Rescue Diver Report

[BarryNL]

Once underwater and trying to get behind him, I realized that he wasn't going to make the approach easy: he kept turning towards my bubbles and making it hard for me to get behind him. After a minuted or two of dancing around I made a quick dart underneath him and popped to the surface, piggybacking the tank and grabbing the valve as fast as I could. I got his vest inflated, but he was somehow able to get around on me and rip the mask off my face (broke the strap) and push me underwater. I descended, a little frustrated, and tried again. The second time was a little easier, and I managed to get him in. In a real situation, I probably would have just waited out there a little longer for him to get tired (he was huge), but I won't ever forget how difficult it can be to get control of a panicked diver.

If you can do that, doing it for real will probably be a lot easier. Divers who are really panicking don't follow your bubbles around. But don't forget, removing their weight belt underwater is another option (and I'd drop it for real just to get my own back on this guy).

 

[Halthron]

Didn't think it was long at all. Nice report.

 

[tstormdiver]

Great report. I just did an internship for divemaster this weekend, and our course was almost identical to yours.
EXCEPT- We participated in a real rescue on Saturday afternoon. We had a student preparing to tow an "unconcious" victim to shore, while I was standing by with a float to retrieve the discarded equipment. The instructor was standing by to supervise, when we hard an urgent voice saying "put air in your BC and breath"! We looked over and saw, what we thought was another instructor working with a student. Then we looked again, and the "student" was almost purple, had a fixed stare and clearly was in distress. My instructor headed over to help, I cut off the excercise for our students, and then I headed over with the float to help.
It took two instructors to get the victim to drop his weight belt, and swim slowly to shore. It was the textbook scenario of the paniced diver.
Everything we were taught worked perfectly, and after a few minutes calming down, the diver left the water, walking with his gear. I don't know if he resumed diving.
It was a great class, and I learned as much helping conduct as I did taking it.
Man, real life... you never know.

I saw a similar experience in my rescue class a few weeks ago. I heard most of this 3-4th hand, so some of ti may not have been completely correct. While 1/2 our class went to check out some new attractions at the quarry, at the end of the day, I went with the head instructor back to shore. After we got back to our preperation area, There was some comotion near by. From my understanding a diver was doing a solo, deep dive trying out a new dry suit. While the insulation he was wearing was correct for the temperatures at depth, it proved to be much too warm for the shallower waters. By his computer he aborted his cecompression stop and came to the surface completely disoriented and incoherant due to hyperthermia. One of the quarry's rescue staff was there at the time & brought the confused diver to shore. They immediately got the diver out of his suit & started oxygen, as the diver complained of achiness & tingling in his hands. After a bit an ambulance arrived to check the diver out. I'm not sure if the diver refused transportation or the ambulance crew released him, certain it was just being overheated, but he was taken out of the quarry by a friend and stayed overnight in a motel before heading home. I don't know if he ever sought further medical attention or not. Even though our class did not get involved in this rescue, there were many lessons learned by observing the quarry staff's professonal reaction to the emergency. It was a great learning experience!

 

[voop]

Very nice report Nick!! This is an extremely important lesson to remember. Not only can it be very difficult to get control of an actively panicked diver--it can also be very dangerous. Good job!!


Some food for thought. In this case, 30 lbs with no suit on, you could have removed the weight belt making things much easier. The same applies with someone wearing a skin or other very thin suit. Diving cold water with lots of neoprene or "bulky" drysuits it is not uncommon for people to wear close to 30 lbs and be properly weighted in which case you wouldn't want to remove the weight belt at depth. Doing so would create an uncontrolled ascent for the diver which could lead to other causes of injury or death. Not mention you are at risk as well if you don't let go of the rapidly ascending diver.

Must have been some warm water for him to not have on a wetsuit

All due respect, jbd, but I always caution about removing the weight-belt UW.

While in this case it might work (no suit, supposedly not overly obese victim), removing a weight-belt on a diver UW might worst-case result in a polaris-ascent: think neoprene dry-suit diver using his suit for bouyancy. For that reason, I never drill or suggest removing weight UW during rescue exercises since it might instill it as a potentially dangerous "reflex".

 

[NSDiver]

Wow - lots of good responses.

As far as removing the weight belt underwater, in that case it would have probably been a good choice. Being that he probably only needed 4 pounds or so to stay down, he wouldn't have popped to the surface too quickly. In most cases though I would think it would be a good idea to plan to drop the weights as soon as surfacing and no sooner - to make the exit faster and to help establish buoyancy.

On the panicked diver scenario, we were taught to do a sweep with the right hand across the waist to hit the quick release on the weight belt. Most people seem to use WI now though - so this wouldn't work. When we practiced it at the lake, we were far enough off shore that the the water was at least 140 feet deep (anyone who knows Beaver Lake's North Dam site knows what I'm talking about), so pulling his integrated weights there wasn't an option while practicing.

It's also interesting that there seems to be a bunch of people who have seen or been able to help in an incident - hopefully that will motivate people to keep rescue skills current and well practiced. I'd bet every avid diver will be in a situation to be able to help eventually.

Oh yeah, and the water was at about 85 degrees to the 27 foot thermocline. Was nice poking around without a wetsuit.

-Nick

 

[rhyz]

Nice post! I will be doing the Rescue in the near future just because I think I should have the skills if I ever need them. Hopefully not, but I'd would rather be prepared for it. Not going to do it till I get more experience in though, but it was nice to read through your post and see what I have to look forward to!

Thanks

 

[jbd]

All due respect, jbd, but I always caution about removing the weight-belt UW.

While in this case it might work (no suit, supposedly not overly obese victim), removing a weight-belt on a diver UW might worst-case result in a polaris-ascent: think neoprene dry-suit diver using his suit for bouyancy. For that reason, I never drill or suggest removing weight UW during rescue exercises since it might instill it as a potentially dangerous "reflex".

No disrespect taken. I also caution, no I actually recommend leaving the weight belt on while UW and removing once at the surface if necessary. Having said that, I do also stress the importance of keeping an open mind to any rescue scenario and think of all available options. As you and I both noted removal of the weights at depth can result in a polaris missile ride to the surface. Judgement, as to whether to remove weights or not, is required. My point in addressing the specific scenario that NSDiver was dealing with was that he had another option to consider which would have not only made the "rescue" easier but might well have made somewhat safer for him. With that much extra weight, what would have happend if the weights were inexplicably lost on the way to the surface or if the rescuer lost contact with the victim---an uncontrolled ascent would have started and it might not be possible for the rescuer to gain control fast enough with that level of positive bouyancy.

 

[Don Wray]

Great report! I likewise did my scenario's this weekend and man, they were tough! We thought we were through and the instructor told us to go explore and she was going to rest. There we were swimming peacefully along and about 30 minutes into the dive, there she was lying on the bottom. Surprise! Had to work that one all the way through with CPR on the shore and call for pizza too. This is the latest revision to the old class and she said the scenarios were alot better and comprehensive. Still waiting on that pizza though. Anyway, Divemaster starts a week from today and ready for that challenge. Again, great job on the report.

 

[Scotty g]

Halfway through my O/W course, am i correct in thinking that when it comes to releasing the weight belt u/w for whatever reason, apart from the obvious uncontrolled ascent, one must also consider divers still down there who may have a nice 3kg land on their head at 30m?

Just a thought on what our instructor has taught us - which has stuck!

Scotty

 

[diverdown247]

Welcome to the Rescue clan. I too agree on this class and often suggest that divers who wish to pursue continuing education, but may not go pro, take this course due to the awareness and skill development involved. In situations with divers who do not have the training to perform these skills, you can wind up with 2 divers in the same situation instead of just 1 as the rescue is attempted. With the training, you as the rescuer are less apt to panic and will make mental notes about certain things that you might normally overlook.

Some would say that this course is a waste of money simply because of the "buddy" issue and lack of single incidents. But, it can happen and we all know about Muphy's Law. Glad to see that you left with a heightened confidence in the skills presented in the class...God willing, you won't ever need to use them.