Panicked diver- what to do...

[battles2a5]

So I was diving a few weeks ago and there was a situation on one of the dives. I'll only include the pertinent details, but essentially, a diver went OOA about 80 ft from the anchor line on a 95' dive, and what happened scared the hell out of me. Here's what happened.

We had two groups of two divers. 3 of us were diving Nitrox, one of air. Prior to the dive we agreed to drop the air diver off at the anchor when she approach the NDL, then the three of the remaining divers would complete the dive together. The diver in question had trouble descending on the stern line to a hang bar under the boat, where we were to regroup and descend together (2 groups of 2). I can only assume that a lot of air was consumed during this exercise.

Anyway, per our plan, we dropped the air diver off at the anchor where she ascended and started her safety stop (w/ tons of air). The remaining divers signalled "ok", then went for another cruise around the wreck. After 3-4 minutes, I turned to my buddy and our adopted buddy to check air. My buddy and I had approx. 1500lbs, which was to be expected at this point in the dive (all three of us on AL100's). Third diver signals 300lbs. I raise my eyebrows and ask him to clarify. He says again 300lbs and just shrugs. I signalled for the the group to turn back towards the anchor and signaled the guy that's low on air to stay close to me. We proceed to the anchor. After about 10 kicks, I look to make sure they are close and neither of them are anywhere to be found. As it turns out, the third diver went OOA (it could not have been 25 seconds after we turned), grabbed my buddy's octo and then bolted for the surface, dragging my buddy behind him by the donated octo. I was concerned as I did not see this happen and conditions prevented me from seeing them on the surface.

I got back to the anchor line, hoping to see them on the hang bar at 15'. No sign of them. I had plenty of NDL time left, so accelerated my safety stop and headed to the surface. Once I broke the surface, the crew was already in the process of reeling in the divers who had surfaced 60-70 feet from the boat.

The panicked diver was in bad shape, vomitting, bad cramps, etc. He was put on O2 immediately and we all monitored him for signs of DCS, etc. My buddy seemed to be fine (aside from being shaken up). We monitored him as well. So in the end of it, we were all fine. My buddy kept diving for the rest of the weekend, the other guy didn't.

So there's a couple of things that keep replaying in my mind from the incident that I would like to get some opinions on:

1. When I turned the group, my priority was to get everyone to the anchor line, ascend, and then (presumably) share air during the safety stop if need be. We were 25 miles offshore in big enough seas and strong enough currents to where you are not going to be able to swim to the boat, and there is a chance you would not be seen. We were not too far from the anchor line so I didn't think it would be an issue getting there. Afterwards, however, I told myself that I should have passed him my (full) pony bottle. I had plenty of air, he didn't. I could have clipped my pony to him before we swam back. So is that what I should have done? Or do you think the additional task loading and time consumed by the activity would overwhelm a diver? I guess the shrug he gave me indicated that he was comfortable with the situation, so I never viewed this as an imminent incident.

2. What do you do if you donate your octo and the guy bolts to the surface? This guy was way bigger than my buddy so there would have been no way to physically overpower him. My thought would be to get behind him and try to get him in a head-down or horizontal attitude using the tank valve and BC as leverage, then guide him/her to safety. Aside from not donating your octo, what do you do once they have it and then panic?

Any other observations would be appreciated. Sorry about the long post, just wanted to share the experience and see what others would have done differntly (aside from leaving the anchor w/ 300lbs of gas in the first place). FWIW, I just signed up for my Rescue class, and will start in a couple weeks.

[TSandM]

I think I would have put the low on air diver on my long hose when he signalled 300 psi. 300 psi is not going to last very long at depth, especially given that, at that point, you know his consumption is way high. In your case, it was a little more complicated, in that you had to hand off a pony bottle. The other diver may or may not ever have carried an extra bottle, may not know how to secure it or how to deploy the reg. Since he almost instantly went OOA and panicked, he probably wasn't going to cope well with managing unfamiliar gear. This is my biggest concern about the pony bottle as an air source for another diver. It's great if you and your buddy have practiced with it, but if you were diving with me, you'd be dealing with someone who has carried an extra bottle precisely once in her life. Being at 80 feet and out of air would not be the time I'd pick to practice the skill again.

Quite a while back, I made the decision that I would not do a dive with an unknown buddy that was deeper than I could CESA, and I've set that depth at 60 feet. Only if I know the person with whom I am diving is capable of carrying out a competent air-sharing ascent do I go deeper. The behavior of this diver just reinforces that decision for me.

[John C. Ratliff]

I have a few questions that would need to be answered before making any recommendations:

--What caused the high air consumption rate? Was that ever figured out? In other words, was it an equipment malfunction (free flowing), or a high breathing rate? All of these questions revolve around analyzing the actual problem.

--What was the specific cause of the diver's panic? If the diver was OOA, and had an octopus from the buddy, that should not have caused a diver to panic. Was there a transfer problem? Was there a problem with the buddy's octopus? Was there an equipment malfunction (cut mouthpiece, for instance)? I say this because some octopus regulators are set up to breath hard on purpose, and in this case this could have cause a potential problem. Also, if the diver had not practiced buddy breathing, that could have been a problem. Or, the diver may have taken water instead of clearing the octopus.

Until these questions have been answered, it is difficult to answer the main questions about what to do to prevent this from happening again.

SeaRat

[ivobj]

I agree with Tsand about handing off the pony bottle, you could have done that but not just hand off the pony bottle and leave to him to use it, probably a safe procedure would be to offer the long hose first and while he is safely breathing clip the pony bottle in his harness, deploy the reg for him, and put it in front of his mouth, just for him to start breathing on it, then take the long hose back and of course call the dive. OOA and panicked I don't see also how he could deploy the pony bottle reg, he would probably do exactly the same, get your buddy octo and shot to surface without even trying to use the pony bottle.

[reticentDiver]

Keep in mind I only have 40 dives under my belt when you read my answer...

From what I see you reacted well. I can think of only two things you could have done differently:

1) Donate your second reg to the diver low on air when he had 300psi. This is important for two reasons:
- If he does not run out of air he will probably not panic (although we do not know for sure the panic was caused by the OOA situation, I think it is a good guess) an you'd have been able to ascent quickly but in a controlled manner.
- As mentioned by another poster your reg is familiar to the other diver, while the pony bottle may not.

2) as you move towards te anchor line stay by the side of the diver who is low on air, not in front of him, in order to be able to react is something happens. As your low on air diver was already accompanied I do not see this making much of a difference.

Something that seems important is that while you were still at depth the diver with 300 psi left did not mention that he was low on air until you asked him. This seems to me to be the source of all the problems. Was there a briefing beforehand where you all agreed on a minimum gas reserve to start going up? In the group I usually dive with we agree on a minimum air buffer, usually 500-700psi but as high as 1000psi for dives with deeper profiles (I dive recreational, above 110ft depth, single tank). This seems like a good precaution, particularly when diving with people we do not know very well.

[jwc3]

We had two groups of two divers. 3 of us were diving Nitrox, one of air. Prior to the dive we agreed to drop the air diver off at the anchor when she approach the NDL, then the three of the remaining divers would complete the dive together.

Is seems possible that this part of the plan was not well thought out. Is it common to leave one diver alone during the dive? Is it common to switch buddy assignments during a dive? Could this have contributed to the problem?

[wilde100]

So I was diving a few weeks ago and there was a situation on one of the dives. I'll only include the pertinent details, but essentially, a diver went OOA about 80 ft from the anchor line on a 95' dive, and what happened scared the hell out of me. Here's what happened.

We had two groups of two divers. 3 of us were diving Nitrox, one of air. Prior to the dive we agreed to drop the air diver off at the anchor when she approach the NDL, then the three of the remaining divers would complete the dive together. The diver in question had trouble descending on the stern line to a hang bar under the boat, where we were to regroup and descend together (2 groups of 2). I can only assume that a lot of air was consumed during this exercise.

Anyway, per our plan, we dropped the air diver off at the anchor where she ascended and started her safety stop (w/ tons of air). The remaining divers signalled "ok", then went for another cruise around the wreck. After 3-4 minutes, I turned to my buddy and our adopted buddy to check air. My buddy and I had approx. 1500lbs, which was to be expected at this point in the dive (all three of us on AL100's). Third diver signals 300lbs. I raise my eyebrows and ask him to clarify. He says again 300lbs and just shrugs. I signalled for the the group to turn back towards the anchor and signaled the guy that's low on air to stay close to me. We proceed to the anchor. After about 10 kicks, I look to make sure they are close and neither of them are anywhere to be found. As it turns out, the third diver went OOA (it could not have been 25 seconds after we turned), grabbed my buddy's octo and then bolted for the surface, dragging my buddy behind him by the donated octo. I was concerned as I did not see this happen and conditions prevented me from seeing them on the surface.

I got back to the anchor line, hoping to see them on the hang bar at 15'. No sign of them. I had plenty of NDL time left, so accelerated my safety stop and headed to the surface. Once I broke the surface, the crew was already in the process of reeling in the divers who had surfaced 60-70 feet from the boat.

The panicked diver was in bad shape, vomitting, bad cramps, etc. He was put on O2 immediately and we all monitored him for signs of DCS, etc. My buddy seemed to be fine (aside from being shaken up). We monitored him as well. So in the end of it, we were all fine. My buddy kept diving for the rest of the weekend, the other guy didn't.

So there's a couple of things that keep replaying in my mind from the incident that I would like to get some opinions on:

1. When I turned the group, my priority was to get everyone to the anchor line, ascend, and then (presumably) share air during the safety stop if need be. We were 25 miles offshore in big enough seas and strong enough currents to where you are not going to be able to swim to the boat, and there is a chance you would not be seen. We were not too far from the anchor line so I didn't think it would be an issue getting there. Afterwards, however, I told myself that I should have passed him my (full) pony bottle. I had plenty of air, he didn't. I could have clipped my pony to him before we swam back. So is that what I should have done? Or do you think the additional task loading and time consumed by the activity would overwhelm a diver? I guess the shrug he gave me indicated that he was comfortable with the situation, so I never viewed this as an imminent incident.

2. What do you do if you donate your octo and the guy bolts to the surface? This guy was way bigger than my buddy so there would have been no way to physically overpower him. My thought would be to get behind him and try to get him in a head-down or horizontal attitude using the tank valve and BC as leverage, then guide him/her to safety. Aside from not donating your octo, what do you do once they have it and then panic?

Any other observations would be appreciated. Sorry about the long post, just wanted to share the experience and see what others would have done differntly (aside from leaving the anchor w/ 300lbs of gas in the first place). FWIW, I just signed up for my Rescue class, and will start in a couple weeks.

I think you did well in the circumstances. Although I might suggest doing an air check while before proceeding after the air diver did her safety stop might have been more prudent on hind sight.

Personally I wouldn't share the pony bottle. No sense passing on your life saving equipment if the other diver is not familiar with how to use it nor understand its limitations.

Finally I'm glad to hear you've signed up for (and by now completed?) your rescue course. With a panic diver holding on to my octo for his ascent, I would spread out and attempt to slow his ascent to a reasonable rate. Try to also relate this as a CESA, so despite not being OOA myself, I'd make a conscious effort to breathe out more than I breathe in. Also a good idea to put your hand on your mask and regulator at this point to prevent his fins from knocking it out of your face.

[DM95]

Hi- I know this is an older post but just some observations.

You did not state if you were a Divemaster on the dive or "The" Divemaster on the dive. Anytime I've had a group and found someone was low on air, I have followed them to the anchor line from behind and above to watch them with their buddy. It's easier to intervene if I see a panic situation. Telling someone to stick close, in my opinion, and I'm not judging you on this, is asking for trouble unless they are slightly ahead of you. As Divemasters, we sometimes have to "buddysit" even experienced divers.

In reference to what you could have done if the diver bolted with your pony bottle, divers are responsible for their own safety. Nothing you can do if another diver does not respond to your coaxing and takes off. Also, if you have a diver on your alternate air source and you put your arm around his/hers, that little contact sometimes has a big psychological benefit. If they know you are a Divemaster, they sometimes feel "Safe" and that little bit of comfort can be the difference of doing a safety stop or a trip to a chamber.

Just my thoughts as a Monday morning quarterback.

Thanks - be safe

[gkwalt]

1) When one buddy in the group needs to surface....all need to surface
2) Planning to buddy breathe is not advisable...buddy breathing is not taught in many scuba programs for a good reason. Buddy breathing is an emergency procedure at best.
3) A safety stop is highly recommended, not required. Hopefully your dive profile was as such that you had no obligations and you could have blown the safety stop.
4) When diving with a new buddy, it is best practice to check their air consumption frequently. There is no reason that he should have gotten to 300 psi without someone knowing.
5) Dive planning includes discussion of when to turn the dive. Pre dive communication is vital, especially with "adopted buddies".

Out of air situations should NEVER occur. Sure there are situations like the Rouse's on the U-869, but if your are cruising a wreck as a rec diver OOA is not an option.

A few extra minutes underwater is not worth dieing for.

[xjeslesx]

I'm glad things worked out alright for all of you. In response to handing off your pony bottle, I would say no. When the diver signals 300lbs I would have instantly handed the diver my octo and held onto his bc for the remainder of the dive. At that point we would have made a direct ascent (not swam for anchor line). I would much rather inflate my smb and blow my whistle to get the boats attention than chance running out of air at depth.
In regards to the situation of a large diver panicing and dragging you to the surface. I would grab the diver anyway I could (by bc, arms, leg). Next I would dump the air out of my bc, making myself negatively buoyant and allowing me to slow are ascent. If possible I would dump his/her bc as well.

If you have air to breath there is no reason to allow an uncontrolled acent, that is just asking for injury.

Hope this helps if you ever experience a similar situation (hopefully you do not).