nuts4corals
Contributor
I just got back from vacation where I experienced a divers worst nightmare... An out of air emergency.
The dive started out with a briefing and a plan with the dive master on the boat. This was to be my last set of tank dives while in Mexico. I was diving all week long and loving it. After the briefing a pre dive check with the buddy teams and we were in the water and on our way down to the reef. The plan was to dive to around 95 feet and work our way to the top of the wall at around 55 feet and then ascend to our safety stop and on to the surface. About 15 minutes into the dive the dive master spotted a huge grouper under a ledge at about 105 feet and finned over to it. Being a bit of an air hog at depth, I decided to stay put at 97 feet as there was a fair current and wanted to stick to the plan anyway. I was able to see his huge head peering from under the ledge anyway so I was cool with staying put. In the distance, I notice the Dive master checking his gauge and swim towards me from a fair distance. Thinking nothing of it I turn in the direction we were heading and waited for the DM to get in the leading position. However, he came in front of me and motioned that he’s out of air. Without thinking I reached down and grabbed my Octo and brought it up as he wasted no time in taking hold and taking a nice big breath of air…I motioned if he was ok…. All ok…In the short few seconds this was going on I noticed we drifted a bit off the wall so I motioned to the DM to get to the wall so we had some shelter and control from the current. At the wall I checked my gauge and had about 1700 psi. We both looked at each other and motioned to surface after he motioned for the rest of the group to continue on the dive with the second group in the water. We began our ascend to the surface from around 90 feet. At about 40 feet I noticed my dive computer alerting me to slow the ascend a bit. He was understandably nervous so I motioned him to slow the ascend which he did slightly… As we were heading to our safety stop depth of 20 feet I check my gauge and we had a bit under 1500 psi so I motioned to level off and do a 3 min. safety stop. He paused for a moment and then motioned to me no safety stop lets go to the surface. After thinking about that for a moment I followed his advice and we began our final ascend to the surface thinking he‘s a dive master and perhaps there is something wrong that he needs to get to the surface. I think the only reason I listened to him and ascended without a safety stop is that he was a dive master. However, if he was another diver I would have probably made the person do a safety stop and watched the gauge like a hawk.
At the surface we had a few minutes and the first thing that I asked was… “What happened?” this is when he told me that he never checked his gauge getting into the water and he went down with a half tank of air. I remember thinking- ok dumb a$$ move but I guess it could happen especially if you are responsible for 8 divers, but what about checking the gauges when you descend to the bottom or every few minutes??? We were just about a half done with the dive and he never bothered to check his gauges. The very next question is why didn’t we do a safety stop. He said that in an emergency the thing to do is to get to the surface. However, I remember in my PADI class that in an emergency you still do a safety stop (air permitting). I mentioned that we had about 1500 psi when we reached our safety stop depth of 20 feet an by that point he was calmer so I felt that we should have done the stop.
Looking back on this unfortunate incident I would like to get a better understanding of what actually should have happened in terms of a safety stop. Air permitting should we have done the stop for 3 minutes? Or was it the right thing to get to the surface right away when sharing a single tank? I can honestly say that I am glad nothing happened and we are both safe and the best advice to anyone in the same situation that I can give is in an emergency being calm is soooo important. I feel that I was very calm and very level headed and that made all of the difference IMHO. Any pointers and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, the second and final dive of the trip was awesome and very relaxing and the DM did check his gauges probably more than anyone.
The dive started out with a briefing and a plan with the dive master on the boat. This was to be my last set of tank dives while in Mexico. I was diving all week long and loving it. After the briefing a pre dive check with the buddy teams and we were in the water and on our way down to the reef. The plan was to dive to around 95 feet and work our way to the top of the wall at around 55 feet and then ascend to our safety stop and on to the surface. About 15 minutes into the dive the dive master spotted a huge grouper under a ledge at about 105 feet and finned over to it. Being a bit of an air hog at depth, I decided to stay put at 97 feet as there was a fair current and wanted to stick to the plan anyway. I was able to see his huge head peering from under the ledge anyway so I was cool with staying put. In the distance, I notice the Dive master checking his gauge and swim towards me from a fair distance. Thinking nothing of it I turn in the direction we were heading and waited for the DM to get in the leading position. However, he came in front of me and motioned that he’s out of air. Without thinking I reached down and grabbed my Octo and brought it up as he wasted no time in taking hold and taking a nice big breath of air…I motioned if he was ok…. All ok…In the short few seconds this was going on I noticed we drifted a bit off the wall so I motioned to the DM to get to the wall so we had some shelter and control from the current. At the wall I checked my gauge and had about 1700 psi. We both looked at each other and motioned to surface after he motioned for the rest of the group to continue on the dive with the second group in the water. We began our ascend to the surface from around 90 feet. At about 40 feet I noticed my dive computer alerting me to slow the ascend a bit. He was understandably nervous so I motioned him to slow the ascend which he did slightly… As we were heading to our safety stop depth of 20 feet I check my gauge and we had a bit under 1500 psi so I motioned to level off and do a 3 min. safety stop. He paused for a moment and then motioned to me no safety stop lets go to the surface. After thinking about that for a moment I followed his advice and we began our final ascend to the surface thinking he‘s a dive master and perhaps there is something wrong that he needs to get to the surface. I think the only reason I listened to him and ascended without a safety stop is that he was a dive master. However, if he was another diver I would have probably made the person do a safety stop and watched the gauge like a hawk.
At the surface we had a few minutes and the first thing that I asked was… “What happened?” this is when he told me that he never checked his gauge getting into the water and he went down with a half tank of air. I remember thinking- ok dumb a$$ move but I guess it could happen especially if you are responsible for 8 divers, but what about checking the gauges when you descend to the bottom or every few minutes??? We were just about a half done with the dive and he never bothered to check his gauges. The very next question is why didn’t we do a safety stop. He said that in an emergency the thing to do is to get to the surface. However, I remember in my PADI class that in an emergency you still do a safety stop (air permitting). I mentioned that we had about 1500 psi when we reached our safety stop depth of 20 feet an by that point he was calmer so I felt that we should have done the stop.
Looking back on this unfortunate incident I would like to get a better understanding of what actually should have happened in terms of a safety stop. Air permitting should we have done the stop for 3 minutes? Or was it the right thing to get to the surface right away when sharing a single tank? I can honestly say that I am glad nothing happened and we are both safe and the best advice to anyone in the same situation that I can give is in an emergency being calm is soooo important. I feel that I was very calm and very level headed and that made all of the difference IMHO. Any pointers and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, the second and final dive of the trip was awesome and very relaxing and the DM did check his gauges probably more than anyone.
