Diver Panic (Video)

[scubafanatic]

The other night when I saw the video and had more time to reflect on it, I feel she did actually run out of air, given the 'accident' happened at the very end of the dive, and dives are typically ended for a group when the average diver is expected to be low on air, she just ran out of air a bit ahead of schedule, I saw no bubbles/freeflow coming from her 2nd stages, which I would have expected when she first spit/abandoned her 2nd stages, and there's no air for BCD inflation at that point either. Embolism was avoided when she last exhaled, then inhaled and got little or no air, so she was swimming up with deflated lungs with only a partial breath or no air in them.

 

[FinnMom]

I've seen sculling w/ hands from some quite experienced, but usually also quite rusty divers. I think our attention narrows when we're stressed and the diver doesn't realize they are doing it, or how much they are doing it, the same way anyone can start to breath too fast when stressed, or exerting themselves more than they should.

I still remember my ~10th dive when I meant to be swimming at 12m and starting slowly sinking. I kept adding little bursts of air but I read 16m before the sinking stopped. By then my stomach was a tiny ball left behind at 13m (like the feeling you get when your car hits ice -your stomach stays where it was and the car moves out from under it). If you have very little to no experience with diving that deep it's amazing how intimidating an extra 2-4m can be, even if for rec limits its not deep at all. People reading Scubaboard are frequently both experienced and active divers, often exceptionally so. We need to make an effort to remember what it was like when all this was new, and believe that it might feel exactly like that for anyone returning after a long break.

Since my own small unhappy moment, I've noticed that if a diver has recently/generally only dove from a shallow area and a sloping desent (shore dives) or used a desent line, or simply made a lot of dives with shollow bottoms (many lakes & quarries), they can be badly out of touch with how much air they need to add for a controlled decent. They start sinking a bit fast, or notice the sinking but can't find their inflator right away and they can get a bit unhappy. The fact that you keep sinking faster and faster doesn't help, and if you start sculling with both hands you definetly aren't going to find the inflator.

Solutions? That we keep and eye on each other, even those who shouldn't be having any trouble. We should also respect that rusty is serious concern, and remember that even an active diver can be rusty or completely inexperienced in exactly this dive's conditions.

BTW if a buddy has been out of the water for a while, even for a shollow dive it can be useful to take a slate or wetnotes along so you can explain an observed problem without needing to surface. Sign language isn't too effective when one person is stressed and frustration just makes a bigger mess.

 

[Bogtrotter]

I like the comment about.. It wouldn't happen around me because I wouldn't allow it..LOL... We are not in control of other divers. Someone can lose it without a whole lot of warning.

Well basically your just saying ****-happens. Fine, I get that, but there are clear ways to mitigate risk to the point where such an extreme level of panic in a diver are a rarity.

 

[widget]

The guy that posted it stated she was not a student. She was a tourist in Cape Town, SA.

For some reason she was on her yellow octo instead of the black primary before she rejected it. A crummy octo with poor performance may have contributed to her panic.

The water in Cape Town is on average cold, very cold, there are also strong currents and poor visibility, lots of dives are also done from the shore with longish swims, if she was a tourist its possible these factors were not something she was accustomed to and stress played a major part in her panic.

Dives are mostly short and fairly shallow (of course there are exceptions) in Cape Town due to the cold, so its doubtful there were possible deco issues, embolism is naturally another story.

I have seen it before, wide eyes, removing gear while blindly swimming up, its a classic scenario and very little anyone can do once it reaches that stage except to perhaps accompany the panicked diver up if its safe to do so.

Should it have got to that? Probably not, it may have been a mistake by the dive leader not to pick it up but blind panic like that takes a while to manifest itself and she would have displayed obvious tell tale signs of unease or border line panic long before a full blown attack like that. It seems to me whoever was leading the dive may have missed the signs and it turned bad. Its a good lesson to never take anything for granted.

 

[widget]

The other night when I saw the video and had more time to reflect on it, I feel she did actually run out of air, given the 'accident' happened at the very end of the dive, and dives are typically ended for a group when the average diver is expected to be low on air, she just ran out of air a bit ahead of schedule, I saw no bubbles/freeflow coming from her 2nd stages, which I would have expected when she first spit/abandoned her 2nd stages, and there's no air for BCD inflation at that point either. Embolism was avoided when she last exhaled, then inhaled and got little or no air, so she was swimming up with deflated lungs with only a partial breath or no air in them.

Its possible I guess, but I dont think so, it looked like a classic case of panic, she was highly stressed waving her arms around and struggling to go up, working hard she just lost control and the first thing she does is pull her mask off downwards (which is usual from my experience) and with it dislodges the regulator, this just exacerbates the panic and it was then an instinctual swim for the surface.

The depth gauge showed a shallow depth of around 10 metres, this is fairly average and they were probably no deeper than 12 odd metres, she was also wearing a 12 litre dumpy cylinder, which is very common here and with dive times of around 20 minutes due to the cold water she would have been hard pressed to run out of air, not impossible of course, I do agree, but from my experience of the area and dives its not likely.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

What about CO2 build up? I wonder of that could have been a factor?

 

[Rooster59]

at 0:27 you can see her bubbles, she's in panic already. She doesn't spit the reg until 0:41, 14 seconds later. She likely had been in obvious panic before 0:27. All I can add, get to her sooner and calm her down, rescue diver grab her BC strap and look her in the eye. If she goes up fast and fights the offered reg, she may shut her airway and severely injure her lungs. I'm just frustrated that nothing was done until too late, when there were obvious early signs that something was wrong,

 

[widget]

What about CO2 build up? I wonder of that could have been a factor?

Sure, ....cold water, current, poor buoyancy, working hard, short shallow breathing, not venting completely,..... I think it certainly could have been a big contributing factor.

 

[scagrotto]

I actually think there is some rationality into the decision to discard the regulator.
There is a physiological basis to much panic

I'll happily agree that there's a rational explanation for why people do it, but that's very different than a rational reason for doing it. A physiological basis has no more to do with it than whether or not there's a "good" reason to panic. Either you're thinking rationally or you're not.

It may be possible that rational thought could lead to the decision that the reg isn't supplying enough air and you've got a problem to solve, but unless you can breathe water any idea that you're better off without the reg is an irrational decision. As for bolting to the surface, rational though will certainly tell you you'll find all the air you need there and it can solve a multitude of problems, but if you're properly trained rational thought will also tell you that bolting isn't the way to get to the surface. As near as I can figure, that means that bolting for the surface is also a result of irrational thought, regardless of how much rational consideration of the amount of available air is involved.

For some reason she was on her yellow octo

She's either on her primary or has a very unusual setup. When the guy filming looks back to his right at 0:15 you can very clearly see the hose coming off the 1st stage sand over her right shoulder to her mouth. The hose for her octo has a loop in it, and you can see the octo a bit low and left (from the viewer's perspective) of her mask. They were at about 50', so I'm skeptical that she could have been overbreathing her primary. Of course I'm sure the safe assumption is that it was a rental, so it's certainly possible that it wasn't a great reg and wasn't working as well as it could have been.

 

[stevensamler]

If in fact she went ooa which in this case is a probability shame on her buddy for not monitoring air with her and thumbing the dive earlier.