Could you do it?

[1_T_Submariner]

Hard Question. Great responses! Thanks for all of the Info. I would have to say I think I would try to save someone without killing myself but, I'm just not sure.

 

[jeckyll]

Some really good points raised.

As I'm thinking through the different posts, perhaps it's due to the focus on slow ascents that I'd said I wouldn't allow myself to get dragged to the surface.

I've never been faced with a diver who was panicked or OOA and hope I never find myself in that situation. But if I do find myself getting dragged up, I guess I would try to get negative if possible and slow things down...

 

[ArcticDiver]

Some really good points raised.

As I'm thinking through the different posts, perhaps it's due to the focus on slow ascents that I'd said I wouldn't allow myself to get dragged to the surface.

I've never been faced with a diver who was panicked or OOA and hope I never find myself in that situation. But if I do find myself getting dragged up, I guess I would try to get negative if possible and slow things down...

Although OOA is the specific emergency in this thread; the mental response attitude is the same regardless of the emergency. So, it pays to think in terms of Risk Analysis and Action as well as specific emergencies.

 

[jeckyll]

ArticDiver: I've actually gone after a buddy who's inflator stuck open. He was shooting to the surface from 70 fsw or so. As I said in my first post in this thread, when the brown smelly stuff hits the spinning blades, I still think that people react mostly on instinct.

I didn't think "I'm ascending too fast" or "I'll just watching him buoyantly ascend". It was all reaction. By 30 fsw I knew I wasn't going to catch him and gave up and slowed my ascent.

 

[Steve_Dives]

I had one of those due to a 30 lb dropped weight belt. Speadeagle and scream to the surface

Still managed to survive.

You've given me another reason to hate weight belts!

 

[Steve_Dives]

Good question. I liked H2Andy's response, to which I will say ditto. I fear for humankind if we are unwilling to take a risk to save each other. How much risk and for who is the critical question.

in other words, if i can think i can help despite the risk, i'll try to help. i hope.

I'm reminded of a story on NPR from a couple weeks back. Scenario 1 - Five people are standing on one railroad track and will be killed unless you push a button. Pushing the button diverts the train onto another track where one person is standing and will be killed. Scenario 2 - Same thing, only to save the 5 you have to push someone onto the track and they will die. In all cases they are total strangers. While the choice is the same (kill 1 or kill 5), the choice made by most people was to kill 1 in Scenario 1, but kill 5 in scenario 2. The difference here is that to save one we have to get near the train, and maybe into its path.

 

[Gary D.]

So this is not true?



This was a post here on SB that no one corrected from a diver with over 200 dives.

I have to admit that I thought DCS was more of a problem. As I said, I've never had a runaway but I, and I'm sure a few others reading this, thought it was more of an issue in a rocket ascent. I learned something new today because I asked questions. Thanks.

I don’t know where that post came from but a lot of dives are planned for a chamber ride. They are mainly in the Military and Commercial field. Doing it for sport diving would be idiotic at best.

Gary D

 

[lamont]

So this is not true?



This was a post here on SB that no one corrected from a diver with over 200 dives.

I have to admit that I thought DCS was more of a problem. As I said, I've never had a runaway but I, and I'm sure a few others reading this, thought it was more of an issue in a rocket ascent. I learned something new today because I asked questions. Thanks.

What you quoted is a good attitude to have about decompression. It is incorrect to state that you can go only to 10 fsw and have to decompress though. At that shallow of a depth the ppN2 in even fully saturated super slow tissues is under the 1.0 ambient at the surface and the tissues will not bubble (you need an oversaturation / overpressurization gradient in order to form bubbles). For the tissue compartments which can reach close to saturation in a recreational dive the tissues can also withstand roughly 2 times or more oversaturation over ambient before there is significant bubbling on a direct ascent at 60 fpm. That is what defines an "NDL dive".

Now there is decompression and offgasing that needs to occur on those dives. You'll probably feel better and you'll bubble to offgass a lot less if you treat all NDL dives as deco dives and do slow ascents. You may also run a risk of DCS if you do NDL dives with fast ascents over a long period of time (the larger the numbers the more it may catch up to you). It may be particularly bad to do back-to-back rapid ascents since the free phase bubble load from the first rapid ascent may get shunted on the second dive and cause fairly bad type 2 DCS.

So, yes, you want to be cautious in your day-to-day diving and minimize your DCS risk. But, no, you don't want to be overly fearful of DCS in the event you've got something that is really potentially life threatening going on. You simply have not ongassed enough inert gas into the fast tissues which are going to bubble significantly enough to give you a bad hit. Your blood will only have about a 2.5 x oversaturation compared to ambient and that can be tolerated. This is different from a technical diver who may have 5x or more oversaturation compared to ambient in their fast compartments and needs to do some decompression or they'll explosively foam in their blood (or you drop back down like Sheck did and turn a 5x oversaturation in a 2.5x oversaturation which is tolerable).

Do you want to do 100 dives like this? No. Do you want to do 100 dives like in sets of two repetetive dives? Hell no -- that's particularly bad since bubbles from the first dive may shunt on the second. But on a single dive to save a buddy, the risks of type 1 DCS (pain) are probably 1 in 100 or lower, and the risks of type 2 DCS are probably neglibible.

 

[redrover]

I have a track record of always going the extra mile but I think Diving will be a rough one for me. I don’t think I can say an absolute; yes I will do whatever it takes.
I do know it won’t matter one iota who the person is or isn’t, but there is a pretty big grey area of circumstance where I’ll just have to make the call when it happens.
I think I can just say no if the risks outweigh the probability of success. I won’t like having made that decision, and knowing that will affect when I make it.

I do know for an absolute certainty I do not want anyone to be injured to save me. If I live and they don’t, that will be the most horrible thing to live with. Only slightly less horrifying is they’re alive and harmed. Could have been harmed sucks a big one.

 

[IceIce]

I didn't read all the posts, but what is the difference with the thread earlier? Why this similar thread?

I still have to answer that I will let the buddy go up to the surface alone, if he/she is a stranger. I might regret it later if something bad happened to her, but I don't see that I can provide good help if I was injured. Different with good friend or family, I'll go up with them, I guess it's different about how we see things in different situation and who the person involved. The main reason about why I would risk myself by riding up with someone I know because I can say that I know their ability and I'm sure if they can help it, they wouldn't do that. For strangers, I don't know whether they are fooling around and end up risking themselves and others, and I certainly wouldn't want to risk my life for this reason.

To anyone reading this - here's the bottom line. I will not give my life for yours. I love you all. I love you more than I can convey, but there are people on the surface that I love more, and I will not wreck their lifes by dying to save yours. I'll do everything I can for you, short of dying.

Frank and well put.