Where did I get wrong ?

[MonkSeal]

Yesterday I was buddied with inexperienced diver. He claimed he was experienced enough but without recent dives. He took a video camera with himself "to shoot a few sequences". Divemaster asked me to keep an eye on him because he surfaced from 10m without safety stop on dive day before. Plan was to dive at 20m for 30min (two of us) and the rest of divers were supposed to go to 35m. He wasn't able to maintain buoyancy and I trimmed him and calm him down and warned him about air consumption (which was enormous - we started with 200bar, after 10min he was at 100bar). Suddenly he emptied his jacket and descended to 40m "to shoot from the other angle". I descended also and brought him slowly back to 25m. Than I realized he would be OOA in few minutes. I informed DM we were going out and we started to ascend. I knew that we had a deco obligation because of his trip to 40m but I had enough air. As we reached 18m he signalized he was OOA. I was little surprised because I expected this would happen in few minutes but I took my primary (long hose) and tried to put in his mouth. At the same time I emptied a little bit my jacket, grab him and made us neutral. He grabbed regulator and then left it floating and tried to grab my bungeed octo. Of course he couldn't reach it and then he panicked. I tried to calm him down but he started to strangle me. All that time I was trying to put my primary to his mouth and he was refusing it trying to get my octo. After one long minute of struggle I succeeded and I finally grab my octo and started to breath. At that moment I thought "Everything is under control, again". But it wasn't. He kicked and went up. I emptied my jacket completely and grab his camera (attached to his jacket) and tired to descend. But he was fining up. When we reached 5m (in less then 30s) I let him go because I couldn't stop him any more. He surfaced immediately and boat crew lifted him up. I looked at my Mosquito - 5 min of deco. After I finished it (I added 2min more at 3m and last 3m 1min), I surfaced - he was on O2. Captain contacted DAN and they advised O2, hydration and observing. After two hours no DCS signs were shown and he seemed OK. Where did I get wrong ? Before this dive I was sure I could handle such situation because I had similar case before and solved it with no problems.

 

[CincyBengalsFan]

MonkSeal once bubbled...
Yesterday I was buddied with inexperienced diver. He claimed he was experienced enough but without recent dives. He took a video camera with himself "to shoot a few sequences". Divemaster asked me to keep an eye on him because he surfaced from 10m without safety stop on dive day before. Plan was to dive at 20m for 30min (two of us) and the rest of divers were supposed to go to 35m. He wasn't able to maintain buoyancy and I trimmed him and calm him down and warned him about air consumption (which was enormous - we started with 200bar, after 10min he was at 100bar). Suddenly he emptied his jacket and descended to 40m "to shoot from the other angle". I descended also and brought him slowly back to 25m. Than I realized he would be OOA in few minutes. I informed DM we were going out and we started to ascend. I knew that we had a deco obligation because of his trip to 40m but I had enough air. As we reached 18m he signalized he was OOA. I was little surprised because I expected this would happen in few minutes but I took my primary (long hose) and tried to put in his mouth. At the same time I emptied a little bit my jacket, grab him and made us neutral. He grabbed regulator and then left it floating and tried to grab my bungeed octo. Of course he couldn't reach it and then he panicked. I tried to calm him down but he started to strangle me. All that time I was trying to put my primary to his mouth and he was refusing it trying to get my octo. After one long minute of struggle I succeeded and I finally grab my octo and started to breath. At that moment I thought "Everything is under control, again". But it wasn't. He kicked and went up. I emptied my jacket completely and grab his camera (attached to his jacket) and tired to descend. But he was fining up. When we reached 5m (in less then 30s) I let him go because I couldn't stop him any more. He surfaced immediately and boat crew lifted him up. I looked at my Mosquito - 5 min of deco. After I finished it (I added 2min more at 3m and last 3m 1min), I surfaced - he was on O2. Captain contacted DAN and they advised O2, hydration and observing. After two hours no DCS signs were shown and he seemed OK. Where did I get wrong ? Before this dive I was sure I could handle such situation because I had similar case before and solved it with no problems.

Man, I've been teaching for 7+ yrs. now and diving for 20+ yrs. I think you did just fine. I probably would have let him loose earlier if it had just been a dumbass buddy like you had. The only problem might of been to change buddies after the divemaster told you "Keep on eye on him". For now on that can be your first clue to change buddies or hell, go solo.

 

[MonkSeal]

CincyBengalsFan once bubbled...


Man, I've been teaching for 7+ yrs. now and diving for 20+ yrs. I think you did just fine. I probably would have let him loose earlier if it had just been a dumbass buddy like you had. The only problem might of been to change buddies after the divemaster told you "Keep on eye on him". For now on that can be your first clue to change buddies or hell, go solo.

I usually dive with my regular buddies (my wife, few friends) but this was obviously a mistake.

 

[sealkie]

I don`t think you went wrong at all - the only thing I would say is if someone has not been in the water for a while they they should not have a camera with them - however that is difficult to insist on if you are just a buddy.


The DM should not have pushed the problem diver off on you - he should have taken responsibility himself - however - if you are diving in a club situation and you are a known to be an experieced diver then having you dive with the problem diver would be OK - but the DM should have insisted no camera.


The confusion with the octopus may have come from you trying to put it in his mouth - especially in cold water - lips are numb and he would not have been able to see the reg - it may have been better to bring the spare reg to eye level and let you buddy take it from there ?

Sounds like you handled it all well

 

[USMC Diver]

He was refusing your primary because he was trained to use an octo. Therein lies the danger of you DIR guys infiltrating into the world of rec. This guy was trying to get to the octo and, while in panic mode, was focused on your back up octo around your neck. Did you go over this in your pre-dive? Isn't that part of pre-dive, orient to your buddies gear? You should have communicated your gear confuguration to this idiot. Proper buddy communication may have alleviated that problem. If he was too much of a moron to understand your gear config on the surface then I wouldn't dive with him. Chances are he would't understand at depth.

I would have left him at 40m myself. Dumbass broke the dive plan. That is not your fault. I guess he was DIW to your DIR.

 

[ihunter]

... but I have a question: you guys obviously had a dive plan ("20m for 30min") -- did you discuss contingencies? The only thing I could possibly think of (and like I said, sounds like you did everything right) is to have clarified that you breath the long hose and donate same -- once he freaked, he might have fixated on his own training and concentrated on your octo.

Then again, maybe if you had told him "if you go OOA I'll give you my primary" he still would have freaked.

After he was finally breathing again, what did you do to settle him down/take his mind off things? (That's a sincere question from someone trying to learn from someone more experienced than I, not intended as a critique) Sounds like once he got air, he decided to just bolt and do an emergency ascent -- he had no air on the way up from 15', right?

Positively scary... good thing YOU weren't the one OOA.

Ian

 

[ReefGuy]

I think it was a mistake to grab the guy's camera when he was bolting to the surface. Unless you were grossly underweighted, you most likely could not possibly stop his ascent, since he was hell bent on going up (pun only partially intended). You can only do so much, and shouldn't put yourself in danger trying to rescue him (especially after the preceeding events).

 

[ZenSquirrel]

Sounds to me like you did not go wrong at all. You are alive and so is he. That guy would have killed himself several times over if you had not controlled the situation. Most likely, he would have run out of air at 40m and shot to the surface. He demonstraited poor boyancy control, inability to monitor his gas much less manage gas consumption, lack of knowledge of no-decompression limits (just dropping to 40m?!?! That is deep!), poor choice of actions in an OOA situation (what are you thinking when you have no air and refuse to take a regulator that is shoved in your face?), and finally poor understanding of how to make a proper ascent. Good job keeping him alive. After he went OOA, I do not think that I would have had the skills to manage the ascent. I would have been forced to "let him" go to keep myself alive.

 

[MonkSeal]

USMC Diver once bubbled...
He was refusing your primary because he was trained to use an octo. Therein lies the danger of you DIR guys infiltrating into the world of rec. This guy was trying to get to the octo and, while in panic mode, was focused on your back up octo around your neck. Did you go over this in your pre-dive? Isn't that part of pre-dive, orient to your buddies gear? You should have communicated your gear confuguration to this idiot. Proper buddy communication may have alleviated that problem. If he was too much of a moron to understand your gear config on the surface then I wouldn't dive with him. Chances are he would't understand at depth.

I would have left him at 40m myself. Dumbass broke the dive plan. That is not your fault. I guess he was DIW to your DIR.

I explained him my gear before dive two times because of DM's warning. DM had the same configuration. Diver who was supposed to "keep an eye on him" day before had also the same configuration (long hose).

 

[MonkSeal]

sealkie once bubbled...
The confusion with the octopus may have come from you trying to put it in his mouth - especially in cold water - lips are numb and he would not have been able to see the reg - it may have been better to bring the spare reg to eye level and let you buddy take it from there ?

Sounds like you handled it all well

The water was not cold (19 C) and first time I offered him regulator he grabbed it and then put it away. After that everything was so full of bubbles that he probably could see nothing. That was why I insisted on putting the reg into his mouth.