Excuse me, have you seen my finger ?

Went on my first hard boat dive with the club today, 15 minutes into the dive, we received the emergency signal to come up!
On the way to the dive site the engine kept failing and various divers kept trying to fix it, anyway whilst I was diving, this guy had his fingers in the engine and another diver decided to turn the enging over, ouch where has my finger gone. Needless to say diving was cancelled and a trip to the hospital for Mr seven fingers .
Apparently another member lost a finger on the diving ladder not so long ago, and the guy I was diving with last weekend also had a missing digit !!!!!
hmmmm is this common with diving, should I get my fingers insured ?????
Will it grow back eventually, like with crabs ?

This is why you disconnect the battery before working on any engine!
This is a hard way to learn this lesson.

We had a similar incident this year on our boat. 2 divers kitted up ready to roll in, boat was chugging slowly to the shot line to drop them.
Due to some confusion one of the divers mistook something for the "clear" signal and rolled in. The boat was doing 1-2kts and the engine still running *in gear*.

The result was he met the prop - sharply.

However he was incredibly lucky in that his dry suit and undersuit had been sliced open but his leg was "only" badly bruised with a small cut (5 days later it was swollen from knee up and purple) and 3 knuckles had had the skin removed but fingers all OK.

Everyone looking overboard was dreading the damage when we got him out of the water - the sound alone was horrific.

At the end of the day he was lucky - yes his dry suit was destroyed, undersuit the same BUT he still owns all his limbs.

Our standard practice when dropping off or picking up divers is boat in neutral AND engine off - obviously a breakdown in communication caused problems here.

Whenever we get asked to clear rope off a prop or something with a boat not only do we insist the engine is off we actually insist they hand the keys to one of our group.

As for the fingers - if anyone says "can you give me a hand with this engine...." politely decline

SOUTH DEVON once bubbled... Went on my first hard boat dive with the club today, 15 minutes into the dive, we received the emergency signal to come up!
On the way to the dive site the engine kept failing and various divers kept trying to fix it, anyway whilst I was diving, this guy had his fingers in the engine and another diver decided to turn the enging over, ouch where has my finger gone. Needless to say diving was cancelled and a trip to the hospital for Mr seven fingers .
Apparently another member lost a finger on the diving ladder not so long ago, and the guy I was diving with last weekend also had a missing digit !!!!!
hmmmm is this common with diving, should I get my fingers insured ?????
Will it grow back eventually, like with crabs ?

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It isn't common.

I'd go for a different diving outfit beore I went for insurance.

It won't grow back.

Damn...sounds like you're hanging out with sheetmetal workers.

mech once bubbled... Damn...sounds like you're hanging out with sheetmetal workers.

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...or meatcutters.

pt40fathoms once bubbled...
This is why you disconnect the battery before working on any engine!
This is a hard way to learn this lesson.

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More at fault is the idiot who started the engine, he would definitely not be on my Christmas card list. When working on my boat's engine, I always make sure I'm in posession of the keys, even if no one else is around.

sounds like yo umay be diving with the wrong group of people :boom:

Time to switch dive groups. Thats a hard way to learn lessons. Was the fingers able to be reattached?

Jambi

EliteDetail once bubbled...
sounds like yo umay be diving with the wrong group of people :boom:

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And I replied...: He just might be,, On a different note, being the nosey type, I looked up your profile and gandered at your pic, tell me, why is your mask sitting ON your head?