Lessons Most frightening moments

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After seeing how the post I wrote about the reverse block resonated with people, I would like to make another post today, namely about the most frightening moments I've ever had.

It's easy, particularly for novice divers, to think that people like myself, with decades of experience, thousands of dives and a deck of c-cards have everything under control and nothing bad ever happens.

I wrote about the reverse block because of that. I wanted to show that I am still human and I can still make mistakes. On the internet there is a strong tendency for (technical) divers and instructors with a lot of experience to project an image of themselves as always solving problems correctly, always making the best decisions, and in the case of instructors in particular, having a monopoly on good ideas that lead to perfect students diving perfectly.

None of that, of course, reflects reality at all.

So I will start. I urge experienced divers to share their own stories.

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First
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1985. I was certified as AOW and we were making a deep dive along a wall. The bottom, for all intents and purposes, at the bottom of the wall was unsurvivable. A diver who diving with a group slightly ahead of us got caught in a large ball of discarded fishing line that he didn't see. He started sinking. The incident started at 42 meters. My buddy and I had just started our dive and we saw this happening. Nobody in his group did. We went after him. This was the first time I had dived deeper than 42 meters. I couldn't tell how deep we were when we caught him because the (analogue) depth gauge I was using was pinned at its maximum depth. This was also my first deco dive or at least my first dive where I was "off the tables" and unable to to know how to ascend. I was, at that time, unaware of oxygen toxicity, gas management and ascent protocols. We returned (at a rapid pace) to 30ft. (10m) and waited there until our tanks were empty on the assumption that any damage done by our deep incursion would be fixed by that. Upon surfacing we didn't know if we were going to get the bends or not. I was, frankly, scared. It still gives me the heebiejeebies to think about this incident more than 30 years later. We did something there that was completely out of control (also the rescue) and we got off easy.

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Second
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2002, I think. I was working as a DM. We temporarily lost a diver during a dive. The situation was that we were on a platform at 25m and doing some exercises for the AOW (deep) dive. A group of divers (maybe 6) descending LANDED on us and kicked up so much silt in their attempts to slow down before impacting the bottom that the visibility went from 5m to black-out in a matter of seconds. I grabbed the two divers right in front of me and dragged them out of the silt cloud. One of them turned out to be our diver and the other one turned out to be one of the idiots who landed on us. We were missing a diver. We surfaced. Naturally our divers were told to surface if they became separated but this diver did not. He remained where he was and waited to be rescued. On the surface we decided that I would search for the missing diver because I had the most experience of everyone (including the instructor). At that point I was a DM but I was already technically trained. I had very limited time. I went back down and eventually found him but it was luck. He survived and my beard got grayer overnight. If I couldn't have found him in the next 5 min his death would have been on my conscience until I died. This was so frightening to me that I nearly abandoned all plans I had to become an instructor.

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Third
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The accident. My team saved the life of a diver who ran out of air during an AOW training dive (by another group, not mine) and was left for dead on the bottom at 18m. We acted quickly and professionally and got him into the hands of paramedics within about 10 min. As an aside, the fact that the Dutch paramedics were able to be on scene so quickly was no small part of this! He looked dead when we retrieved him. He lay in coma for several weeks after the incident. Doctors had basically written him off when -- unexpectedly to all -- he woke up and subsequently made a reasonable (albeit not full) recovery.

The impact on myself and on the members of my team was substantial, particularly because of what we viewed as our 'mistakes'. One diver (the DM) stopped diving. He started hyperventilating during the descent to find the "body" and after that he started to hyperventilate on EVERY dive. He stopped diving.

To me it changed EVERYTHING about how I view training and my role as an instructor. I didn't organize things on the surface as well as I could have, if I had had a second run at it. Yes, I had the EMS on site in 10 min. Police, paramedics, trauma doctor, helicopter, fire department with a boat, a private boat.... all of that I had..... but I was overwhelmed and not communicating as well as I could.

Someone tried to chase my (uncertified) OW students into the water to go search. He didn't know that they were uncertified and I ripped him a new one in a way that I regret, giving in to the emotion. An NOB (CMAS) instructor showed me by example how to control the dive site in a way I had never learned, I missed seeing a diver (the DM who caused the accident) displaying passive panic. It only became apparent to me when they had to take him away by ambulance when he collapsed.... it was MUCH more messy scene than I had ever imagined and I was not in control as well as I would expect from myself. At one point, once the EMS had control of the surface situation I grabbed another diver (a DM) and went searching myself. This was a mistake. I can't get over the mind set that drove me to ACT when I SHOULD have been coordinating! I'm like the guy who charges into a burning building because I can't fight the urge to DO SOMETHING! I HATE that about myself.

Since that time (it's been years) I've been replaying that event in my mind and thinking, "if I had only done XXXX then YYYY". It drives me CRAZY to think that if we were sharper we could have found him 30 seconds or a minute earlier and his recovery could have been better. The fact that he survived is utterly astounding. These things never end like that.... but I feel responsible for the fact that it took so long.

This was a formative moment in my diving. I considered stopping as well but eventually decided not not to. To this day I cannot -- and will not -- teach or participate in the Rescue course, even though I may be the one instructor in my circle who is most qualified to talk about the differences between theory and practice. It's just too intimidating.
 
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He felt much better moments later.
 
Dusk is good because you can see more than you would think and the most surprising thing is the reef comes alive and starts making noises!
I can’t remembwr what it is, maybe corals opening? It’s like popcorn popping
I have done one of these since that time.

Last year while in Roatan at the end of the trip and covid starting, the dive shops were getting conflicting information. They're open. They're closed. They're open. They're closed. We had missed the 2pm afternoon dive by the time the "you can open" order came in. So 4ish in the afternoon, the DI said "let's go before they change their mind again".

This was amazing - seeing different things on the reef that I didn't ever see during the early morning or mid afternoon dives. The night creatures were just starting to wake up.

I would love it if they added this time of day as a standard dive.
 
First lesson learned is: fins do matter.
Yes, they do. Apart from swimming in pools, or at a calm beach where the depth is shallow enough to stand, fins should be worn.

A couple years ago, we were down in the Keys with some friends. We were at Looe Key with 4 boats. We used two mooring buoys, with the second boat tied to the first. I’m with my kids and friends on their boat, and we notice someone behind the other two boats. We watch him for a bit and decide he probably needs help, as he did not appear to be making any progress one way or another.

So my buddy and I swim back to our boats to assess. His boat is tied up to mine, so we board our boat and ask if the guy needs help. He doesn’t decline, and was clearly struggling, so I swam a line out to him, and we bring him to the boat. He takes a bit to rest at the transom, then comes aboard. Guy in his mid 70’s, no fins, and a good distance from the boat he arrived on. My buddy then takes him back to his family. They had no clue he was missing.
 
Why fins (good fins) are necessary

OMG! My heart was racing as I watched that vortex incident. I haven't used split fins in a long time - and unless I'm diving a nice, warm, blue lake (do those exist?) I won't. Yikes. Mother nature is challenging.
 
WeRtheOcean-- Re "Fins do matter". I've beaten a dead horse over the years pointing out the difference between swimming with & without them. And the related threads/posts on OW & DM course "swim" tests and what they really mean. One point being how much easier the OW 300 meter swim with mask/FINS/snorkel is (all you do is kick...) compared to the swimming skills needed to do the 200 meter regular swim properly. And why these two situations can't even be compared.
 
My personal most frightening moment thus far was the first time I jumped off the boat into the ocean for my first OW training.

Unlike in the pool, in the ocean I couldn't see the bottom - it was darker and murkier. It felt like you were being swallowed into the void. I kept hovering at the surface while the rest of the group already descended. I remember questioning my decision to take the diving course, considering in my head how much I could get in refunds if I just got out then and returned all the equipments:shakehead:.

Then before I could finish my maths, my instructor pulled my legs to drag me down and I was too busy getting angry at him and doing my expletive handsignals to him that I forgot the panic:bicker:

Shortly, I got over the fear :yeahbaby:
 
My personal most frightening moment thus far was the first time I jumped off the boat into the ocean for my first OW training.

Unlike in the pool, in the ocean I couldn't see the bottom - it was darker and murkier. It felt like you were being swallowed into the void. I kept hovering at the surface while the rest of the group already descended. I remember questioning my decision to take the diving course, considering in my head how much I could get in refunds if I just got out then and returned all the equipments:shakehead:.

Then before I could finish my maths, my instructor pulled my legs to drag me down and I was too busy getting angry at him and doing my expletive handsignals to him that I forgot the panic:bicker:

Shortly, I got over the fear :yeahbaby:
First OW dives can be scary and being nervous is a good thing most of the time (it shows you respect the situation of learning a new skill).

Your instructor, quite frankly, is an idiot and dangerous to an extent. What he did could have lead to a panic attack with an unsuspecting diver. You could easily have spat your reg out, made an uncontrolled ascent or kicked out - none of which have a happy ending when underwater.

Better to have a short conversation with you about your fears on the surface and cajole you into diving than force you under and risk the potential outcome.

There is an few sayings that a lot of experienced divers live by
1) better to be on the surface and wishing you were underwater than underwater wishing you were on the surface. He effectively forced you into the second category and it could have had serious consequences that put you both (as well as other divers in the group) at serious risk.

2) any dive can be called at any time for any reason - if you don't "feel" it for whatever reason, call the dive - (this includes before you hit the water or at any point before the planned end). Diving should be done to make you happy - if not why are you there? Better to have a conversation on the surface about why you called it than trying to macho it out and becoming increasingly stressed.
 

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