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#622
Scary dive moments.
Matt65 - 10/06/2008 12:12 AM
Category: Health & Safety
Replies: 12



What is the scariest diving incident you have either been in yourself, or was a witness too? What kind of truley dangerous diving acts have you seen? Have you ever had a student, or perhaps a classmate that did something totally stupid and / or dangerous dureing your class dives? Or perhaps you have been witness to a diver doing something just so totally stupid that it made your jaw drop? If you have any scary dive related stories, I would like to hear about them. Take care everyone, dive often and dive SAFE!


 
#8046
Rich-D-Fish - 10/06/2008 12:36 AM


Not really scary, but it could have been. Last month I was taking photos of my buddies doing their giant stride off the dive boat. It’s scary that I had to give an OW certified diver these reminders just a split second before he jumped......"snorkel out and reg in!"...."and inflate your BCD!" He would have sank like a rock.
#28736
RAWalker - 10/06/2008 11:42 AM


My first dive after completing my OW and I’m at 42’ diving on the wreck of the Antola in Aruba. I’m starting to get a bit buoyant so I give the inflator a tug to let some air out of the BC. The inflator hose came off the inflator and the pin holding the OPV cable slid out releasing the cable. I need to head to the surface with no way to inflate the BC on the surface. Luckily I surface an arms reach from another anchored dive boat and got a hand onboard.
#8046
Rich-D-Fish - 10/06/2008 12:26 PM


Just remembered another one. It was during my first night dive during my Advanced OW class. Everything was fine until the 21st minute of the dive. I was just cruising along with light in hand, when all of a sudden I was surrounded with air bubbles, my torso was sqeezed by my bcd, and I was jerked in a direction I took to be the surface. I sang out like I was trained for a rapid ascent (albeit a four letter word as loud as I could yell). Thank god I was only at 25’ depth at the time. It was hard to tell what was going on because it was pitch black all around me. By the time I figured out that it as my power inflater stuck I could see the moon and I was only a couple feet from the surface. I signalled the class that I was okay with my light, but followed the class on the surface. I didn’t want to risk it happening again.


The next morning we had scheduled our deep dive. Needless to say I lost sleep that night and was very nervous taking this equipment down to 100’. We cleaned out the power inflator valve as thoroughly as possible thinking it must have sand in it. I practiced disconnecting my power inflator hose under pressure, stayed close to the descent line, and kept a stalk of kelp within 5’ of me the entire dive. .


The verdict; We took apart the power inflator that night and found a couple small sand particles. I rented this BCD from a shop known for holding a lot of their classes at beaches. I went right out with my credit card an purchased all my own gear. I am almost anal with how well I clean my gear after a dive now. Plus I found that some inflator hoses are much easier to disconnect under pressure and I purchased one of those. I am no longer scared if it happens. I know how to handle it. Maybe a lesson someone else can benefit from......
#6072
scubaclay - 10/06/2008 2:31 PM
I had one very early in my dive career. My dive buddy and I were diving the Shark River Inlet in NJ. on a night dive. This being one of my first night dives I went with a large group and an Instructor. While Roman and I were exiting the inlet into the ocean, another diver pinned us against a large rock shinning his light into our eyes. We managed to extract ourselves from his grip and make it back to the exit site. While breaking down our gear the diver who pinned us came up to "thank us for the dive" and I noticed alcohol on his breath. after some questions I learned that he had been drinking before the dive. He did the dive while being intoxicated . The intoxicated diver came up from a 30 minute dive with no air what so ever. Needless to say I advised that diver If he ever came around me again I would cut his hoses.
#690
Subscribed
JudyNorcross - 10/07/2008 5:45 AM
On my second check out dive in open water, was a crazy but could have been a horrible ending if not for our instructors. There was 8 of us doing our check out when no sooner did we hit bottom at 24 ft when the first student shot for the surface, which our instructor followed after to check her situation, leaving us 7 remaining with the assistant instructor. when no more than 3-4 minutes a second student shot for the surface and the assistant went for him telling tne rest of us to wait there kneeling on the bottom about 15-20 minutes later our instructor returned to finish our check outs. Well by then being only 115 lbs myself in 54 degree weather had gotten rather cold. But donned my mask as instructed, removed by weight belt and refastenedthan cae the time for me to take my turn at reg. recovery now I was very cold, shivering and breathing quite rapidly but being a student I was not really sure that this would be a problem as we were just about finished. I took a deep breath, tossed my reg. retrieved it but could not get it back in my mouth good before the need for air was there. So I held it as tight to my lips as I could and took a small breath through my teeth to avoid taking water tha n finished inserting the mouth piece in my mouth. Than shortly after we surfaced but I had no strength left to get to sure so they hauled me in and out of the water. Hyperthermia was on me bad they filled my suit with hot water, wrapped me in blankets and put me in a heated car. Six hrs later the shivers finally started to subside. And I waited until June to finish my certification. Conclusion 1st student had vertigo and blew her eardrum, 2nd student had a ashisima attack which had got ok from doctor,and you know my story. But my best lesson through that experience is don’t panic and I didn’t or it surely would have been worse and don’t get cold anymore haha Judy
#400
Hels - 10/07/2008 5:46 AM


The scariest thing about possibly pegging it under water is that you can’t have that last cigarette.


Diving the blue hole in Gozo (Malta) earlier this year with a small group of O/W divers and 6 others with various levels of experience. One of the O/W divers didn’t enjoy the swim-thrus and overheads on the 1st dive, so, fair enough, the Instructor made the 2nd dive with NO swimthrus. He explained the dive well and we all checked the maps out, bearings etc. Everyone’s happy. So me and my German buddy are at the rear of the group poking about on a wall checking out the spiny-assed lobsters crouching in their holes. All good. Unbeknown to me - an contrary to the dive plan - my buddy has followed the group thru this narrow swim-thru overhead chimney thing. I think shes jus poking around in what is a little cave. She doesn’t come out. Fun Fun... 


One other dive pair have also not gone thru the chimney and im hanging at 25m half an eye on the "cave" waiting for me buddy and half an eye watching the last pairs’ fins disappear into the blue (visiblity was about 15m). Rite decision time - I’ve shone me torch trying to get my buddy’s attention, tapped my tank, stuck my head in this bloody "cave" and she’s not effin there. At this point i feel a tiny flicker of "oh shiiiiiiit" but quash it straight away and decide to follow the fins and bubbles i can see rather than go into some dark cravasse.


I manage to catch up with the last pair after a couple minutes swim with only the sound of my reg (not that scary really - more scary if it shuts up). I go 3s up with them and we go back to the cave thing.


Turns out the Instructor had ballsed it up. He had taken the group thru an overhead - which freaked out the O/W diver who didn’t want to do them; one person was on dregs of air by the time we surfaced and he managed to lose 3 divers thru cruddy dive planning. 


 Lesson learnt: never trust a dive plan that you’re not involved in making and always take a bloody compass.
#170
rescue15 - 10/08/2008 8:34 AM
Diving a 90 ft wreck off the coast of Delaware...with a buddy who shouldn’t be in the ocean - but his brother the DM - who I HAD a lot of respect for - assured me he was a good diver and a good buddy. We hit the sand and with in minutes he disappears (same ocean buddy) I find him and minutes later he’s out of air. We buddy breath, go to the surface too fast, computer screaming, blowing through all the safety stops. I get a new bottle and bounce back down to 40 ft to do stops at 40, 30, 20 and 15 till my bottle is empty. All the way home I’m wondering to myself - should I go home or straight to the chamber?
#228
-heidi-o - 10/09/2008 3:26 PM
Rental gear is lovely isn’t it?!
#228
-heidi-o - 10/09/2008 3:38 PM
One of my scariest moments as a Divemaster I was with an Advanced Group at the 85’ platform and one student bolted to the surface... mask off reg out. I noticeds one of our DM candidates already had ahold of him so I was staying back some 10-15 feet to let the guy handled it and then the student kicked and punched his was out of the DM candidates grasp (this was around 60 feet) and still reg-less and mask less fled frantically to the surface... I surfaced shortly with a baro trauma... after he sky rocketed and asked him what was up. He told me that his regulator had quit working. NOT. I checked it and it was breathing just fine... he panicked and refused to accept that.. so we got him out of the water and on O2. He’s lucky he didn’t have an embolism.
#228
-heidi-o - 10/09/2008 3:53 PM
As a tecdiver.. My scariest moment thus far would have to be... being 600 feet back in a cave and my mask going on a flood spree! Luckily my dive buddy was close by and led me out.
#556
urbaneve - 10/13/2008 12:36 AM
not really a scary dive, but hte best one i have ever had. was diving my last dive of the season a few years back and there was about 20 of us that went. it was in panama city at akokeet 14. i was chasing a flounder and looked up and about 15 feet from me was a bull shark. i just settled on the bottom and watched her circle me and go about her business and was in total awe. from that day forward, i have been a shark lover. i have the utmost respect for them now. i even wrote in to dive training magaizne about it and they published my letter. awsome