Beach disaster with getting fins on and not being able to get up

[Hatul]

We do a lot of shore diving here in S Cal. One method if surf is up is to get to waist to chest depth, mask and reg on, BC partially inflated, float in the water and don the fins. The water provides the support so you don't need to balance yourself, nor do you need help from your buddy. As soon as the fins on on, swim quickly on the back with reg in mouth to get by the surf zone. I find entering easier than coming out.

I leash my mask to a D-ring with a bungee in case the surf knocks my mask off.

 

[Peter_C]

What can I do in the future to prevent this?

Go boat diving?

As mentioned above springs straps and floating in the water not standing. Can't always get chest deep though. Depending on conditions I will pop one fin on and start finning with all I got to get myself well past the breakers before putting on my second fin.

If the conditions are really poor I stay on shore and go for a hike, which is exactly what we did today. The flowers are blooming and the surf was booming. It was a beautiful day

 

[Bratface]

Spring straps make everything better.

 

[Ouvea]

So today I set out to do a shore dive in Monterey and I had a challenge getting my fins on past the surf layer. I fell on my butt and could not get back up after bruising my ribs. It was embarassing as folks from shore had to carry me back to the parking lot. What can I do in the future to prevent this? I had a rough time getting my fins on my feet after I was about 10 feet from shore in Breakwater today as surf was kinda bad.

Ben:

All of us who dive in Monterey have taken a tumble once or twice. Remember, that if there's heavy surf, you'll have great difficulty getting up. Since you're in a compromised position, your primary concern is to exit the danger/surf zone. If you were on your butt, you could have rolled over and crawled to safety. Yeah, it might have hurt with a bruised rib, but you'll be surprised at how your body responds when your life hangs in the balance.

Does this mean that you could lose a fin? Yes!!!! Who cares.... I would rather read about a lost fin then an obituary or another scuba diving accident. As far as preventing this from occurring, if you dive in rough conditions, then it will always be a possibility. Prudence suggests that you stay dry from the get go.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

I leash my mask to a D-ring with a bungee in case the surf knocks my mask off.

That's clever.

 

[Ben Prusinski]

I could not move as my muscles spasm and gave out. I felt like a cripple. Fortunately I was only 10 feet from shore and 4 big men came to my rescue and carried me to safety. I have dove Breakwater before but never stumbled like this. I had trouble getting my fins on with the new gloves which limited my hand dexterity. I am looking at getting DUI drygloves to have better dexterity in putting fins on. Stupid mistake on my part. Plus I was heavy weighted with 44 pounds in my drysuit. Need to get a better weight distribution of the weights to ditch them easier in the future. Having 100 pounds on my back does not help if one cannot ditch quickly. I had xrays and fortunately no broken ribs. More like bruised intercostal muscles and ribs. Been icing like crazy and taking aspirin and vicodin to heal. Weird thing was that at first there was no pain until I took my drysuit and weights off then BOOM pain!

 

[Hatul]

I could not move as my muscles spasm and gave out. I felt like a cripple. Fortunately I was only 10 feet from shore and 4 big men came to my rescue and carried me to safety. I have dove Breakwater before but never stumbled like this. I had trouble getting my fins on with the new gloves which limited my hand dexterity. I am looking at getting DUI drygloves to have better dexterity in putting fins on. Stupid mistake on my part. Plus I was heavy weighted with 44 pounds in my drysuit. Need to get a better weight distribution of the weights to ditch them easier in the future. Having 100 pounds on my back does not help if one cannot ditch quickly. I had xrays and fortunately no broken ribs. More like bruised intercostal muscles and ribs. Been icing like crazy and taking aspirin and vicodin to heal. Weird thing was that at first there was no pain until I took my drysuit and weights off then BOOM pain!

Did you have your mask and reg in place? In surf I always make it a point to do that, and in the worst case I can crawl out on my fours. It does not look graceful but it works, and can get me out of a jam.

 

[Ben Prusinski]

@Hatul- fortunately, yes, I did have my reg and mask on. Otherwise, I could have drowned. I made it half way back crawling then my muscles gave out and then I signalled emergency to shore at which point the big guys rescued me. Root cause that led to this:

1)
I had difficulty putting the fins on with my gloves which were not giving me enough hand dexterity.

2) I should have just kept the fins wrapped around my hands and walked all the way to deeper water with my BCD inflated, rolled on my back, then put the fins on

So now I have a few weeks to recover and heal and learn from my stupidity.

3) Buy dryglove system to have easier hand dexterity as the wetsuit gloves make it difficult to grab things easily.

 

[rongoodman]

Do you have spring straps on your fins? If not, you should consider them.

 

[Ben Prusinski]

I do have spring straps on my fins. What happened was that I had difficulty putting them on due to the surf conditions and my wetsuit gloves were not cooperating. If I had inflated my BCD more, kept walking deeper water and lied back on my back then tried it would have prevented the accident. Or asked my dive buddy to help me put them on and keep me from falling flat on my face. Now that I have replayed this, I will take steps to avoid it in the future.