Scuba Diver Panic from 15 meters - Scuba Diving Incident Analysis

[jagfish]

Scuba Diver Panic from 15 meters - Scuba Diving Incident Analysis
This video was sent to me by a subscriber (thanks, Tammy). I’d seen the thumbnail before, but never the video. According to the info I could find, this incident occurred near Cape Town, South Africa in January 2015. Right at the end of a dive, a woman is suffering from some unknown distress and subsequently rejects her regulator and mask and bolts to the surface from 15 meters. The dive with the camera (the diver filming says that he or she is not an instructor) takes control of the diver to keep her from bolting to the surface and tries repeatedly to stuff his spare secondary regulator into her mouth. Due to the bubbles and struggle, it’s hard for me to see if he was successful in getting her to accept the regulator or not. There were no catastrophic/lasting injuries from this event that I can find.

Big Q to folks out there...what is your experience with try to force a reg into a bolting diver's mouth?

 

[KenGordon]

I have found it quite hard to persuade even rational divers to take a regulator held up to them.

One example was a partially resolved freeflow in quite cold water. The diver with the freeflow had been sorted out by one team member but that left the two of them on one first stage just like the one that that had just failed (Oceanic). When offered a whole Ali80 of my bailout with a 5ft hose to himself he initially refused it.

There was a fairly well documented local fatality of an RB diver, with what was really a minor failure, rejecting multiple offers of gas before giving in and ascending owing lots of deco.

I have no idea what was happening to the diver in this video before the problem that drove her to the surface but I would put money in this being a final issue of several stacking up tipping her over rather than the first issue.

I cannot imaging forcing a regulator into someone’s mouth making things better. Has anyone known that work?

 

[scubaozy]

I cannot imaging forcing a regulator into someone’s mouth making things better. Has anyone known that work?

Yes, it works if you force the reg with authority, purge and pinch the nose of the victim at the same time. But not sure it would have worked out in this case.

 

[Dan]

This old video has been discussed a lot here.

Diver Panic (Video)

Diver panics - Cape Town

 

[GioPuma]

I see this video and I imagine how bad it would have been if the donor was trying to share his/her primary and not the octo.
Or even worse, if the donor had the secondary on the inflator.

 

[fisheater]

I see this video and I imagine how bad it would have been if the donor was trying to share his/her primary and not the octo.
. . . .

I don't follow. What difference would it make if the donor were offering the primary or the secondary?

 

[GioPuma]

The difference is that the donor needs to take his regulator off too, while wrestling with a panicked diver. And even if he successfully shovel his primary in the victim's mouth quickly, he would need to loose contact with it to allow himself to switch. At that point the victim very likely would spit also the buddy's regulator off.

 

[AJ]

The difference is that the donor needs to take his regulator off too, while wrestling with a panicked diver. And even if he successfully shovel his primary in the victim's mouth quickly, he would need to loose contact with it to allow himself to switch. At that point the victim very likely would spit also the buddy's regulator off.

There's a simple solution to that: don't wrestle with a panicking diver. I would'nt. Either they take the reg I provide or not. Their decision. Shoving a reg in their mouth with force won't work in my opinion and may even lead to more panic and you wrestling/panicking too.

 

[inquis]

the donor needs to take his regulator off too, while wrestling with a panicked diver

Hopefully such a donor has trained to switch to the necklaced secondary WHILE removing the primary for donation.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Big Q to folks out there...what is your experience with try to force a reg into a bolting diver's mouth?

Negative ghostrider.

Doubt it is possible. Couldn't do it in the single, statistically insignificant, event that I experienced.