty with the current yourself, you have to ask yourself what you could have done to help somebody else in trouble in that situation. You might have been in a better position to help them from the surface by calling the DM's attention to their problem instead of returning to the bottom with them.

In any case, you have to maintain your own situational awareness so that - if you are going to help somebody else - you go about it the right way. Your wife ascended because she was low on air, and you knew that you had been strenuously exerting yourself in the water before you ascended with her. But then you returned to the bottom without realizing until you got there how little air you had remaining. The fact that you didn't realize how little air you had left suggests that the stress of your own exertion, of concern for your wife, and of seeing other people (potentially) in trouble overloaded your situational awareness and compromised your ability to make better decisions.

On the "prevention" side, I am surprised that so many people ended up in the water without properly assessing the currents and their ability to dive in those conditions. Was the second dive at the same location as the first?

 

[crestgel]

I hear you loud and clear.

The second dive was at a diffrent location.

 

[Taipeidiver]

I am really glad that everything worked out okay.

I know what you mean about feeling obligated to your buddies, especially if they are friends.

Most agencies teach that you should not place yourself at risk in order to effect a rescue. This is in case you yourself become a victim, increasing the burden on remaining rescuers and/or the EMS.

In real emergencies, and in perceived ones too, it is easy to forget this principle; most of us would probably do whatever we could to help and, with adrenalin pumping, might not consider the potential risks to ourselves.

This is not meant as criticism, and your loyalty to your fellow divers does you great credit, but over-exertion, see-saw profiles and running low on gas all have potentially lethal effects.

 

[LuvsItWet]

I am really glad that everything worked out okay.

I know what you mean about feeling obligated to your buddies, especially if they are friends.

Most agencies teach that you should not place yourself at risk in order to effect a rescue. This is in case you yourself become a victim, increasing the burden on remaining rescuers and/or the EMS.

In real emergencies, and in perceived ones too, it is easy to forget this principle; most of us would probably do whatever we could to help and, with adrenalin pumping, might not consider the potential risks to ourselves.

This is not meant as criticism, and your loyalty to your fellow divers does you great credit, but over-exertion, see-saw profiles and running low on gas all have potentially lethal effects.

I totally agree! As a rescue diver, the one thing they hammered home was NEVER put yourself at risk while trying to help someone else.

 

[crestgel]

we are taking that class soon

 

[Tollie]

I’m glad everyone made it back ok. Others touched on the underwater issues and I’d like to make a few points about the activities on the surface. Once your wife was on the line and on the surface did she inflate her bc. What would cause her to have her head go under? Did you inflate your bc? Even if you were low/out of air you could have orally inflated. If bc’s were inflated and your wife was still having trouble at the surface she could have dropped her weights after checking below her.

Strong currents and currents that come and go during the course of a dive can be real problems and are a fact of diving on some sites. If you had been blown clear of the boat did you have a surface marker or some other signaling device to attract the attention of the boat crew? On ocean dives these devices are mandatory IMO. They also can be used as supplementary flotation. Thanks for posting it reminds us all how quickly and unexpectedly things can go wrong.

 

[scubapolly]

On the second dive 2 other divers joined us. We have never dive together before. We know each other from other trips. We were the second group at the gate. My wife and the 2 other divers went in first. At the gate our friend had a equipment issue which took a couple of minutes to fix, I was helping.

When I looked up afterwards I notice that our group had drifted pretty far away. Maybe 50 feet. Surface current I thought to myself. Not thinking too much about it I ready myself to enter the water.

Vis was great, I could see straight to the bottom. We regroup for a descent to the bottom. We are now further away then before. We descanted and to my surprise it was not a surface current. The bottom was about 50 feet and the current was strong the entire way down.

We could not maintain our position in the current by kicking. Once we hit bottom we started to crawl back to the boat. It was quite a workout. I had never sucked air so hard underwater. Half way back my wife runs low on air first. Decision #1 we went up with little concern of accent rates no safety stop. I pointed to the drift line once we got about 15 feet. I waited till I saw her catch the drift line. Decision #2 For some reason I felt an obligation to make sure that everyone was going to be okay. I went back down to the group. Once there, a quick checked on my gauge and RED. I’m in the RED. I had to leave them.

I went up fast blew my safety stop and grab the drift line. I pulled myself up the line to my wife who was scared and exhausted. We were about 75-100 feet from the boat. She keeps telling me she could not hold on any longer. I grab her by her BC raised her head above water by placing my body under hers and waved for help. The DM jumped in and helped her back to the boat.

I’m holding onto the line trying to catch my breathe slowly pulling myself back when the DM came back for me.

No body made it to the anchor line. We all ran low on air and had to asscent. Between the DM and a rescue diver. 4 other people had to be pulled in and a few more were pulled in when we pulled in the drfit line.

I made some real dumb decisions. But at the time, in the water I felt the obligation.

I will appoligize in advance for not surgar coating this one. I am glad you guys made it through this one, you might not be so lucky next time.
1. You were diving in a group of 5 according to your story. It is fine to travel in a group on a dive, but you need to establish buddy teams within the group prior to the dive. In this case 2 + 3, based on the prior relationships I would assume this was done and your wife, your friend and you were a truddy, and the 2 add ons were a buddy team. However in the story you say your wife went in with 2 other divers while you helped a third with a gear issue....

2. You should never drift 50 feet (or more) away from the boat prior to the descent. This is the reason boats put in drift lines, have anchor lines or moring lines, etc. This should have been mentioned during the dive breifing, and you mention later in your story that there was infact a drift line in the water. In a current this strong a boat captain would have certainly noticed this and a decent divemaster would have informed you for sure. If these things weren't done, then I would think twice before diving with this op again.

3. In such a strong current it isn't advised to do a free decent, unless it is a drift dive, you should have went to the front of the boat and descended down the anchor line.

4. Your wife ran low on air and you "went up with little concern for assent rates."
-first check your air frequently, when you working against a strong current, you should monitor it even more closely.
-the first option in a low on air situation is to make a normal assent, In such a strong current, it was probably a wise decission to blow off the safety stop, but you should not ignore the assent rates. Assent rates are only ignored in ESAs and EBAs.

5. Your wife ran low on air, this should have been a clue to you that you might be low on air as well, and this should have been checked before you ever went down again. You should have not felt obligated to check on the other divers. if you were diving close enough to each other, they would have been aware of the situation with your wife, and thus checking their gauges and possibly beginning their assent or continue to try to make progress to the anchor. Your responsibility is to your dive buddy, who you just abandoned so low on air that you felt it necessary to make a rapid assent, and in a strong current. You already mentioned that the vis was great, and that you could see all the way to the bottom. Attend to YOUR buddy, look down at the rest of the group, if they seem O.K. Great, if not, holler for the DM or a rescue diver. Instead you started a decent, without checking your gauge, and had to make another rapid assent- putting yourself in even greater jeopardy for DCS.

When you take the rescue class- pay particular attention to the sections on self rescue, when to act, and avoiding incidents.

Again sorry for the tone of this, but I have seen similar situations go bad way to often.