Buddy system question

How many of you have been saved by your buddy, or rescued your buddy?

I know all the education organizations strongly advocate always diving with a buddy, but how many of you have had it be critical? Who has had to share air? Who has come across a solo diver in trouble and rescued them?

This is not meant to rip on the buddy system, but to see how much it actually makes diving safer. In theory, the buddy system sounds great. Let's see the evidence.

Let's see the evidence of the buddy system in action.

DivingCRNA:

How many of you have been saved by your buddy, or rescued your buddy?

I know all the education organizations strongly advocate always diving with a buddy, but how many of you have had it be critical? Who has had to share air? Who has come across a solo diver in trouble and rescued them?

This is not meant to rip on the buddy system, but to see how much it actually makes diving safer. In theory, the buddy system sounds great. Let's see the evidence.

Let's see the evidence of the buddy system in action.

Click to expand...

I've had buddies cut me out of monofilament line on at least 3 occasions. I don't think I was in any real danger but I didn't have to find out. I have also freed myself from monofilament a couple times while solo diving.

DivingCRNA:

How many of you have been saved by your buddy, or rescued your buddy?

I know all the education organizations strongly advocate always diving with a buddy, but how many of you have had it be critical? Who has had to share air? Who has come across a solo diver in trouble and rescued them?

This is not meant to rip on the buddy system, but to see how much it actually makes diving safer. In theory, the buddy system sounds great. Let's see the evidence.

Let's see the evidence of the buddy system in action.

Click to expand...

I recently rescued my wife while wreck diving up here in Michigan. In this case she would have died if she hadn't been following closely enough that I was able to see she was in trouble and be able to react to it in time.

Bob

DivingCRNA:

How many of you have been saved by your buddy, or rescued your buddy?

I know all the education organizations strongly advocate always diving with a buddy, but how many of you have had it be critical? Who has had to share air? Who has come across a solo diver in trouble and rescued them?

This is not meant to rip on the buddy system, but to see how much it actually makes diving safer. In theory, the buddy system sounds great. Let's see the evidence.

Let's see the evidence of the buddy system in action.

Click to expand...

I have never saved anyone, nor been saved in over 200 dives. Just finished the Rescue course though. They shared some interesting statistics. The experience level for the most injuries/deaths is for divers with less than 1 year of experience. That does not seem surprising. But the group with the second largest number of injuries/deaths is for divers with over 10 years experience. It appears that after a while we forget procedures or get complacent.

There is one case where I would say I really rescued someone. It was a stranger I got buddied up with on a dive boat. He dropped his weightbelt at 100 ft and found himself suddenly on an out of control buoyant ascent. I was able to grab him, dump his BC and drag him down to the wreck where he could hang on while we retrieved his weightbelt. I saw him at the boat again the next day with his girlfriend, who hadn't been with him before and he introduced me as "the guy who saved my life."

But aside from dramatic "rescues" don't discount the value of simple "assists" from a buddy. A good buddy can often help prevent a problem from getting to the point where a rescue is necessary. Just recently I was diving a wreck and my buddy got tangled in some fishing line. I helped him cut free. He could have cut free on his own, but I am sure he was glad he didn't have to.

DivingCRNA:

How many of you have been saved by your buddy, or rescued your buddy?...

Click to expand...

Both, simultaneously. Three divers were being swept out the mouth of a harbor by a tidal current, on a real dark night on an island in the South Pacific. One diver developed extremely painful leg cramps, nausea, and vomiting trying to swim upstream against the current. The second diver knew that the only thing that would prevent all three being swept out into the open ocean was getting back to the boat where it was anchored. This diver doffed his gear, dropped his weights, and began swimming against the tide in only wetsuit, mask, fins, and snorkel. The third diver snapped buddy lines to carabiners connecting both remaining divers and the second diver's rig. He then started a rescue strobe going and got the stricken diver in a rescue/push position and began kicking against the current to try to hold their position. After much longer than anyone wanted, the second diver came motoring in the boat and saw the strobe and the swinging lights of the other two divers....alls well that ends well. I was the third diver. It was a powerful lesson in team dynamics and the benefit of having three divers available when events go suddenly south (esp. if one of the three goes down - one can deal with the casualty while the other goes for help). I still prefer to dive in teams of three to this day.

I'm a big believer in team diving with other team-mates. I'm not necessarily a huge believer in the 'buddy system', if this is defined as some unknown "insta-buddy" you are paired with on a boat. A good buddy you dive with often can be a tremendous asset and can increase your safety and enjoyment many times over.

A bad buddy can kill you.

It all depends on what you mean when you say the word "buddy".

I've "rescued" one buddy. He was in trouble and in full blown panic mode on the surface and I swam over and inflated his bc, talked him down and towed him to shore. I have also peformed one rescue of a total stranger in Hawaii. It was woman who surface, didn't inflate her bc in rough seas and was swallowing water through her snorkel. I swam over to her, got her bouyant, locked my legs around her tank and towed her back to her boat. I've assisted more freaked out students than I care to count over the years as well.

I've been the freaked out diver on the surface once. It turned out my wetsuit was too tight and the difficulty in breathing and the distance to the shore (post-dive, on the surface swim) just caused rising anxiety. Buddy helped talk me down. It's amazing how you can talk yourself into those things...

I've also handed a reg to a very low on air buddy at depth (around 100') and got him to the surface.

We kind of focus on the dire emergency as the value of a buddy but, I think it's also important to point out the little things your buddy catches that prevent the big problems from happening as value added. Things like noticing an octo free-flowing in its holder, assisting with a loose weight belt, a tank slipping in its harness, or the occasional catching your bud with the gas off before they leap in.

How about lack of buddy?
A friend and I just finished up a night dive at Ginnie springs. As we were exiting
the water a couple of divers were going in. As we were breaking down our equipment
we heard a tank o ring blow; a huge mist of water was blowing out of the spring.
We ran back down to find 1 diver at the surface and her buddy no where to be
seen, he was already in the cavern. We jumped in, got her buoyant and turned off
her air. In-experience almost killed her, her buddy was not there to save her and if
we had not been there, who knows? BTW, her buddy surfaced about 5 minutes later,
wondering where she went!