What's the most dangerous situation you've been in?

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I went out after work one evening to do some drinking with a couple gay ( I found out later.) plumbers and we ended up in a black only biker bar about ten o'clock. That's about as dangerouss as it gets. I went out the bathroom window and took a cab home.
 
Any dangerous situations folks?
There are, of course, all sorts of risks you might encounter. The most common ones are created by divers themselves, when they decide to dive beyond their training, or become complacent about equipment checks, the buddy system, or boat safety. The ones that scare me are the ones that are out of my control, like boats with no regard for dive flags, for instance, or unanticipated down-currents. What is of almost no concern to me is the risks from marine life--I don't touch anything while underwater, and larger marine life, like sharks (to the extent that sharks still exist), are pretty uninterested in divers, for the most part.
 
Probably the closest I've ever come to being injured on scuba was while trying to assist another diver who had approached me on a wall dive because he suddenly realized we were at 90 feet and he had only 300 psi left showing on his gauge. I put him on my reg, went to my backup and started to escort him back to the buoy line. Unfortunately, he and his mates had mucked the bottom up so badly we couldn't find it, so I indicated to him that we should begin a free ascent. He signaled OK ... and promptly grabbed his inflator hose and completely inflated his BCD ... :shocked:

We went from 70 feet to about 25 feet in a matter of about 5 seconds ... at which point I managed to yank my reg out of his mouth and let him surface alone. From about 20 feet I watched him breach and saw the boat come get him. At that point I did a reasonable safety stop and surfaced. Thankfully, neither one of us was physically injured, although I fear I was a bit less than tactful with him regarding what he had done ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
Diving near Speyside, Tobago.

The twin-hulled tender pulled up next to an island on a windy day. The pilot was clearly concerned about being blown into the cliff, and instructed the divers (that's us) to descend immediately after a backroll into the water. The engines were in neutral.

We backrolled. For some reason I couldn't descend -- air trapped in the BC? After a full week of diving without incident this was unexpected. Almost immediately the boat drifted over the top of me and my head was hitting the hull. Bonk. Bonk. I knew the pilot and DM on the boat couldn't see me, and for all they knew everyone had descended. Bonk. At any moment they were going to power away from the rocks and I would be hamburger.

I don't think I've ever finned-down so fast in my life. Air in the BC? It didn't matter, I was out of there. Just in time. Zoooom -- the boat was gone.
 
I had a gun pointed at my face by a guy who wanted to know if we stole his 8 track player. Said no. He drove off.
 
Any dangerous situations folks?

Ever get drunk, and hop over the fence into the tiger cage at the zoo?
That could be pretty dangerous
 
Wow, Ohio is starting to sound like a dangerous place: Daybob had a gun pointed at him and Garrobo narrowly escaped a makeover. :wink:
 
2 cases had me a little worried. Once I was on the non-channel side of a jetty and caught in an apparent rip current. Could've swam perpendicular to the current away from the jetty and out of it as is the protocol. but I wasn't sure it was a rip current and not something tide related due to the area. I was maybe 10 feet from the jetty but no appropriate exit onto the slippery, angled rocks. I opted to go against protocol and fight the current next to the jetty in hopes of finding a flat rock, which I finally did. Had the other option open if exhausted.

The other time I was on the bottom shell hunting in all of 8 feet of water and both my legs completely cramped up. The usual cramp removal techniques helped almost not at all. Wasn't far from shore, but had to pull myself along the bottom, (mostly using compass as surfacing was almost impossible) with my arms until I could stand in 4 ft. of water. You never know- anything can happen.
 
On New Year's Eve day last year I was diving at Cabo San Lucas with my buddy and the divemaster. The first two dives were fine (great actually) and then we started the third. The DM took us into an area where we drifted with the surge of the current. It was something I never had done before. We went around the point and then had to get back to the ponga. A storm was coming in and the current became so strong that it was impossible to swim against. My buddy was low on air and the DM had him on his octo, so I was by myself. I went for the rocks and pulled myself along against the current. They were swimming together and pulling on the rocks, too. Then we ran out of rocks. I finned down 10 feet or so to the sand and dug in. I managed to pull myself along and get back to below the boat. Then, it was one of the wildest rides to get back up a side ladder I've ever done. The topper was that when the DM took the weight belt off my buddy, it slipped out of his hands and he lost it. After a couple of tries to retrieve it, he gave up. The next day, while we were sitting on our aft balcony on the ship recovering from the New Year's party, we looked over and saw him out there going after the belt again.
 

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