DIRF Trip Report

[tombiowami]

One item to add about the guy quitting, MHK really honed in on the lack of buddy skills around that event. This was by far the most critical he, or any of them were the entire class. It was not mean spirited or anything of the sort, kind of like the concerned grandparent. The details around the event were that the student got cramped and was having a very hard time with his
doubles/buoyancy/trim. There was no real help given by his buddies at that time. (all in color video
for all to see) The guy thumbed the dive to one of his two buddies (3 man team) and surfaced.

The second buddy did not tell the 3 what happened or offer to call the dive in general. The buddy team was 2 instructors and a tech oriented student who have dove together frequently.

Extending that action to the rest of us, I don't think anyone really talked to him after the dive to find
out what really happened and if there was any help we could offer. I just had a Rescue class in
which we talked about how to help anxious divers. I know if someone is anxious I need to sit down and discuss what is causing the anxiety and see if it is real or imagined and if there is any help I can offer to alleviate it. We just kind of let him go.

Observations- For the buddy team their meager, non defensive, reply was that they had dove with the guy so much that they assumed he knew what he was doing and was alright. They understood the error of their ways with no problem. I noticed a
common thread in this and other dives I have been on in which the more one knows someone or
thinks they are a good diver the less attention is paid to them. In separations there may be less attempt to
find them "because they know what they are doing". Since this was a class I think there was some shirking of duty to the instructors also, "because they are better divers than us?"

We were concentrating on how to do a good frog kick we lost sight of the more important issue of "is my buddy alive and near me, as he has my backup gas". This is another DIR Fundamental, that even the simplest tasks, like buddy awareness, can fly out the door with even a minute amount of task loading, like learning the frog kick.

One of MHK's/DIR stances is to be an aggressive buddy. Be constantly checking each others gear, demeanor, comfort level, etc. Part of this for me is the ego deal of being scared to bring stuff up to more experienced divers, and not wanted more inexperienced divers telling me anything. I only have 60 dives so it is easy to see this is just personal ego issues.

In the book Deep Descent I think similar post mortem observations are made of Ormsby, they saw he had a convoluted rig but did not say anything. Same book, it seems a lot of Doria fatalities were accompanied by buddies getting separated and each thinking the other was alright becase they were such good divers.

Our buddy skills improved quite a bit on the subsequent dives.

Tommy

[O-ring]

T-minus 17 days for me. And I'll be wearing my blue Quattros as well....;-)

Chris, you will do great...good luck!

Maybe he was feeling what Lost Yooper expressed but at a much higher level.

Not sure...this guy didn't do any of the sort of dives the Yoopmeister does...strictly overweighted OW students in 20' of water, on their knees, doing skills...a self proclaimed "quarry rat".

Tombiowami is more on the money with his assessment...I mean the guy was an instructor...how many instructors do you know dive solo? IMHO, most all the ones I know and have dove with dive solo every time they take students out. They probably thought, "hell, he is an instructor and we are in 20' of water..he can handle it. He teaches cramp removal every other day".

Like Tombiowami said, the guy just had a really crappy day and it was a little too much for him to get back in the water and make it any worse. On one level, I can't imaging quitting...dunno, I wouldn't pass up that opportunity to learn from these guys. On the other hand, when you don't feel like diving, you shouldn't be in the water...period. Maybe he did the right thing and prevented an accident.

[Lost Yooper]

Nice write up, Eric. It sounds very familiar. I did manage to get in the water this past weekend and work on some of that stuff with some success.

Mike