Underweighted Buddy What to do now ?

[bradshsi]

I was at Redondo beach (near Tacoma WA) on Saturday.

1st dive was to be the deepest with a planned depth of 80' basically swimming west off the beach. The plan was to swim out to the bottle field at 80' and then turn an ascend up the bottom contour to 50'. Using the PADI RDP, I planned for 15 minutes at 80' followed by 25 minutes (maximum) at 50'.

We surface swam to level with the end of the pier there and then descended into about 40' of water and followed the bottom contour down. My buddy (who for the purposes of this narrative we'll call Buddy "A"), took the lead on this dive. The vis was about 15'. After some searching we eventually found our way to the bottle field at 92'

I was a bit annoyed with myself at this point as we'd planned for 80'. No problem though I thought. I just rechecked the RDP in my pocket and figured that we were still within the limits. So I signalled to turn around (which we did).

We started to follow the bottom contour back, but because it was taking too long for it to rise to 50' I decided to ascend to that depth midwater and continue eastward until we hit the bottom again.

I signalled that we were to ascend to 50' and hold level and he gave me the Ok sign. We started ascending and I had no problem getting to and holding 50'. Unfortunately my buddy started to struggle as we approached 50' and despite venting from his drysuit and BCD he continued to rise at quite a rapid rate, disappearing after a few seconds.

So at this point I'm alone midwater. Concerned about what happened to him, I started as quick an ascent as I felt safe with (probably about 60 ft/min). I surfaced to find that he was ok and none the worse for his trip.

Talking to him later I found that he had changed his undergarments for a thicker combination, but didn't recheck his weight. As a consequence he was probably underweighted by about 4 lbs by his estimation. He said that even with his BCD and drysuit fully vented he was still buoyant.

Lessons learned (and two questions)

1) We didn't follow the dive plan (not too serious in this instance but it did force a blue water ascent).

2) Changes were made to Buddy "A" gear configuration without checking them for functionality/safety first.

My first question is whether I could have done anything to prevent his uncontrolled ascent ? I suppose I could have grabbed hold of him (we were within 6' of each other for all of the dive), but the concern is that I might have not been able to make myself sufficiently negative to prevent myself being dragged to the surface as well.

My second is whether I have any responsibility for checking his weighting prior to the dive ? I do check my buddies gear, gas, hoses etc and to see that his weight system is properly attached. I have assumed up to now that everyone is responsible for determining their own weight requirements. Am I wrong, is there something else I could have done?

 

[spectrum]

Hind sight is 20-20 it's hard to say.

At 50 feet if you latched onto him you may have had enough negativity available to swim over to the slope where he could gather rocks. The problem is that you didn't know if he was lacking weight, having trouble venting suit or BC air, stuck inflator or whatever. That makes it hard to say I should have.....

Another rule is not to end up with 2 endangered divers and the rushed ascent may have teased that one a bit on your part.

It's not your job to evaluate your buddies weight. IF you had know of the garment change then it would have been a clever cross check question.

Based on your experience I may try to make it a standard question to ask if anyone is diving new gear or unusual combinations. That may have raised a flag for you.

Pete

 

[bradshsi]

Hind sight is 20-20 it's hard to say.

At 50 feet if you latched onto him you may have had enough negativity available to swim over to the slope where he could gather rocks.

That thought did occur to me when I was thinking about the dive afterwards. (It certainly didn't occur in the few seconds I had to react in).

I might have been negative enough, but I've never practiced buddy swimming with a buoyant partner, so that might have been difficult. I could have descended with him to the bottom, but that was at about 75' and going there would probably have put us very close to exceeding the NDL limits.

Buddy "A" did mention beforehand that he had layered up slightly for this dive, but I assumed (wrongly) that he knew the weight for this combination.

 

[Darnold9999]

Unless he indicates in some way that he wants you to help him or he is obviously out of control you let him go. Did you know at 50' that he was having boyancy problems and then he lost control? If so you might then have made an attempt to see if you could hold him down, but failing that if someone is heading to the surface I am pretty much going to let them go unless I know I can help - i.e. noob with equipment problems. I would worry a bit about someone who couldn't swim down against a couple of extra pounds of boyancy to delay an ascent however.

Lesson learned is to say when starting a dive. "I am trying out new gear this dive ----" fill in exactly what. Then your buddy knows what might go wrong and may be able to develop a contingency plan.

Also if you grab someone to check an out of control ascent your first responsibility is to yourself. If you can't halt the ascent or bring it to a reasonable rate pretty quickly then you bail. No point in getting both of you bent, you then become useless to your buddy.

 

[dilligaf368]

I see this a lot with New or divers with limited diving experence. Too little weight. Divers are being taught to "Control the Weight". This is a popular viewpoint as lots of divers are traveling to distant lands where damage to the reefs is getting bad because of divers. I believe still if a diver is a few pounds heavy the new diver will control the bouyancy easier than to be too light. Far worse blowing to the surface than to drop some weight or inflate to compensate for the extra pounds.
Neutral is best but heavy is much safer. Bill

 

[Charlie99]

Since he could control his buoyancy at 80' but not at 50' is it correct to assume that he has a neoprene drysuit?

Did he have difficulty getting down at the start of the dive? His weight change during the dive was only the weight of the air consumed. I'm surprised that that change lead to a runaway ascent unless he was slow to vent.

Are you really sure that it was a weighting problem and not a problem in venting / starting venting too late?

 

[TSandM]

Bradshi, I write from the perspective of the other half of this problem. When I was first diving, I had a number of uncontrolled ascents. Some were due to weighting problems, some to technique, some to equipment malfunctions. But they were all both frightening and horribly embarrassing.

As the person going to the surface, the one thing I don't want is somebody else to get hurt as a result of my incompetence. I do NOT want my buddy to chase me up at an unsafe ascent rate. I do NOT want my buddy to try and grab me and hold me down, and get pulled to the surface and bent. It is MY problem that I am going up; it is MY failure to dive safely and properly. It is no one else's problem but mine, once it gets that far.

I don't know how much experience your buddy had, or whether he knew how badly it could affect his buoyancy to have changed his undergarments. Early on, I was using different gear -- suits, undergarments, and tanks -- almost every dive. I never knew what I needed for weight, and I never knew precisely how to manage the equipment I had. Worse, I didn't know at first how much of a difference that could make. Nowadays, I use the same suit, undergarment, BC and tanks, and I am so anal about how the gear is put together and how every single piece is arranged that I annoy myself. But I have learned it all makes a difference.

I know I stressed and distressed some of my early buddies (anybody read my story of how I single-handedly made JasonH20 quit diving?). But unless your buddy is obviously a noob and you can gently step in and help, it may not be at all obvious that you should.

One of the very worst dives I have done in the last year was largely the result of not sharing with the team how inexperienced I was at diving at night. As a result, nobody had a good dive, and I could have gotten hurt. I learned a huge lesson there. You need to share with your team members what your strengths and weaknesses are. There is no place for a good marine in diving -- you do not do anybody a favor by throwing yourself at a bar you aren't sure you can clear. Your buddy should have known he might have problems, and should have communicated that clearly with you. Pride and ignorance make us keep quiet. Hopefully, he learned something from this experience.

 

[Cacia]

Not having enough weight can really be a bigger problem than not getting down. The other day I compromised a pound or two because of the combo readily available on the boat, thinking it was no big deal because I was doing a wreck at 127. On my ascent, I was not near the line and I noticed I had gotten into a tad of deco. Then to make matters worse, my tank was very light now and I could not hold my stop. Worrisome at the time and I kicked myself for being so lackadaisical. I ended up kicking down almost the entire three minutes which is not too good for you as you are decompressing. Sloppy form, I just got too complacent, not thinking about what I was doing. I put myself on probation.

If I am leading new divers I carry an extra 2#'s at least. That would be an option. if I don't need it for anyone sometimes I leave it at the mooring line on the bottom and pick it up on the way up.

 

[Vayu]

Like the others said - you gotto let them go. I treat my buddy like another piece of gear and try to make sure before the dive that they are properly weighted. I bring extra soft weights to share and have given some to my buddies to keep when they needed that extra 2#.

-V

 

[bradshsi]

Since he could control his buoyancy at 80' but not at 50' is it correct to assume that he has a neoprene drysuit?

Did he have difficulty getting down at the start of the dive? His weight change during the dive was only the weight of the air consumed. I'm surprised that that change lead to a runaway ascent unless he was slow to vent.

Are you really sure that it was a weighting problem and not a problem in venting / starting venting too late?

To answer your questions:

He was wearing a thin rubber (not neoprene) Viking drysuit.
He did have trouble getting down (he admitted this later)
I suspect late venting played a part. He has been diving for over 10 years but mainly vacation diving so he is relatively new to drysuit diving (<15 dives)


To everyone else thanks for your comments. The thing that concerns me is that I was unable to deal with the situation. It wasn't that I made a conscious decision not to grab him, it was that I didn't make any decision at all.

I'll strive to practice more and try to be better prepared should there be a next time.