This happened to me this last weekend, on 9/7.
The people; I had two students to take on a deep dive. One had about 50 dives under his belt, and the other had about 15. The former one I had done basically the same dive with the day before. The latter student I had not dove with but have known for around 15 years, as we work at the same facility, and sometimes work together. Both are pretty level headed people.
The dive plan; Since I'd done the basically done the same dive yesterday, I was pretty sure that we could get in about 45 minute dive, but I also had a shorter dive of about 30 minutes as a contingency plan in case anyone was running low on air. We would drop down a buoy line to a platform at 85, from there we take a short swim on a 230 degree heading come up to 60 to a purposely sunk boat. If everyone was good on air we would explore around that area, and if not, move up shallower and end the dive.
What really happened; We made our descent to the 85 platform without any problems. We had just started our swim when one of the students tapped me to get my attention. His primary regulator was starting to free flow. I gave him my primary regulator, and used my secondary. I asked him if he was OK, he signaled back that he was. I then grabbed ahold of the right strap of his BC. I then asked the other student if he was OK, he also signaled back that he was. I signaled him that the dive was over, and that we were going to the surface. He signaled back OK. I turned to face the student that I had ahold of, that was using my primary regulator, I signaled that we going up. This where things start to get a bit fuzzy, as Im not exactly sure what happened next. I saw the student lift their inflator hose as if to dump air out of the BC. I think that he may have hit both the inflate and deflate buttons. I can tell that we are going up, and that rate of ascent is way too fast. I start to dump air out of his BC, but its too late were at the surface. I put some air in my BC, so that Ill float. I ask the student if hes ok, he responds that he is. This student is also a very experienced paramedic. If he says, hes ok, I believe him. I give myself the once over, no pain, no coughing, no discomfort, and no blood, all seems good. We wait for what seems like forever for other student to surface. He does a normal ascent with a safety stop, and he is also fine.
As we make our way to the exit point, I check my computer and it shows that we had a total dive time of 6 minutes, and Ive got a no dive time of about 2:30 hours. Regardless of what the computer says were done diving for the day. Neither of us exhibits any symptoms DCI over the next 4 hours or so, and we head home.
Any suggestions on how this might have been handled differently? From my perspective everything happened so fast.
The people; I had two students to take on a deep dive. One had about 50 dives under his belt, and the other had about 15. The former one I had done basically the same dive with the day before. The latter student I had not dove with but have known for around 15 years, as we work at the same facility, and sometimes work together. Both are pretty level headed people.
The dive plan; Since I'd done the basically done the same dive yesterday, I was pretty sure that we could get in about 45 minute dive, but I also had a shorter dive of about 30 minutes as a contingency plan in case anyone was running low on air. We would drop down a buoy line to a platform at 85, from there we take a short swim on a 230 degree heading come up to 60 to a purposely sunk boat. If everyone was good on air we would explore around that area, and if not, move up shallower and end the dive.
What really happened; We made our descent to the 85 platform without any problems. We had just started our swim when one of the students tapped me to get my attention. His primary regulator was starting to free flow. I gave him my primary regulator, and used my secondary. I asked him if he was OK, he signaled back that he was. I then grabbed ahold of the right strap of his BC. I then asked the other student if he was OK, he also signaled back that he was. I signaled him that the dive was over, and that we were going to the surface. He signaled back OK. I turned to face the student that I had ahold of, that was using my primary regulator, I signaled that we going up. This where things start to get a bit fuzzy, as Im not exactly sure what happened next. I saw the student lift their inflator hose as if to dump air out of the BC. I think that he may have hit both the inflate and deflate buttons. I can tell that we are going up, and that rate of ascent is way too fast. I start to dump air out of his BC, but its too late were at the surface. I put some air in my BC, so that Ill float. I ask the student if hes ok, he responds that he is. This student is also a very experienced paramedic. If he says, hes ok, I believe him. I give myself the once over, no pain, no coughing, no discomfort, and no blood, all seems good. We wait for what seems like forever for other student to surface. He does a normal ascent with a safety stop, and he is also fine.
As we make our way to the exit point, I check my computer and it shows that we had a total dive time of 6 minutes, and Ive got a no dive time of about 2:30 hours. Regardless of what the computer says were done diving for the day. Neither of us exhibits any symptoms DCI over the next 4 hours or so, and we head home.
Any suggestions on how this might have been handled differently? From my perspective everything happened so fast.
