Scuba Diver Panic from 15 meters - Scuba Diving Incident Analysis

[pauldw]

This old video has been discussed a lot here.

Diver Panic (Video)

Diver panics - Cape Town

I've always thought that was one of the best views of panic, and what it does to you, that I've ever seen.


There was some interesting stuff in those old threads about this video. Like this:

"Some years ago I had a student I had never met in in an AOW class. She had newly moved into our area, and this was her first time wearing a 7mm wet suit and hood. At the end of our first dive, I signaled the ascent, and she immediately raised her inflator hose, dumped all her air, and started to plummet into the depths. I caught her as quickly as I could.
When we got to the surface, I said, "Let me guess. Your OW instructor taught you that when it was time to ascend, you are supposed to dump all your air and swim up, right?" She said, "Yes, isn't that right?"
Many warm water instructors with students wearing 3mm suits with minimum compression at depth, teach that silliness."

Do instructors actually teach this? Why? Is the assumption that people are always pretty neutral, and so are safest swimming up with no air expanding to increase their speed? That seems like a wildly dangerous assumption.

Also, this:

"If I were the guy filming, I would have put one hand behind her head, the other would be holding the regulator to her lips and I would be purging the crap out of it. She would have been unable to move her mouth away from the air source, regardless of whether she wanted to or not.
Then I would have been dragging her to the surface by her head, one hand on the back of the head and the other on the reg and her chin. I would have been kicking like hell and hopefully be screaming sheeeeeet at the same time.
Once they reached the surface, the rescuer should have been on her inflator - immediately. No way you want to risk her airway or her sinking."

But then someone said:

"She would have to accept the regulator into her mouth, or at least mostly in her mouth in order to get air. Forcing her to take purging air is dangerous and may also require restraining her- expending time and energy and perhaps even causing greater panic."


And then there was this:

"What I wonder is how many potential new divers are out there that sit right on the edge of freaking and bolting every second of every dive?"

Me!

 

[Raphus]

True my obersavtions in the past weeks, lead to the conclusion, that a lot of new divers are on the edge of panic if diving dark cold water.

One buddy told me his owd story.
He panicked on the first pool dive. Ripped of his mask and regulator und started to swim up. The instructor forced the reg into his mouth and purged it. So he could breath and he actually calmed down a bit.

But the lady in the video was just reacting in full panic.
I wonder how she didn't get lung embolism. I bet she didn't breath out..

 

[Lostdiver71]

I had similar incidents happen when guiding dives in the past, fortunately I was able to recognize the signs of anxiety early enough to be in position as the diver panicked and was able to successfully get a regulator into the divers mouth each time and control their ascent. I found several keys to this, first you need to control their buoyancy, take a firm grip on them and prevent them from inflating their BCD or dropping weights, once they do either they are out of control. Second get their attention donate the regulator that is in your mouth so that they can see it is working, they are usually hyperventilating at this point so no matter how well your regulator breathes they will feel like they are not getting enough air so you have to do controlled purges while trying to calm them down so that they realize they can breathe, bringing the regulator back to your mouth and showing them that it is working can help sometimes. It is important that they know there is air coming from the regulator and that you are in control.I have been fortunate in that each time I was able to get the diver calm enough so that I could get them to breathe off of my primary until they were calm and able to switch back to their own air supply or do a controlled ascent to the surface. Only once after taking them into shallow water and working with their skills did I have a diver not return to doing deeper dives with me on the same day and several enjoyed multiple days of diving afterward. The panic can be caused by several issues, one of the most common that I saw is a beginner diver that did a few dives after being certified and then didn't dive for 1-3 years before diving with us and then hyperventilating because of the excitement and panicking. The other two main issues are claustrophobia and acrophobia (fear of heights). People with a fear of heights will sometimes get partway to the bottom before looking down and if they have only dove in murky water before they will panic because their brain tells them they are falling and they are not prepared to override it, if they are ready or it happens on the surface it is not as much of a problem. The people with claustrophobia will usually have problems when visibility is bad but sometimes even when it is good for some reason, usually it is only a problem with newer divers especially if they have been out of the water for a while. Usually once they calm down they are good to go diving again because they are prepared. I have never had anyone panic a second time.

 

[GioPuma]

There's a simple solution to that: don't wrestle with a panicking diver. I would'nt. Either they take the reg I provide or not. Their decision. Shoving a reg in their mouth with force won't work in my opinion and may even lead to more panic and you wrestling/panicking too.

Their decision? With a panicked individual in a life/death situation our rescue protocols rely on their decision?
An instructor or a guide would be under immense pressure to try to save a student or a customer's life under similar circumstances and I won't even mention liabilities.

Negative ghostrider.

Doubt it is possible. Couldn't do it in the single, statistically insignificant, event that I experienced.

I did experience, second hand, a panic attack (a diver signaling OOA, that turned out to be false). The instructor was able to share the octopus and perform an assisted ascent.

Had the instructor tried to share his primary, I am not sure if the outcome would have been equally successful.

 

[Raphus]

Their decision? With a panicked individual in a life/death situation our rescue protocols rely on their decision?
An instructor or a guide would be under immense pressure to try to save a student or a customer's life under similar circumstances and I won't even mention liabilities.

I did experience, second hand, a panic attack (a diver signaling OOA, that turned out to be false). The instructor was able to share the octopus and perform an assisted ascent.

Had the instructor tried to share his primary, I am not sure if the outcome would have been equally successful.

Sharing primary is only really possible with a long hose.
Primary share with a normal 60cm hose will not work out well, when the receiving diver is panicking..

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Their decision? With a panicked individual in a life/death situation our rescue protocols rely on their decision?
An instructor or a guide would be under immense pressure to try to save a student or a customer's life under similar circumstances and I won't even mention liabilities.

I did experience, second hand, a panic attack (a diver signaling OOA, that turned out to be false). The instructor was able to share the octopus and perform an assisted ascent.

Had the instructor tried to share his primary, I am not sure if the outcome would have been equally successful.

Did the person with the panic attack have any memory? The one I dealt with didn't. Followed him to the surface and inflated his BCD for him (I allowed him to crawl on top of me) and he relaxed. Yes, I know that we are not supposed to do that, but I knew I could descend and switch to my pony if need be.

 

[ginti]

The difference is that the donor needs to take his regulator off too, while wrestling with a panicked diver. And even if he successfully shovel his primary in the victim's mouth quickly, he would need to loose contact with it to allow himself to switch. At that point the victim very likely would spit also the buddy's regulator off.

Assuming a long hose, the time you need to donate is exactly the same as donating an octo if you are properly trained, with the massive advantage of having a longer hose and, consequently, more room for your operations. True, you need to lose contact, but that would be for something between 1 and 3 seconds, no more. Also, if I believe that an emergency is a possibility, when I reach the diver I am already breathing on my secondary and my long hose is on my hand (or clipped, if I see the reason to not put pressure on the diver - clearly that wouldn't be the case here).

 

[GioPuma]

Did the person with the panic attack have any memory? The one I dealt with didn't. Followed him to the surface and inflated his BCD for him (I allowed him to crawl on top of me) and he relaxed. Yes, I know that we are not supposed to do that, but I knew I could descend and switch to my pony if need be.

yes, she did. She claimed that she was OOA where she probably was just rapid breathing and therefore accumulating CO2. She spit the regulator off and tried to bolt to the surface.
The instructor was able to help in this case, thankfully. Again, had he lost contact with either the arm of the victim of the regulator, I strongly doubt that the episode would not have escalated. This is the point on which we agreed during the post dive analysis we did.
Just my 0.02, YMMV

 

[AJ]

Their decision? With a panicked individual in a life/death situation our rescue protocols rely on their decision?
An instructor or a guide would be under immense pressure to try to save a student or a customer's life under similar circumstances and I won't even mention liabilities.

It's not a real conscious decision. This diver is panicking in such a way, she not capable of even remotely taking
conscious decisions. Maybe when forcing a reg in her mouth she will take it, but chances are she will panic even more while trying because she feels restrained and starts struggling. When that happens you could be in danger to. Theory is great, but does not always work as expected in such conditions.

Btw, I'am not an instructor or DM, just a buddy. I would try my best given the circumstances. But with a full blown panic like this I don't think there's much one can do besides hoping for the best.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

yes, she did. She claimed that she was OOA where she probably was just rapid breathing and therefore accumulating CO2. She spit the regulator off and tried to bolt to the surface.
The instructor was able to help in this case, thankfully. Again, had he lost contact with either the arm of the victim of the regulator, I strongly doubt that the episode would not have escalated. This is the point on which we agreed during the post dive analysis we did.
Just my 0.02, YMMV

I was smacking the guy in the face with a regulator as he bolted to the surface. I slowed him down. It was surreal. Thankfully he was exhaling all the way up (yelling) or he'd die from a lung overexpansion injury.

Btw, I'am not an instructor or DM, just a buddy. I would try my best given the circumstances. But with a full blown panic like this I don't think there's much one can do besides hoping for the best.

I feel I was woefully unprepared in my IDC for identifying and dealing with full blown active panic (I'm sure I'm inviting a lot of criticism for stating such). This is all hindsight of course. Am I prepared now? Don't honestly know, just better than I was. As I teach small open water courses (2 at a time) and have changed how I teach dramatically over time, I feel that some of the discomfort is mitigated. But never entirely eliminated. That'd be pure delusional hubris to believe that.