I've been diving for over 30 years and I want to start a thread in the basic forum to give newer divers some ideas of things that really happen in the real world. We train for a number of scenarios but what have "experienced" divers really learned from things that have gone wrong?
(this post could get long).
I'm hoping that other long-time divers will post on this thread and share their insights.
I think I'll do a top 5 list to keep it short(ish)
1) my first "incident" under water. It had to do with a rented regulator that had obviously been left in the sand and not cleaned well. During the descent a large amount of sand came loose from the inside of the 2nd stage housing and made it impossible to breathe. I was near the bottom so I settled on the bottom, took my own octopus and swished out my mouth. The octopus was working so I started cleaning the primary and purging it, which caused large amounts of sand in a sort of cloud to be expelled. After a minute or two the sand was cleared and we continued with the dive. Lesson learned. We have backups for a reason. Don't be afraid to use your OWN octopus. I still teach this in OW.
2) Playing the "victim" for the rescue course. The rescuer knocked my reg out of my mouth and had me in such a bear hug that I couldn't get an arm free to find my reg. To top it all off, he took it very slow during the lift. I nearly downed but eventually solved it by going limp so his grip on me would loosen and then suddenly "exploding" free and grabbing the reg out of his mouth. Lesson learned. The reg in your mouth is yours AND your buddy's. Be prepared for that. I still teach this in OW
3) On a 40m dive a diver from another group got hopelessly tangled up in a huge ball of discarded monofilament. We were diving on a wall with a maximum depth of about 150 metres and thankfully the viz was good. He started falling (rolling descending) down the wall as he got more and more ensnared. I saw this together with my buddy and we went to get him. By the time we had him pinned to the wall (depth unknown because my analogue depth meter was pinned). We were so narced that it was hard to know what to do. Lesson learned, there are 3 types of people in this world. When a building is on fire (1) some will run and/or panic (2) the vast majority will stand around like stunned cows watching and waiting to be told what to do and (3) in 100 people, 1 or 2 will run into the building and do something. Something I never forget when teaching/assisting Rescue. I'm happy as hell that myself and my main buddy are the 1 or 2.
4) As a DM we "lost" at student during a deep dive. I was the DM and another group of maybe 10 divers descended on our position and started "impacting" the muddy bottom in a chaos of flailing limbs and flippers like "silt bombs". We tried to exit forth with, with all of our students. In the zero viz, I reached forward and grabbed two divers who I believed were the students I had with me...... once out of the "blast zone" I realized that one of them was our student and one of them was one of the divers who descended from above...... I ascended with them and said, "you are now each other's buddies". I handed them off to the instructor who had also ascended and said to the instructor, "get to shore and get surface support. I'll send them all to you". and then I descended again. It was logical to the instructor since, even though I was a DM, I was a much more experienced diver than he was...... I eventually found all of the divers who (like stunned cows) waited on the bottom to be found..... Lesson learned..... Never do the deep dive with more divers than you have hands. I got a lot of grey hairs from that dive. These days I don't do the deep dive with more than 1:1 ratios.
5) As an instructor a major accident happened in an unrelated group of divers. A student ran out of air during an AOW deep dive and when he tried to share air with the DM, the DM pushed him away and panic inflated his BCD and left the student behind for dead. My dive team were standing on shore.... completely coincidentally..... ready to dive (and as I alluded to above, my guys are the ones who run into burning buildings.....). When the scene started to develop on the surface I sent them into the water. One of them had a short conversation with one of the divers on the surface and turned to me and said, "CALL THE EMS". They then disappeared under the surface. I called 112 (European 911) and soon realized that living in Holland is amazing. By the time I hung up the phone I could hear sirens and within a space of 10 minutes from the start of it all I had paramedics ... in a boat ... on the dive site.... Fire services divers with 2nd boat on the pier waiting to deploy, police on scene, 2 groups searching, a snorkeler on the surface "in control" of everyone going in and out of the water and trauma a helicopter complete with trauma doctor waiting on shore for the victim. 10 minutes. Lessons learned are multiple but in terms of scuba I choose not to give Rescue courses because of this.... I choose to assist so that I can impart my experience in *all* of our rescue courses instead of just to my own students.....
Ok guys.... I want to hear from other experienced divers about their lessons learned..... let's get this out there.
R..
(this post could get long).
I'm hoping that other long-time divers will post on this thread and share their insights.
I think I'll do a top 5 list to keep it short(ish)
1) my first "incident" under water. It had to do with a rented regulator that had obviously been left in the sand and not cleaned well. During the descent a large amount of sand came loose from the inside of the 2nd stage housing and made it impossible to breathe. I was near the bottom so I settled on the bottom, took my own octopus and swished out my mouth. The octopus was working so I started cleaning the primary and purging it, which caused large amounts of sand in a sort of cloud to be expelled. After a minute or two the sand was cleared and we continued with the dive. Lesson learned. We have backups for a reason. Don't be afraid to use your OWN octopus. I still teach this in OW.
2) Playing the "victim" for the rescue course. The rescuer knocked my reg out of my mouth and had me in such a bear hug that I couldn't get an arm free to find my reg. To top it all off, he took it very slow during the lift. I nearly downed but eventually solved it by going limp so his grip on me would loosen and then suddenly "exploding" free and grabbing the reg out of his mouth. Lesson learned. The reg in your mouth is yours AND your buddy's. Be prepared for that. I still teach this in OW
3) On a 40m dive a diver from another group got hopelessly tangled up in a huge ball of discarded monofilament. We were diving on a wall with a maximum depth of about 150 metres and thankfully the viz was good. He started falling (rolling descending) down the wall as he got more and more ensnared. I saw this together with my buddy and we went to get him. By the time we had him pinned to the wall (depth unknown because my analogue depth meter was pinned). We were so narced that it was hard to know what to do. Lesson learned, there are 3 types of people in this world. When a building is on fire (1) some will run and/or panic (2) the vast majority will stand around like stunned cows watching and waiting to be told what to do and (3) in 100 people, 1 or 2 will run into the building and do something. Something I never forget when teaching/assisting Rescue. I'm happy as hell that myself and my main buddy are the 1 or 2.
4) As a DM we "lost" at student during a deep dive. I was the DM and another group of maybe 10 divers descended on our position and started "impacting" the muddy bottom in a chaos of flailing limbs and flippers like "silt bombs". We tried to exit forth with, with all of our students. In the zero viz, I reached forward and grabbed two divers who I believed were the students I had with me...... once out of the "blast zone" I realized that one of them was our student and one of them was one of the divers who descended from above...... I ascended with them and said, "you are now each other's buddies". I handed them off to the instructor who had also ascended and said to the instructor, "get to shore and get surface support. I'll send them all to you". and then I descended again. It was logical to the instructor since, even though I was a DM, I was a much more experienced diver than he was...... I eventually found all of the divers who (like stunned cows) waited on the bottom to be found..... Lesson learned..... Never do the deep dive with more divers than you have hands. I got a lot of grey hairs from that dive. These days I don't do the deep dive with more than 1:1 ratios.
5) As an instructor a major accident happened in an unrelated group of divers. A student ran out of air during an AOW deep dive and when he tried to share air with the DM, the DM pushed him away and panic inflated his BCD and left the student behind for dead. My dive team were standing on shore.... completely coincidentally..... ready to dive (and as I alluded to above, my guys are the ones who run into burning buildings.....). When the scene started to develop on the surface I sent them into the water. One of them had a short conversation with one of the divers on the surface and turned to me and said, "CALL THE EMS". They then disappeared under the surface. I called 112 (European 911) and soon realized that living in Holland is amazing. By the time I hung up the phone I could hear sirens and within a space of 10 minutes from the start of it all I had paramedics ... in a boat ... on the dive site.... Fire services divers with 2nd boat on the pier waiting to deploy, police on scene, 2 groups searching, a snorkeler on the surface "in control" of everyone going in and out of the water and trauma a helicopter complete with trauma doctor waiting on shore for the victim. 10 minutes. Lessons learned are multiple but in terms of scuba I choose not to give Rescue courses because of this.... I choose to assist so that I can impart my experience in *all* of our rescue courses instead of just to my own students.....
Ok guys.... I want to hear from other experienced divers about their lessons learned..... let's get this out there.
R..