Collapse of the "Buddy System"

[flots am]

BTW, why does it seem as if everybody is talking about OOA situations as the only reason for buddying up? Other stuff happens underwater.

While "other stuff" is always possible, an underwater heart attack or stroke gives you pretty slim odds even if you're diving with an EMT.

 

[Kevrumbo]

These threads make me so sad.

If you want to know how to have good dive buddies, look into GUE training. In our world, dive buddies are good buddies.

There is no need at all for people to be bad buddies. Dumpster Diver is right; situational awareness and team skills take work, and definitely get better with good training. But the primary requirement for a good buddy is that the person have the desire to BE a good buddy. Find people who WANT to be good buddies, and you can form functional teams.

The buddy system works quite well if you want to create frustration and provide a false sense of security. Team-building and unification creates harmony and provides real help. But, that takes time and dedication. Few are willing to take the necessary steps to build a solid team.

It doesn't have to be GUE training, but GUE does teach the buddy team system first and formost.
Anybody from any agency can have as strong a buddy team as GUE, all it takes is commitment and losing the "me" attitude.

Both divers have to be commited to the style and one can't all of a sudden dart off to go see something and not let the other know what they are doing. Many divers are impulsive and forget the first rule of buddy diving, the buddy system comes first.

Many people aren't disciplined enough to be good buddies.
If you are going to use the buddy system then that is the number one objective of the dive - to stay together and be each others redundant system. Everything else done during the dive is on top of that first rule and the first rule never gets broken.
Then there are additional buddy skills on top of "never lose your buddy". Those skills seem to have been passed over in recent years or maybe never really taught and confirmed.

JohnN, I am extraordinarily lucky to have the pool of divers available to me that I have -- but of course, that pool is available to anybody else on earth, if they are willing to do the work

In your situation, I would really work on pre-dive communication. I'd explain what I wanted, and make sure that the buddy I was working with was amenable. I would recognize that it might be possible that I'd have to do more than half the work to keep the team together, but it should still be possible to have a good dive, nonetheless.

I dive with my husband on a regular basis, and he does not subscribe to the kind of team diving I prefer. Still, I manage to have many good dives with him, even though I'm doing more than my share to make sure we stay united.

Someone please give an example of an activity other than diving with the potential for injury or death that utilizes a buddy system, I really can't think of any. Anytime you are alone you have the potential to be injured or have a medical emergency, should everyone have a buddy at all times. Really the buddy system came from the YMCA's swimming program before anyone had conceived of recreational diving. Time for it to disappear and be replaced by training to focus on self sufficiency and self rescue. Once that is achieved all divers will be safer and the bad or instabuddy issue will disappear.


Scuba Diving - New Jersey & Long Island New York - dive Wreck Valley - Gear & Training - Dive Training

Airline Crew Safety using the tenets of Crew Resource Management (CRM):

Crew resource management or cockpit resource management (CRM) is a set of training procedures for use in environments where human error can have devastating effects. Used primarily for improving air safety, CRM focuses on interpersonal communication, leadership, and decision making in the cockpit.

CRM training encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills, and attitudes including communications, situational awareness, problem solving, decision making, and teamwork; together with all the attendant sub-disciplines which each of these areas entails. CRM can be defined as a management system which makes optimum use of all available resources—equipment, procedures and people—to promote safety and enhance the efficiency of operations.

. . .CRM is concerned with the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to manage resources within an organized system, not so much with the technical knowledge and skills required to operate equipment. In this context, cognitive skills are defined as the mental processes used for gaining and maintaining situational awareness, for solving problems and for making decisions. Interpersonal skills are regarded as communications and a range of behavioral activities associated with teamwork. In many operational systems as in other walks of life, skill areas often overlap with each other, and they also overlap with the required technical skills. Furthermore, they are not confined to multi-crew craft or equipment, but also relate to single operator equipment or craft as they invariably need to interface with other craft or equipment and various other support agencies in order to complete a mission successfully. . .

Crew resource management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Storker]

an underwater heart attack or stroke gives you pretty slim odds even if you're diving with an EMT.

In the incident I referred to, the diver - for reasons not stated in media - lost consciousness underwater, was brought to the surface by her buddy and resuscitated. So, "other stuff" doesn't need to be as fatal as a stroke or a heart attack.

 

[Donnah]

Hot drop into current?

Haven't lost my buddy that way but have lost everybody else including the flag and guide on a drift dive because I waited on a slowly descending buddy with a camera the size of a small sub. Had an SMB so no problem.

Yes, both were hot drops into current. (1) Out of a small boat in Los Roques. Lots of current. My buddy and I descended together (last ones off) and the others and DM were not there. He went up to look for the buoy the DM was towing, and didn't come back. After 2 minutes, I went up, signaled for the little boat which took me to where the bubbles were. I buddied up with someone else -- everyone was scattered all over, no one with original buddy. Close to the end of the dive, we finally all got together again. (2) In Cozumel, lots of current. I was helping someone who had a problem with her equipment and ended up being the last one off. When I got to the bottom, no one was there. Couldn't see any bubbles. Little current where I was. I ascended, our boat was gone. I used my whistle to signal another boat, they came over, asked what my boat was and said "They will come get you." My boat came, took me to where the group was (a long ways away). Divemaster was on the surface. Did the dive. My "friends" are still teasing me.

Yes, I goofed. Got complacent Should have done it differently.

 

[JohnN]

Airline Crew Safety using the tenets of Crew Resource Management (CRM):


Crew resource management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'd maintain that commercial air travel is a unique beast, and that diving is more analogous to you flying a private plane.

And you certainly don't see a co-pilot on the Greyhound

In the incident I referred to, the diver - for reasons not stated in media - lost consciousness underwater, was brought to the surface by her buddy and resuscitated. So, "other stuff" doesn't need to be as fatal as a stroke or a heart attack.

If that is the corner case you're worrying about, I'll take my chances. Want to bet that diver had a known medical condition that counter-indicated diving ?

 

[Storker]

If that is the corner case you're worrying about [...]

Cite that this is a corner case?
And where did I say that this is the case I'm worrying about?

What I said, was that there are other situations except OOA where a buddy might be "nice to have". And I cited one example where an "other situation" didn't have to be inherently fatal if drowning was avoided. Another situation might be an entanglement.

 

[TSandM]

I completely agree that divers should be as self-sufficient as merited by the dive in question. It's my opinion that, diving with reasonably trained and experienced people and in average recreational depths ( less than 100 feet) that doesn't require redundant gas. For dives in the deeper part of that range, or with novice divers or people who are entirely new to me, I do dive with redundant gas. My choice is doubles, but a well-configured accessory bottle doesn't bother me.

We have had a lot of threads here lately telling stories and then concluding that solo diving is the only way to go because buddies are annoying or unreliable. A lot of time (and this, in my view, is one of them) it seems as though the buddy unreliability could have been reduced or avoided by a combination of good dive planning, good execution, or good in-water communication. For example, the poster above who tells the story about losing his daughter in very low viz -- what on earth were they doing, using a single file formation in those conditions?

Although I do not do it myself, I do not condemn those who solo dive. I do get my dander up when someone says that solo diving is the only solution because all dive buddies are worthless. It's not true.

 

[mrdre]

That description also fits some divemasters who have led me on guided dives.

I lot of guides do that intentionally to get over the dives quickly. They make the others swim and run through the air faster. After noticing that we simply wouldn't follow the guides. We'd stay where we wanted to stay and surface when it was our time. If the guides complained or showed attitude we wouldn't tip them and wouldn't dive with them anymore. If they didn't complain and it was fine with them, we would tip them extra. This way we filter out all the a-hole guides and dive with the guides willing to do a little extra for a little extra.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'm beginning to believe the worst of all worlds is a buddy who goes through the motions with you yet in reality doesn't fully buy into the buddy system and silently goes by the mantra that "we're all solo divers."

 

[drbill]

My first dives were solo (due to having to share one kid among us) as are about 95% of my dives today. There are few buddies I have dived with who would be in position to effect a rescue if something should happen. That is not entirely their fault as I focus on my filming when I'm under. The buddy I pay the closest attention to is my 30-year old son.

If I am doing anything other than a reasonably shallow (say 50 fsw) dive solo, I carry my pony. It is my real buddy.

I remember when I did rescue a second time (as a refresher after a few decades). I was heading back out to the float to get our gear when a woman nearby was calling for help. I assumed one of my instructor friends had set this up as a joke, but I treated it as a real event. I assisted her over to the float and let her rest for a while. Then I towed her in to the dive park stairs. As I approached the stairs, a guy swam over to us and said he'd take over. I asked who he was. He replied "Her buddy... and boyfriend." I replied "If you were her buddy, where were you when she was in trouble?"

A few years ago I counted up my incident rates with and without a dive buddy. I was 17 times more likely to experience a dive incident while diving with a buddy than I was while diving solo. Hmmm...