Skipping the pre-dive checks

[TSandM]

Okay. I'll admit it; I'm a dive Nazi when it comes to pre-dive stuff. I want to go through the dive plan, and a gear check, and a long hose deployment, and a bubble check. It annoys my buddies when we are doing single tank reef dives, but I really think it shouldn't when we are doing technical or cave diving.

But I ran into a circumstance on Monday where I acceded to beginning a tech dive without any of that . . . and the reason for it was that my dive buddy was so violently seasick that the only reasonable course was to get him underwater (or we weren't going to dive at all, and it was close anyway). We did do a bubble check at 40 feet (where the surge died down), but we didn't even check with each other about how much gas each of us was carrying, before we got in the water.

What do you do if your buddy is so sick they CAN'T get through a pre-dive check? I've never run into this before.

 

[Mr. Black]

The book says to go home and dive another day. In real life... It's closer to what you described. Not saying that's a good thing but that's been my observation when diving with a known quantity buddy.

Sent from my HTC One

 

[kensuf]

• Tony Smith. Saturday June 26, 1999. Tony was a New York technical diver, trimix certified and very experienced.
  On the ride out to a North Carolina wreck in 135fsw, he put his gear together,charged his regulators, and then turned his tanks back off.
  When they anchored the wreck he put his steel doubles on, clippedan aluminum 80 to his side,put his weight belt on over his dive skin, and put the crotch strap on over his weight belt.This was his first dive of the year without a drysuit.
  
  He jumped over the side without turning his tanks on, and with his inflator hose not attached. He sank like a stone.
  
  He was found on the bottom with 4000 psi in every tank, and all tanks turned off.
  
  
  Skipping some basic checks is not worth it.. At the very least I would double check that all tanks are on, regulators were functioning, inflator hose was connected, and the cylinders had something close to what you are looking for in them.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

... he wasn't much of a tech diver if he couldn't reach back and open his valves ... or deploy that AL80 he had clipped to his side.

That said, my routine has me checking that my valve(s) are turned on multiple times during the course of gearing up.

To respond to Lynne's question ... it would depend on the dive buddy. In rough conditions, it's common practice to do a buddy check once at depth. I may or may not check my buddy's gas supply, depending on how familiar I am with the buddy. I may also, if I decided not to overtly ask, position myself such that I can take a quick glance at their gauge without asking.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[kensuf]

Well he's dead, and that is my point. He skipped basic checks and it cost him his life.

A guy I know named George did something similar in Peacock Springs about 14 years ago, and it could have ended badly. He needed help from a buddy to get his valves on. He also was a pretty accomplished cave diver and very well known when it happened.

No one is immune from potentially getting hurt when they get complacent.

 

[Redshift]

I think when someone is very stressed it will be more likely they'll make a mistake. And hurrying things may not help.
Of course there are different levels of stress and hurry, so this all becomes hard to talk about as it's not black and white.
I'd say that in a situation like that maybe the less stressed / sea sick / whatever buddy should pay more attention to the other diver. Or someone else on board. I've gone into the water without buddy checks, but having had help from another diver or boat crew.
And if you both went in at the same time, the risks of something like what was described by kensuf happening would have been minimized. Although in that case, that was way more than skipping checks!

 

[TSandM]

In this case, aborting the dive would have been a horrible answer, because there were two teams, and the other team was already in the water. We would have been stuck with a violently seasick person having to spend an hour sitting on a pitching boat. He was definitely better off in the water!

I tried to do the checks, and got an ill-natured growl, "I've DONE all that!". The horrible noises that followed that statement made the issue clear . . .

 

[LiteHedded]

by the time you've geared up you've (should have anyway) clearly discussed the plan and done most of the checks informally. i would just go diving. check for bubbles after he's not going to vomit.

if someone who wasn't teaching me a class tried to get me to do a GUE EDGE in that scenario i'd be grumpy as well.

 

[eelnoraa]

• Tony Smith. Saturday June 26, 1999. Tony was a New York technical diver, trimix certified and very experienced.
  On the ride out to a North Carolina wreck in 135fsw, he put his gear together,charged his regulators, and then turned his tanks back off.
  When they anchored the wreck he put his steel doubles on, clippedan aluminum 80 to his side,put his weight belt on over his dive skin, and put the crotch strap on over his weight belt.This was his first dive of the year without a drysuit.
  
  He jumped over the side without turning his tanks on, and with his inflator hose not attached. He sank like a stone.
  
  He was found on the bottom with 4000 psi in every tank, and all tanks turned off.
  
  
  Skipping some basic checks is not worth it.. At the very least I would double check that all tanks are on, regulators were functioning, inflator hose was connected, and the cylinders had something close to what you are looking for in them.

I think this quote illustrate 2 important concepts. First is pre dive check. Second is to dive a balanced rig, meaning the diver should be able to swim up his rig with no air in the wing. Wetsuit and steel double usually doesn't fit here.

 

[PfcAJ]

Make sure the gas is on and get in the water. All the other stuff can be sorted out later, especially if it's a rec dive.

Dive plan stuff should be done well in advance. Sitting there boiling in your suit and going through a textbook gue edge while choking down vomit is dumb.