Parklander
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I’m amazed you were training for Trimix without computers. My instructor even requires shearwater computers specifically as required to take his class.
If you think technical divers don't make mistakes.
- Thread starter Diver0001
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This part reminds me of a scenario in which I was involved.
At about 150 feet, the one who was leading the dive slowed and then stopped. He looked at me and gave the "trouble" shake of the hand. I was holding his arm in few seconds, and that is when his thumb went up. My thumb went up immediately, showing it to the others. Their thumbs went up. He began ascending immediately, and he did so holding the line in one hand, which is not normal for our dives. He was ascending pretty rapidly, but he was in control of himself--he vented both his drysuit and wing as he ascended. When the line passed the 30-foot mark, it followed the sloping land all the way to the surface, and he continued all the way to the surface holding onto the line. Again, that was very unusual--you would have expected him to ascend those last few feet straight up to get to the surface quickly.
Once our heads were above the surface, he told me he had vertigo, which is why he needed to hold the line. He suspected that on a dive a few weeks before he might have gotten a small perforation in his eardrum (and that later turned out to be the case). Now on the surface, he felt fine. As he explained this to me, the other two students were able to listen, because as soon as his and my thumbs went up, so did theirs. No questions to be asked. If someone on your team seems to have a problem and needs to surface, the dive is over--for everyone.
It was a trimix dive, and I had the maximum 3 students. One of them was assigned to lead the descent. We descended next to, but not touching a line.
At about 150 feet, the one who was leading the dive slowed and then stopped. He looked at me and gave the "trouble" shake of the hand. I was holding his arm in few seconds, and that is when his thumb went up. My thumb went up immediately, showing it to the others. Their thumbs went up. He began ascending immediately, and he did so holding the line in one hand, which is not normal for our dives. He was ascending pretty rapidly, but he was in control of himself--he vented both his drysuit and wing as he ascended. When the line passed the 30-foot mark, it followed the sloping land all the way to the surface, and he continued all the way to the surface holding onto the line. Again, that was very unusual--you would have expected him to ascend those last few feet straight up to get to the surface quickly.
Once our heads were above the surface, he told me he had vertigo, which is why he needed to hold the line. He suspected that on a dive a few weeks before he might have gotten a small perforation in his eardrum (and that later turned out to be the case). Now on the surface, he felt fine. As he explained this to me, the other two students were able to listen, because as soon as his and my thumbs went up, so did theirs. No questions to be asked. If someone on your team seems to have a problem and needs to surface, the dive is over--for everyone.
Everyone makes mistakes. Literally EVERYONE in that story screwed up. It happens. Glad no one is dead.
Full disclosure, the instructor is a good friend and we had a long history of diving together. This is true of all of my technical buddies and all of my technical instructors. In fact one of my technical instructors was a former student! We are a close knit group.
There isn't a universal sign for "decide" but in my close little orbit of divers we borrow stuff from ASL and sometimes modify that for diving. Over the years we have developed a tremendous vocabulary. "Decide" is one of those signs that probably only exists in our little orbit. "Decide" looks as follows. You point at your temple with an index finger and make the "OK" with both hands. The ASL sign looks slightly different to that but as I said we modify those signs to be applicable for diving.
This is an adequate observation. We didn't know each other well and sign language is a matter of getting dialed in. I definitely had expectations that he wasn't meeting but maybe if we had made 50 or 100 dives together we could have gotten on the same page.....
R..
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