Being left on the dive site: How to avoid and how to survive...

[The Chairman]

I just saw this article, and thought that any discussion about survival should be mitigated with how to avoid the scenario in the first place.

How to Survive 75 Hours Alone in the Ocean - Outside - Pocket

I'll chime in later. For now, I want to see what peeps are thinking. Especially what you learned in you OW and AOW classes.

 

[Storker]

He left his buddy and went solo. And then got lost.

That's all I need to know.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

Following a spate of lost diver rescues, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) teamed up with various agencies (BSAC, PADI, SSI) to offer a sea survival course aimed specifically at divers. The course is designed to give divers the skills to deal with a 'lost at sea' scenario.

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You may also recognise the narrator, and key contributor, as Mark Powell of 'Deco for Divers' fame.

I was lucky enough to be one of the first instructors certified to provide this course, which we hope will reduce diver casualties.

Unfortunately too many people still believe that a dive ends on surfacing.

 

[iamrushman]

"sometimes because he lost consciousness—but he had a buoyancy compensator that kept him floating with his head above water."

sometimes it pays to have a jacket bc.

 

[Bob DBF]

Start by making friends with the crew and divers you don't know, as the first step is someone knowing you are missing.


Bob

 

[diver00011]

Overconfidence kills.

 

[arew+4]

1.Show DM portrait of Franklin
2. Have them watch as you zip it inside your wet suit
3. Tell them they will become intamately acquainted back at the dock.

 

[wnissen]

Well, that's scary. Some people at my shop experienced a separation from their dive boat even with SMBs deployed, due to the wave height and distance. I don't know if it will help, but I do always carry an SMB in the ocean, and have one of the giant 6-ft ones from DAN if there is any hint of waves. Hopefully a combination of that with buddy diving would avoid the event described (sea lice!), but major props to Hewitt.

 

[Esprise Me]

No mention of whether he was carrying any signaling devices, though it's implied he was not. My OW course taught that we should always have a minimum of one audible and one visual signaling device, and we did practice deploying an SMB. But we weren't required to purchase those devices, nor were they provided with our rental gear, so I feel like they undercut that message. There was also no discussion of where to put those devices, or which ones were most effective under different conditions, and PLBs were never mentioned at all.

 

[loosenit2]

"Hewitt was an experienced navy diving instructor with 20 years in the service, and he told his dive buddy that he would swim back to shore himself. Instead, when he next surfaced, he had been pulled several hundred meters away by a strong current. The dive boat had moved on, and Hewitt was left alone, the tide pushing him farther and farther from shore."

I'm a little confused were they shore diving or diving from a boat? If they were diving from a boat and the boat left without a proper headcount and did not notify anyone that is a serious issue. This scenario is different if they were shore diving and he got swept out to sea.