Drifted for 8 hours - Pensacola Pass, Florida

[DandyDon]

He might like to know that ACR has two brand new PLB models out, and is offering a cash rebate until July 15

Scuba diver rescued after almost eight hours lost off of Pensacola Pass

These things only happen on television, until they happen to you.
Just before the sun set Sunday on Pensacola Pass, a charter boat rescued a Pensacola scuba diver who had been lost for nearly eight hours.
"I never intended anything like this to ever happen in my life," Mike Ozburn told the News Journal on Tuesday.
A network systems engineer for the Pensacola Police Department, Ozburn picked up scuba diving back in November as a way to enjoy his free time. Sunday marked Ozburn’s 35th dive — this time, among the roughest waters he has descended in yet.
Ozburn and a group of friends piled into a boat and began their dive around noon Sunday, about 16 miles offshore in Pensacola Pass.
While gearing up, Ozburn’s elbow hit the inflator hose, letting air into his buoyancy compensator, a control device worn to maintain neutral buoyancy. Not thinking anything of it, he descended into the water but quickly realized the excess air was keeping him from going any farther.
Ozburn vented the buoyancy compensator and descended into the murky waters once more. Due to his equipment malfunction and the lack of underwater visibility, Ozburn couldn't find his diving buddy.
Swimming deeper, Ozburn reached a flat level of sand, instead of the pyramid shaped surface the divers initially descended upon.
After 10 minutes of unsuccessful searching, Ozburn went up for a three-minute safety stop, finding himself about 150 yards away from the boat and out of sight, he said.
“I inflated my safety buoy and waved my arms, blew my whistle. ... They didn’t see it, they didn’t hear it,” he said.
Another five to ten minutes later, he had officially lost sight of the dive boat.
Ozburn’s crew began a search pattern, and after about an hour in, notified the U.S. Coast Guard. A little while later, dive charters volunteered to join the mission.
As time dragged on, helicopters and boats passed by — none of them noticing Ozburn’s calls for help.
Lost in the water, Ozburn maneuvered his gear to keep him alive and afloat. Using a dive watch and safety buoy, he lined up with the edge of the clouds and kicked toward the direction of shore.
“A lot of interesting things that you do not think about when you dive regularly come into play,” he said.
Ozburn’s neon green safety buoy was one of them. Chosen for its high-visibility color, the buoy failed Ozburn on Sunday because the way the water and sun fell on it caused it to appear white, blending in with the white caps and making it harder to see.
Each time Ozburn had the slightest inkling of a boat passing, he blew his whistle and signaled in that direction.
“I just hoped to God they would hear me,” he said.
Uncertain of his fate, what kept Ozburn kicking was never losing hope — repeating to himself, "there is going to be something else" each time a boat or helicopter passed him by.
His life flashing before him, Ozburn thought of what he would do if he made it out alive: tell his parents he loves them.
"I don’t do that enough, and you have got to tell people you care about in your life that you love them,” he said.
Nearly eight hours later and after nine miles of drifting, a Niuhi Dive Charters boat came to his rescue at about 7:30 p.m.
Capt. Andy Ross and a few divers set out around 6 p.m. Sunday in response to a distress call about a missing diver. Observing the current's east direction, Ross calculated a speed of one to one and a half miles per hour multiplied by the amount of time the diver had been missing.
Slowing down around the seven mile marker, Ross and his crew noticed a "white stick" hanging out of the water — Ozburn's safety buoy.
"It's like finding a needle in a haystack," Ross said.
At that moment, Ozburn stopped kicking, gave up all his efforts and for the first time that day, he let someone else take care of him.
“I owe them everything, they saved my life,” he said.
Happy, tired and thirsty, Ozburn cracked open a long-awaited Gatorade while the Niuhi Dive Charters boat took him to shore, where he reunited with his relieved and overjoyed family.
Despite the risk Sunday brought, Ozburn plans on continuing his favorite hobby — though now with higher quality gear and a flashlight always in tow.
Looking back on his harrowing weekend, Ozburn emphasizes the seriousness of safety. If something seems even just a little bit off — speak up. Life-threatening situations are real, and they could happen to anyone.
"I shouldn’t be alive, I should be dead," Ozburn said.

 

[kelvkwok]

Neon green safety buoy...not a good choice.

 

[aviator8]

searched for 10 mins, then a 3 min safety stop? sounds like a lack of pre dive planning. "Another five to ten minutes later, he had officially lost sight of the dive boat." I wonder who the official was that declared it?

 

[divinh]

The captain of the search boat that found him said he calculated the possible position by using water current info and time passed. In a situation like this, is it better, then, to allow the current to take you or deviate from the current and swim toward land, but also making your predicted location based on currents, less reliable?

 

[Lorenzoid]

searched for 10 mins, then a 3 min safety stop? sounds like a lack of pre dive planning. "Another five to ten minutes later, he had officially lost sight of the dive boat." I wonder who the official was that declared it?

Yep. In the absence of a different plan, I would revert to the common practice of searching for no more than one minute, then aborting the dive if I didn't find my buddy.

 

[caruso]

There's a learning opportunity here. Although the depth was not specified odds are that a separated diver doing a 3 minute safety stop during a free ascent following an aborted dive of less than 3 minutes in tough surface conditions will cause more problems than it's worth.

People really need to use what they've been taught with an open mind and flexible and creative thinking. I mean if a diver was ascending from a short non eventful dive that wasn't too deep, trailing a line of speared bloody fish suddenly surrounded by sharks would he or she naturally hang at 15 feet patiently watching their dive computer ticking off 180 seconds?

Sometimes you gotta think outside the box.

And carry a reel and an SMB. I don't leave the dive boat without one.

 

[Diving Dubai]

And carry a reel and an SMB. I don't leave the dive boat without one.

Totally.

Although I'd expand that statement as follows:

Carry an Appropriately sized reel ( I recommend 25% more line than your max depth) and an SMB appropriate for the conditions/environment you're diving in. Don't leave the dive boat without one and know how to use it.

In his case I'd have been shooting my DSMB from the bottom.

While PLB's are really useful, they should only be apart of a divers tool kit. Again I try to instil into divers that it's their own responsibility to ensure they can be both seen and heard at the surface.

 

[caruso]

Totally.

Although I'd expand that statement as follows:

Carry an Appropriately sized reel ( I recommend 25% more line than your max depth) and an SMB appropriate for the conditions/environment you're diving in..

I'd continue to expand on the line of thinking here and add the following:

On a recent Florida trip which was a lot of drift diving and ending each dive by deploying a marker, I ran into an issue that made me change my entire reel/line/smb configuration.

I had been using a finger spool with about 120' of line and a cheap vinyl SMB that was very difficult to open on the bottom and insert my regulator to fill. Worse yet- some members of my group were more comfortable ascending with a reference line rather than doing a completely free ascent so I happily obliged by deploying from depths exceeding 95'. With the strong currents and the line deploying at almost a 45 degree angle with 120' of string, guess what happened? If you guessed "The SMB didn't make it to the surface and was pulling on the finger spool with such force that it jerked it right out of Caruso's hand" you would be correct.

Now I carry a slightly larger Manta Reel with 160' of line and a better quality SMB that is much easier to inflate.

In conditions of strong current 25% more line than depth may not be sufficient.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'm not so sure I would deploy my SMB from the bottom in all cases. If I couldn't find my buddy at the beginning of the dive, and if I estimated my ascent time would be short enough--say, my depth is 60 feet--I think I might search for one minute and then waste no time beginning my ascent and focus on maintaining a steady ascent rate of 30-60 fpm until I reached the surface--omitting the safety stop. I'm well practiced at deploying an SMB, and yet it still takes me a good 15 seconds or so. While I'm fiddling with the SMB, are the boat and I getting farther apart?

 

[Rollin Bonz]

There's a learning opportunity here. Although the depth was not specified odds are that a separated diver doing a 3 minute safety stop during a free ascent following an aborted dive of less than 3 minutes in tough surface conditions will cause more problems than it's worth.

.

He drifted 9 miles in 8 hours. Assuming a similar current at his safety stop depth, his 3 minute safety stop cost him an additional 300 feet of distance from the boat.

As @caruso said, lesson to be learned... In recreational no stop diving, "safety stops" are optional and their benefit should be weighed against their cost.