Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
--_=_=_=IMA.BOUNDARY.HTML_4998384=_=_=_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Having said that, Jim, I think it should still be pointed out that it is possible to briefly interrupt and then resume decompression. What is your highest priority when diving? Mine is my buddy's safety. With that in mind, there's no way I'm going to let him blow up to the surface without following, so that I may either correct the problem and get him back down, or hand him off to surface support and drop down to deco. How much deco you are willing to blow off is certainly a judgement call, but within a reasonable window of a few minutes surfaced I think my buddy deserves the effort. After surfacing for a couple of minutes, I would probably return to something a little deeper than the interruption depth (maybe 5/4th's or so), and resume the schedule with no changes, other than extending the oxygen stop a bit. If symptoms were evident, I'd throw on the full face mask and drop to 25 feet on oxygen with a support diver - standard IWR protocol. As you pointed out, the best thing is prevention, by not making poor decisions prior to the dive. After that, you have to weigh the possibility of a little pain versus potentially having a death on your hands. I'll take the pain every time. -Sean --Original Message Text--- From: Jim Cobb Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 09:13:51 -0400 Re: What's a diver to do. This is a commonly happens among rec divers, that's why in rec diving you try to keep the amount of dissolved gasses in your tissues down to a point where, due to inexperience or poor equipment selection or both, "shooting to the surface" happens all the time. If you can remember to exhale on the way up it generally won't cause a problems. You see this happening all the time on the rec trips around here. Technical diving is a whole new ballgame. In technical diving you have a "virtual overhead" which means that if you have a problem you'd better be prepared to handle it without shooting to the surface, which in many cases is a death penalty. With this in mind you equip yourself with the correct gear, learn to work with this gear until it becomes instinctive and have the ability to keep a cool head when the situation is less than optimal. Your question is kind of like "if I were skydiving and my partner's chute did not open do I follow him to the ground trying to help him". I don't believe this is taught or even considered in skydiving. The emphasis in on setting up your equipment correctly and learning it intimately. In the case in question it appears that either the deceased was hypoxic and could not think straight or his equipment was all fucked up. That his partner could not help him means that not only was his gear so fucked up he could not deal with a simple drysuit problem that his partner has hypoxic as well or so unfamiliar with the gear they were using she could not figure it out. Keep in mind this was a shore dive, sitting on the bottom, all the time in the world (they were using rebreather, right?) One or both of these two were fated to die long before they even got in the water. So, what would I do? First I would not dive with a know killer rebreather like the Buddy Expiration, second I would dive with a partner who knew my equipment as well as I do so you can deal with the problem on the bottom. The point is you don't let the situation get to the point that you have to make decisions like the one you make below, it is not hard to do. I repeat, it is NOT hard to do. Jim --_=_=_=IMA.BOUNDARY.HTML_4998384=_=_=_ Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <HTML> <FONT FACE="MS Sans Serif" DEFAULT="FACE"><FONT SIZE="1" POINTSIZE="8" DEFAULT="SIZE">Having said that, Jim, I think it should still be pointed out that it is possible to briefly interrupt and then resume decompression. What is your highest priority when diving? Mine is my buddy's safety. With that in mind, there's no way I'm going to let him blow up to the surface without following, so that I may either correct the problem and get him back down, or hand him off to surface support and drop down to deco. How much deco you are willing to blow off is certainly a judgement call, but within a reasonable window of a few minutes surfaced I think my buddy deserves the effort.<BR> <BR> After surfacing for a couple of minutes, I would probably return to something a little deeper than the interruption depth (maybe 5/4th's or so), and resume the schedule with no changes, other than extending the oxygen stop a bit. If symptoms were evident, I'd throw on the full face mask and drop to 25 feet on oxygen with a support diver - standard IWR protocol.<BR> <BR> As you pointed out, the best thing is prevention, by not making poor decisions prior to the dive. After that, you have to weigh the possibility of a little pain versus potentially having a death on your hands. <BR> <BR> I'll take the pain every time.<BR> <BR> -Sean<BR> <BR> <BR> --Original Message Text---<BR> <B>From:</B> Jim Cobb<BR> <B>Date:</B> Wed, 04 Jul 2001 09:13:51 -0400<BR> <BR> Re: What's a diver to do. This is a commonly happens among rec divers, that's why in rec diving you try to keep the amount of dissolved gasses in your tissues down to a point where, due to inexperience or poor equipment selection or both, "shooting to the surface" happens all the time. If you can remember to exhale on the way up it generally won't cause a problems. You see this happening all the time on the rec trips around here.<BR> <BR> Technical diving is a whole new ballgame. In technical diving you have a "virtual overhead" which means that if you have a problem you'd better be prepared to handle it without shooting to the surface, which in many cases is a death penalty.<BR> <BR> With this in mind you equip yourself with the correct gear, learn to work with this gear until it becomes instinctive and have the ability to keep a cool head when the situation is less than optimal.<BR> <BR> Your question is kind of like "if I were skydiving and my partner's chute did not open do I follow him to the ground trying to help him". I don't believe this is taught or even considered in skydiving. The emphasis in on setting up your equipment correctly and learning it intimately.<BR> <BR> In the case in question it appears that either the deceased was hypoxic and could not think straight or his equipment was all fucked up. That his partner could not help him means that not only was his gear so fucked up he could not deal with a simple drysuit problem that his partner has hypoxic as well or so unfamiliar with the gear they were using she could not figure it out. Keep in mind this was a shore dive, sitting on the bottom, all the time in the world (they were using rebreather, right?) One or both of these two were fated to die long before they even got in the water.<BR> <BR> So, what would I do? First I would not dive with a know killer rebreather like the Buddy Expiration, second I would dive with a partner who knew my equipment as well as I do so you can deal with the problem on the bottom. The point is you don't let the situation get to the point that you have to make decisions like the one you make below, it is not hard to do. I repeat, it is NOT hard to do.<BR> <BR> Jim<BR> <BR> </HTML> --_=_=_=IMA.BOUNDARY.HTML_4998384=_=_=_-- -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]