Your reaction to this emergency situation.

You are just starting your dive and as you start descending, the view is so amazing you make the mistake of losing awareness of your buddy.

You're on an almost vertical wall, warm caribbean waters, and the dive plan is starting at 100ft and slowly going up from there to 33ft where you should reach a sandy flat. Recreational dive, single bottle, air.

You have the equipment and knowledge (max depth, current direction per depth, etc) you and your usual buddy would usually have in such a recreational dive.


Now, before you reach the planned 100ft, at 66ft, you turn around and your buddy isn't there. You then seem him rapidly going down, apparently unconscious and at an approximate depth between 70~90ft.

What would be your reaction/plan?

I would be straight after them. I know I have enough air because it's at the very beginning of the dive, and if I see them at 90' while I'm at 66' I would hope to get there before they got out of reach.

From my keyboard I would probably not go past 150' but if it were my wife I'm not sure.

Once I had them I would inflate their BCD to stop our descent, hold the reg in their mouth, with their head tipped back, and try and surface at a controlled rate. Forgoing the safety stop.

I'm not rescue certified so this may be wrong...?

Since I usually am diving on air (exactly for this specific reason), I would go after him.

If I was using nitrox, it would depend on how deep they get by the time I get to them~ or if they snore at night or not.

Have to agree with ferris - I have had rescue training, but wouldn't call myself hugely exprienced. If I had planned to go to 100 foot anyway I would be straight after my buddy to at least that depth. If I hadn't caught up with them before that it would then depend on how deep the bottom went and how quickly they were decending, and if I felt I could catch them before we reached an unsafe depth.

I would be prepared to go to 150' but would not be happy to go deeper, remember if you are not equiped or experienced for it you are only likely to turn one unfortunate casualty into two.

My wife doesn't dive, but I can fully understand that if she did I might well be tempted to take a risk, but really you have to set a limit and stick to it.

As for action when you reach them it depends if they still have regulator in, are conscious and beathing or not, or just having bouyancy problems. But yes - basically a controlled bouyant ascent, straight to surface, and assuming that this was a first dive and not a subsequent dive I would not be too concerned about DCI because theoretically nitrogen levels should not have built up too much except in fast tissue groups which shoud also release them quickly, but I would be concerned to minimise risk of pulmonary barotrauma. Best Phil

Catch them, stop their descent Conduct an immediate ascent (18m/60ft per min) with no stop. If regulator is in, keep it in. If out, forget it. Support their head, keeping their airway open/head horizontal. Use their BCD for buoyancy if it worked, if not, use mine. On the surface, raise alarm. Check breathing. Get them out of the water as quickly as possible, providing rescue breaths if the situation dictates that (as per rescue course).

I wouldn't hesitate to go deeper to collect them.
I wouldn't hesitate to ascend at a max safe speed - DCS can be mended, dead cannot.

I'd go after them and hopefully catch up b4 150ft, after that, I'm not sure, it would depend how close I got to them at that point.

When I started the rescue course I had 2 questions. The OP outlines #1. #2 was (having read the manual 3 times prior to class beginning) do I REALLLLLLLY observe a safety stop if I'm trying to ascend from 90' with my unconscious wife in my arms?!?!

DevonDiver:

Catch them, stop their descent Conduct an immediate ascent (18m/60ft per min) with no stop. If regulator is in, keep it in. If out, forget it. Support their head, keeping their airway open/head horizontal. Use their BCD for buoyancy if it worked, if not, use mine. On the surface, raise alarm. Check breathing. Get them out of the water as quickly as possible, providing rescue breaths if the situation dictates that (as per rescue course).

I wouldn't hesitate to go deeper to collect them.
I wouldn't hesitate to ascend at a max safe speed - DCS can be mended, dead cannot.

Click to expand...

My instructor cited 170' as really the absolute max depth on air. Sure, you could probably push that, but the possibility of becoming really narc'd and therefore a 2nd victim is exponentially greater.

Devon, what would you say for max depth in this case?

DevonDiver:

Catch them, stop their descent Conduct an immediate ascent (18m/60ft per min) with no stop. If regulator is in, keep it in. If out, forget it. Support their head, keeping their airway open/head horizontal. Use their BCD for buoyancy if it worked, if not, use mine. On the surface, raise alarm. Check breathing. Get them out of the water as quickly as possible, providing rescue breaths if the situation dictates that (as per rescue course).

I wouldn't hesitate to go deeper to collect them.
I wouldn't hesitate to ascend at a max safe speed - DCS can be mended, dead cannot.

Click to expand...

+1. This is exactly what I would have said.

Hard to add much to the above. You are at the beginning of the dive, with enough air, and no reason you can not go to @150 ft without risking becoming a second victim yourself.

also, as stated above, we are all sitting safely at our computers right now.

In real life, you will have to play with the cards you have been dealt, AT THAT MOMENT, and use your head. If you face this situation you will have a lot to think about and evaluate before or as you make you first move.