Two fatalities in Monterey

[tddfleming]

So your suggestion is that an out of gas diver head for the surface which is 60-80ft away even when his buddy is ~10ft away?

You guys are proposing actions that become complex when a diver is stressed. Personally, I would rather focus proactive measures to such as properly planning a dive such that, short of a regulator failure, you don't have to choose between a CESA from 60-80ft or going to your buddy for a gas donation.

I don't think he was suggesting that, I think he was just comparing how he was trained to now a days. How it would have been handled during his days in training and diving. Correct me if I am wrong, but he could have been training when there was no such thing as an octo.

Sorry, mbd, don't mean to call you old. But with 1,000+ dives under his belt, I have to assume he has been diving a good while.

 

[TSandM]

But with 1,000+ dives under his belt, I have to assume he has been diving a good while.

Not necessarily (although in his case, I think you are right). I'm going to crack 1000 this year, and I learned to dive in 2005.

 

[Peter_C]

Town mourns two teens who died in diving accident off Monterey Bay - MontereyHerald.com :

"The boys were found 45minutes later on the bottom, with their air tanks empty, firefighters said."

Time lines still don't add up. They also say "both" their tanks were empty. The biggest take away from this accident is going to be check your gauges! Going OOA (Other than from equipment failure) is nobody's fault but your own, and should never happen.

 

[Thalassamania]

In my experience a double fatality almost always involves either bad gas or an OOA situation that air sharing failed to solve or exacerbated. Empty tanks tend to favor the latter circumstance.

 

[mdb]

tddfleming:

I am old. I was first certified in the early 70's. There were no octo's in common use at that time; at least I never saw one.

I had a pressure gauge and my usual dive buddies were using j valve tanks. We were taught buddy breathing and practiced it on most dives. We were also taught how to make a free ascent if necessary.

Abobo and his comments about "properly planning a dive...so you don't have to choose etc." that sounds fine but sh-t happens and you do have to choose.

 

[tddfleming]

Not necessarily (although in his case, I think you are right). I'm going to crack 1000 this year, and I learned to dive in 2005.

Good point Lynne. But his commnet made me think he was not new by any means to diving. I had thought about you when I posted, as I knew you were newer to diving but had a good bit of diving under your belt.

 

[Adobo]

I don't think he was suggesting that, I think he was just comparing how he was trained to now a days. How it would have been handled during his days in training and diving. Correct me if I am wrong, but he could have been training when there was no such thing as an octo.

Sorry, mbd, don't mean to call you old. But with 1,000+ dives under his belt, I have to assume he has been diving a good while.

I dunno. This is his third try in this thread suggesting that this is a buddy system failure.

None of the "facts" of this incident are yet available so we can only speculate. But to me, incidents where a diver runs out of gas - the problem begins either when the divers exceeded minimum gas or maybe even earlier - when the divers are planning the dive. The accident did not begin when the first diver ran out of gas, when there was a botched gas share (if there was one) and it certainly did not begin when both divers neglected to ditch their weights.

There are probably a dozen or so replies in this thread scrutinizing whether or not to remove weights in an out of gas situation. There are even a couple of posts talking about removing weights but not letting them go. I mean, these are all acts of desperation. Stuff might happen but running out of gas is not "stuff" happening. In open water, short of a burst disc or a low pressure hose blowing up, it is just plain not planning gas properly or not checking your gauge.

It might just me but I have always been under the impression that it is better to get ahead of a problem than to let the situation deteriorate to the point where one has to resort to acts of desperation.

 

[*dave*]

Anyone looking at this accident and deciding that the lesson is practicing ballistic ascents is looking to risk giving themselves a fatal embolism.

This is about as accurate as saying that holding your breath will result in a fatal embolism. Having conducted hundreds of free ascents from depths in excess of 60', I feel obligated to call BS.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

So your suggestion is that an out of gas diver head for the surface which is 60-80ft away even when his buddy is ~10ft away?

I also don't think he was suggesting that as a first reponse, nor has anyone else suggested that as a first repsonse.

I think one of the problems with the overall discussion/responses has been that when "dumping weights" has been expressed as an option, it's been interpreted as "dumping weights should be your first reponse". That's not what anyone's been saying. It's simply an option when all else fails.

My personal preferences would be:
111111. Don't run out of air in the first place. (Duh!!!)
111112. If you do, air-share with buddy (octo, pony, buddy-breathe, etc.)
111113. If that doesn't work or isn't an option, CESA.
111114. If it seems like you won't make it, dump weights (in-hand or not).

The end goal in #2-4 is to end up on the surface one way or the other as it phenomenally increases your chance of successful rescue. But don't lose sight of the fact that ALL of these choices are being made in literally a few seconds, likely with a high stress level if not panic.

And it's really easy for all of us to calmly sit in front of our computers, ruminate on the sitiation for a while, second-guess actions, presume state-of-mind, and then dispense what we perceive as sage advice as to what should have happened. But our thought processes and timeline in no way can possibly mirror the real-life scenario these two young men had to deal with.

You guys are proposing actions that become complex when a diver is stressed.

This is where training should kick in. This is why those of us who have taught for a while bemoan the do-it-once-and-that's-good-enough training that seems to pervade today.

Dr. Glenn Egstrom wrote a paper a number of years ago about what it took for a skill to really be locked in. I think the number he came up with was SEVENTEEN times successfully completing the skill (not 17 attempts, but 17 successes) for it to become intrinsic. (And then if it wasn't practiced for a while after that, there was a fall-off of efficiency.)

One can make the argument that we don't have time to have every student successfully clear their mask 17 times, or do 17 CESAs, or whatever. And maybe there's even a belief that they don't really need to do it that often. But I can promise you that the person who did it right 17 times is a far better-trained diver than the person who did it right once. And to put it more bluntly: Which one would YOU rather have at your side if YOU'RE the one in trouble?

In the 31 years I've been an instructor, I've never once had a student come up to me and say, "You know, you really taught me too much in your class." But I've certainly heard certified divers say "I wish we'd spent more time on ___________ ."

Personally, I would rather focus proactive measures to such as properly planning a dive such that, short of a regulator failure, you don't have to choose between a CESA from 60-80ft or going to your buddy for a gas donation.

It's a nice thought but it's a dive in fantasyland. It seems you're essentially saying that as long as we plan for nothing bad to happen, nothing bad WILL happen (short of equipment failure). As long as you plan your dive, you WILL dive your plan. But I don't think that reflects the reality of the way most divers do their diving. (But again, it's as nice thought and a noble goal. And it's the way it should be.)

But to bring this back to the incident that started this thread, these two young men DID run into some unplanned trouble and it cost them their lives. The issues here, I think, aren't about planning an incident-free dive, but are how to react and what you should do when the plan goes astray, for whatever reason.

- Ken

 

[mdb]

Well, no one "plans" to have an automobile accident, or a ski accident, etc. When an accident does happen, in the real world, choices have to made.