What would you have done?

On one of the nice dives in warm sunny Maldives I was wandering around with my buddy when suddenly out of the blue (almost literally) comes this newly certified Open Water, on his third dive after certification looking lost and alone.

No dive slate (I swear I'm going to buy one), but we understood that he didn't know where his buddy was, so we indicated he should finish the dive with us (we were well inside OW limits).

I started keeping an eye on him, thinking in particular about his air consumption and I was right to do so, as suddenly he signaled 50 bars.

So we start our slow ascent, I was going up looking straight into his eyes should the need arise to give him my octopus.

Before we reached the safety stop he signals "out of air", so here comes my octopus, we do the stop regularly and come up, only to discover that he still had 30 bars in the tank.

I don't mind helping, but I was a paying customer, and the official dive guide saw everything and didn't intervene :upset:

Once back on the boat we discovered that the original buddy had left this guy alone when the last was forced to go back to the boat to get some extra weight and never waited for him.

He defended himself by saying he didn't feel up to dive with a fresh new diver

Why couldn't he say so in the first place and most importantly before getting into the water?

Unfortunately....there's not a whole lot to do in that case....The only thing I could think of would be to look for the lost buddy (if you knew he was lost). Why the DM or someone else didn't intervene is beyond me, they're supposed to be the responsible ones.

Something similar happened to me one time at Gilboa....we were doing a group night dive, crossed another group, and soon I was counting one more than I was before. I just figured I was counting myself now when I wasn't before. No one signalled something was wrong, so I ASS-U-MED that everything was fine except for me. Well, 15 minutes later we surfaced b/c someone was low on air...and the addition figures out quickly that we're not his dive group. So Brian (my regular buddy) and I start searching for the group....they're not in the water, they're not on the dock....they're packing their truck up and 5 minutes away from pulling out of the quarry and leaving the guy.....they had no idea he was lost.....

I would have had him ascend and look for his buddy on the surface. If his buddy did not follow protocl and surface too (after a breif search) too bad, this guy's dive is over. That's the price you pay for losing your buddy, better to learn the lesson by missing some of a dive then by losing your life later in your career.

Dving with tourist divers sounds like fun

Isn't the standard to look for your buddy for 1 minute and then surface? They BOTH should have done that and then met up at the surface...this would have prevented the whole CF that then resulted in an OOA.

MASS-Diver is right...he should have known this...ESPECIALLY after just coming out of training. This diver was obviously VERY poorly trained to lose his buddy and then have a quasi-OOA on the same dive.

While it ended up that his buddy was a looser, the fact that he didn't know where his buddy ment that his buddy was alone...

No good reason to group up and have him continue his dive unless you knew specifically that his original buddy was in another 3 person team somewhere. Not to mention the dynamics of a 3 person team are complecated to a point that extra dive planning would be necessary, and definately not safe without a slate to communicate the 3-in-a-group dive plan.

a new one........The older for bailing on his buddy no matter what the excuse and the newb ie for not going with his buddy.
The newbie should remember (couldn't have been that long ago) that he should look 1 min for his buddy than surface and return to the dive boat to report his lost buddy.......... :bonk:

Butch103 once bubbled...
a new one........

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A new what Butch?

I would have led the lone diver over to the DM and left him there. Once he was no longer alone I would resume my dive and let
the crew worry about it from there.

We have picked up extras many times in places like Gilboa some have even been students. This has happened most often on night dives. The last time the divers group never even realized he was gone. Also I have never even been thanked by an instructor after looking after his student. They don't seem to see a problem with loosing students I guess.

Gilboa is a little bit scary if you're up there at the wrong time...which is highly unfortunate b/c mike williams (although a bit loopy at times) is a decent owner and has done a ton of work to make that into a wonderful diving facilkity in Ohio of all places....

Anyway...I look forward to running into you again up there...hearing stories about your flying lessons and what not...quite amusing...one day I'll get a dry-suit...some day

Big-t-2538 once bubbled...
Gilboa is a little bit scary if you're up there at the wrong time...which is highly unfortunate b/c mike williams (although a bit loopy at times) is a decent owner and has done a ton of work to make that into a wonderful diving facilkity in Ohio of all places....

Anyway...I look forward to running into you again up there...hearing stories about your flying lessons and what not...quite amusing...one day I'll get a dry-suit...some day

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A dry suit is a must. The best diving around here is in the off season when you can dive in peace and clear. I keep trying to match schedules with the KPP but it aint easy. We did a nice dive with CWB a couple weeks ago.