Could you do it?

[Darnold9999]

Lynne you ask Interesting questions. Have been on both ends of a rescue or non rescue as it were. Once got myself into a situation that the DM basicly waved by-by good luck(you idiot:shakehead ). She made the right choice - I got myself out and she would have made that process much much more difficult attempting a rescue.

Have "helped" another diver (not a rescue but was going that way) and remember thinking "we are at 70 feet and going down - at 130 I am letting go". Didn't come to that but the thought process was there. Would I have followed through - probably not - know there is a safety margin so would continue until I was at the edge of the margin roughly 150 or so in that situation. If the problem had not resolved I think I would have waved by-by good luck. At least I like to think so. This was an insta-buddy so no relationship issues to deal with.

The problem I see with the whole rescue issue is that there is no black and white - just degrees of risk. At 70 feet was I at risk trying to stop a runaway sinking panicking diver? Yes, but a minimal risk - at 150 feet with the same diver yes but now the risk is extreme. Where exactly do you draw the line? A situation where a "rescue" is required is not a discrete event, but a whole series of events that lead up to it and then another different series of events that make up the rescue. The initial rescue might be quite benign and then go south rapidly - could you disengage part way through? Harder than not initialting the rescue at all - particularly narked and task focused.

IMHO it would be really really hard to make the decision not to help unless it was absolutly clear that helping would have no chance of success or was obvious that I would be the second fatality. Otherwise you step in and do your best and take your chances.

 

[lamont]

I think, unless you already have a track record with these kinds of events, no one really knows what they will do when faced with a life-risking crisis. I've seen too many times when people's talk don't line up with their action when it hits the fan. People are often surprised to see who steps up to the plate in a crisis and who's over sitting in the corner sucking their thumb.

I found that I did both. It was helpful to have other rescuers there since I definitely needed to reboot at one point right in the middle of it.

 

[The Horn]

One thing that makes the original question difficult is how the "imminent death" situation happened.

How many people have thumbed a dive or noticed an accident waiting to happen and due to proper training, situational awareness and quick reaction time stopped the incident in its tracks and thus ended the road to doom?

I guess that if the multiple boggies had occured to set up the diver in the position of death I already would be SOL to do anything further.

 

[Meng_Tze]

If you are recreationally diving, your chances of getting bent are low. And if you do get bent you are likely to get fatigued first, followed by joint pain or skin bends long before you get type 2 DCS.

I can't believe that you would pull a reg out of someone's mouth rather than do a rapid ascent with them to the surface.

I'm prepared to blow off 20 mins of mandatory O2 deco at my 20 foot stop if my buddy toxes. I'm likely to take a type 1 hit to the joints and need to go to the recompression chamber, but I'm prepared to do that. If my buddy has a runaway inflator on deco I'm going after them, dragging them back down to depth and completing deco. Where it gets to the point where I'm not willing to risk DCS is if my buddy has a CVA at the end of a 240 fsw dive right before starting deco. I still need to do my deep stops and hand his body off to the support divers. I won't skip the deep stops on a significant dive.

Recreational divers should stop agonizing over pulling regs out of people's mouths -- exhale to the surface and go onto O2 and hit the chamber if you have any symptoms. Stop being so terrified of DCS that you'll kill someone else rather than running the slightest risk of DCS.

well put Lamont

 

[The Horn]

What about outside the box, indirect assistance as it were. your going to run out of air messing with this diver at depth so clip a reel onto the guy and ascend. buddy is on the other end so you could find, pull up later???

Lift bag the diver and get to the surface?

self preservation is a hard thing to understand???

 

[Darnold9999]

Recreational divers should stop agonizing over pulling regs out of people's mouths -- exhale to the surface and go onto O2 and hit the chamber if you have any symptoms. Stop being so terrified of DCS that you'll kill someone else rather than running the slightest risk of DCS.

Well said, the tables computers are just guidelines that are designed with so much safety margin in them that it takes in the entire bell curve of responses. In normal diving stay within them and you have virtually no chance of DCS. In a rescue situation you have an enormous safety margin re DCS - skip the safety stop, exceed the ascent rate etc. Where the margin is not so large is air. When the guage says 0 psi you stop breathing.

 

[Rick Murchison]

People can speculate all they want but you just dont know untill your there. Id like to think I would just let them go but my Hx of 20 something years of EMS has proven to me that when push comes to shove I will put myself in danger to a reasonable level.

I think this is about the best assessment I've seen so far. I'm one who tends to "leap right in" - and calculate the risk as I go...
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Another issue. On most recreational dives, even with a "fair" decompression obligation, I would make a brief excursion to the surface to "deliver" a diver who needed gas from me and that I couldn't stop from making the ascent, followed by an immediate descent to, or below, my first decompression stop, where I would commence a "double schedule," or as long a schedule as my gas supply allowed... and I'd most likely be just fine. When I think of scenarios where my deco load would be so great that I couldn't or wouldn't accompany such a diver to the surface, I can't think of one where I wouldn't have a deco bottle I could somehow hand off and send along as I disengaged and sent said diver aloft on his own.
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The "impossible" scenario is the 200+ foot dive with 30+ minutes bottom time when Joe has his leg ripped off and has passed out before his buoyant release to the surface. I reckon I'll figure out what to do with that one when it happens.
Rick

 

[Rick Murchison]

Recreational divers should stop agonizing over pulling regs out of people's mouths -- exhale to the surface and go onto O2 and hit the chamber if you have any symptoms. Stop being so terrified of DCS that you'll kill someone else rather than running the slightest risk of DCS.

Worth repeating.
Rick

 

[Diver Dennis]

Recreational divers should stop agonizing over pulling regs out of people's mouths -- exhale to the surface and go onto O2 and hit the chamber if you have any symptoms. Stop being so terrified of DCS that you'll kill someone else rather than running the slightest risk of DCS.

So you are saying that it will kill them if the reg is pulled out of their mouth?

I'm one who would yank my reg from someone's mouth before we surfaced if I couldn't stop them. I would go up after them but to avoid the bends I would do it.

You will note that I said I would do it before we reached the surface, not that I would not go up with them. I stand by that. They would not die because of lack of air.

 

[lamont]

So you are saying that it will kill them if the reg is pulled out of their mouth?

If they inhale water and laryngospasm or hold their breath on a rapid ascent that'll do it. Rapid ascents are dangerous, but not from the DCS risk, but from the embolism risk. If you're the donor in an OOA which results in a rapid ascent you can just breathe out or go 'ahhh' and be okay. Yanking someone's reg out of their mouth during a rapid ascent, though, greatly magnifies the risk of them ascending with a closed airway which will kill them.