If you think technical divers don't make mistakes.

[Diver0001]

I posted this on a different part of the forum today but I think there is something to be illustrated about the alleged God like skills of technical divers. I don't want to say, "the king has no clothes" but what I wrote below is a true story of a training dive that could have easily ended in an accident.

I'm not posting this to embarrass anyone. The only thing I want to demonstrate here is that all 4 of the divers in the water during this incident had more than 1000 dives to their name and this STILL happend.

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When I took my trimix course, there were 3 of us. Besides me one of the other students was a certified cave diver and the other was an experienced technical nitrox diver who was working on becoming an IANTD instructor.

During the assessment dive it quickly became apparent that the cave diver was unable to do much work in mid-water without a visual reference to the bottom because he had literally never done this before. The IANTD guy communicated so poorly (such a poor grasp of sign language) that, as a PADI instructor, I would have had reservations about certifying him at the OW level. I have literally no idea how he got this far without one of his instructors addressing that.

The incident:

It all came together in one horrific dive. The instructor decided to train all three of us and on one of the first deep dives the plan was to follow the bottom back to about 35 meters and then do a mid-water ascent from there. We had practiced a bit in mid-water at that point so the instructor thought the cave diver would be ok.

During the ascent the IANTD guy did not follow the plan at 35m and just .... TOOK OFF over the bottom. I thought something was wrong and since I was the closest to him I tackled him and put my regulator up to his ear and yelled "CAN I HELP YOU". He gave me a series of confusing signs "ok" "something wrong" "ok" a direction sign, abort and probably a couple of other signs I don't remember... all in rapid succession..... I had no idea what he was on about but then he just took off again.

I looked at the instructor and he signed to me to make a decision ("decide" sign) so I let him go . I figured there was no immediate danger and actually thought that it was a staged scenario whereby I had to choose between putting 3 divers off of the plan and into an unknown deco obligation (we were not using computers) or to let one diver deviate from the plan and keep the other two ON the plan. So I did the second thing.

During the mid water ascent it just got worse. After the switch we were at something like 18m and suddenly the cave diver was gone. Again I looked at the instructor who had seen him go and the buddy had ascended a good 10m beyond the stop we were making. Then I saw him discharge a lot of air from his BCD and he started more or less free falling. The bottom was 35m and he had a regulator of 50% in his mouth. This time I knew it was NOT a staged scenario. Both myself and the instructor intercepted the falling diver and grabbed his manifold to stabilize him but he kept falling. At some point the instructor let go because we were getting dragged too deep and he had some kind of a PO2 warning going off (a rebreather thing). I held on as long as I could and finally let him go at 25m because I saw him change back to his back gas and I was still on 50%. He descended somewhat further before regaining buoyancy control and joining us again at the mid-water stops.

The analysis:

The IANTD diver was not having a 'staged' problem. He was having vertigo and had decided that trying to do a mid-water ascent in that state wasn't going to happen. He never signed "vertigo" to me although somewhere in the jumble of signs he did show me "problem" and "abort". Again this was the communication problem we saw right from the first assessment dive.

The cave diver's problem is that the inflator on his drysuit stuck and he was slow to get it unhooked. Making an unexpected ascent shocked him to the point that his reaction was to try to descend ASAP, which turned out to be a bit of a free fall. This is where his weakness in working in mid-water really showed up. It was fine while everything was on the rails but as soon as there was a problem he lost it.

The conclusion

We were 4 experienced divers and after that dive the instructor confided in me that he sincerely thought it was going to end in an accident.

So the next time you hear some technical diver acting like "leap tall buildings in a single bound" think abut this. Things DO happen to experienced and/or technical divers and when they do, they can and often do escalate quickly into serious problems.

Nobody on this board... NOBODY on this board is super-human!

R..

 

[Compressor]

Glad there was no accident.
Many warning signs as you mentioned in the post.

 

[johndiver999]

Is it common and/or accepted practice to do open water acents/stops with deco gas without a line to an SMB or some other physical reference to assist in maintaining depth while using oxygen or 50% ?? Seems like a good idea, but I really don't know the answer to that question.

Thanks for taking the time to write up the incident.

 

[Lorenzoid]

This seems to reinforce the necessity of proficiency in mid-water task loading before attempting deco training.

 

[tomcatbubba]

Very true, we are all human and therefore not infallible. I've seen tactical aviators and special warfare operators, with decades of experience, and at the top of their game make mistakes that cost them or others their lives. No reason to think that a technical diver, who I would argue doesn't undergo the same rigors in training as our military, wouldn't also make mistakes.

 

[RainPilot]

Making mistakes is natural and normal and human. It's how you survive them, deal with them, learn from them and adapt afterward that separates us out.

 

[kafkaland]

I can sympathize with the cave diver. Most of my diving is in the caves of Mexico, with sidemount Al tanks and wetsuit. Every time I dive at home in the Great Lakes with dry suit and heavy steel tanks, I feel a bit uneasy when I'm in midwater without a visual reference, and perhaps poor visibility on top of it. I really appreciate having the mooring line for the ascent, or an SMB. I'm not sure how well I would handle an incident without any reference whatsoever.

 

[Gareth J]

From your excellent write-up.

One of the observations is that changes in environment can present 'capable' divers with new challenges that take them rapidly out of their comfort zone, and potentially into an incident pit.

I have seen divers, used to diving in poor or limited visibility suddenly suffer vertigo when they find themselves in excellent visibility, especially when on a wall which drops away below them. Similarly, I have seen divers used to 'clear blue water' suffer extreme stress when confronted with limited visibility.
The other environmental factor that catches divers out is tidal waters, when they have never experienced this before. The experience of finding that you are going in the 'wrong' direction, and are never going to have the strength or energy to fight mother nature is a humbling, and stressful.

It also highlights the difficulties instructors experience, trying to manage unknown 'experienced divers' and assess their strengths and weaknesses and their suitability for a particular course and how fast they can progress.

Gareth

 

[kelemvor]

Maybe I've just not taken the courses where the extra signs are presented. I've never heard of a "decide" sign. My understanding is that "sign language" is country specific, so it's not normally used. I've also never seen anyone mention this particular sign on scubaboard - although I've only been here for 5 years. What does the "decide" sign look like?

Clearly there was a communication problem, but in the story I can't decide which side of the communication had the problem... so to speak.

 

[lowflyer]

Midwater without visual reference? In that situation my computer or depth gauge helps. Surely the OP's class had the latter.