My significant other, Lee, and I just returned from drift diving in the waters off Jupiter, Florida. Lee is a Master Diver with over 200 dives under his belt. In his entire diving career he has never had a major incident underwater... until yesterday. Upon descent, his BCD inflator hose gave way. He heard a pop as he tried to discharge the air from his BC.
He sensed that something was wrong but his descent continued until he landed on the bottom on his knees with 80 feet of water above him. He then tried to inflate with no lift response. Little did he know but his bladder was quickly filling with water. One of the other divers on the drift dive saw what happened and came over to show Lee that his inflator hose was detached and broken. And then the diver swam away and continued with his dive.
Yes, you read this right... the diver saw a fellow diver in distress and he swam off and left the distressed diver! Nice diving "etiquette." (Good thing Lee didn't tell me this while we were on the boat or I would have had some choice words for this idiot.)
But I digress...Lee then decided he had to bale out on the dive due to the emergency situation. He made an attempt to swim to the surface. But his weights and lack of buoyancy worked against him. He decided to drop his weights and slowly swam to the surface.
The good news is my seasoned and smart diver-love, Lee, was able to keep from panicking and did an emergency ascent. But what if he hadn't been able to do that. What if panic had set in as the other selfish diver left him there to figure out what to do? What if Lee had not been able to get out of this and had - - oh, I don't know - - died? How would that non-caring individual have felt for leaving a distressed diver behind?!
I guess my expectations that others would want to help their fellow divers are just too high. But come on people, diving is such a wonderful sport and there are so few of us that know, love and appreciate what the underwater world has to offer. We really must have high expectations that we will help each other in times of need. Don'tcha think?! I know I do.
Lee and I have discussed it and affirmed that part of our diving credo is to never leave another diver in distress and help other divers in times of need.
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1 comment:
That's a sad thing to here about the other diver. I have noticed more and more since I started diving that most inexperienced divers are too busy worrying about themselves to think about anyone else, including there dive buddy. It really is a sad fact of life it seams. I wish more instructors would teach there students good dive etiquette.
It was incidents like Lee's that made me get my Rescue diver certification. Glad to know that Lee made it out ok.
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