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MEMBER TO MEMBER
W
e had a near miss on a recent dive trip in the
Gulf of Mexico.
At the end of an hourlong dive, several of
us met on the bottom directly under the boat.
The mooring line was very crowded, so we had assembled to
do a free ascent together. We were 65 feet down, the water was
calm, and visibility was excellent.
One of the divers in our group noticed a weight belt on the
bottom, so she retrieved it and began to inflate her BCD to
bring it to the surface. The weight belt had been dropped by a
new diver, and it weighed at least 25 pounds. Shortly after she
began her ascent, two other divers saw she was surrounded by
a cloud of bubbles and proceeded quickly to assist her. They
noticed she had overinflated her BCD to the point the relief
valve was purging air.
She handed the weight belt to the first diver to reach her. This
caused her to be whisked toward the surface like a balloon. The
second diver arrived a few moments later; he lunged upward
and grabbed her by the fingertips as she reached down for
help. Fortunately, she had not ascended more than 10 feet.
He dumped the excess air in his BCD and held her until she
managed to dump the air from hers and become neutrally
buoyant. Her buddy arrived, and they all ascended slowly to the
surface, making a safety stop on the way.
What We Learned
The effect of handing off the extra weight with a fully inflated
BCD caused the diver to lose control of her ascent. As we
all know, rapid, uncontrolled ascents are associated with
a long list of negative events, including ear barotrauma,
decompression sickness, lung barotrauma and arterial gas
embolism. If you are at depth and plan to ditch excess weight
for any reason, don’t forget to vent some air first. Even if you
don’t plan to hand off the weight on the way up, consider that
it might slip from your grip by accident — potentially resulting
in a quick trip to the surface.
Always use the right tool for the job. Don’t use your own
BCD to lift a heavy weight from the bottom. In this situation
the diver should have notified the crew that there was a heavy
object directly below the boat, and someone could have
returned to the bottom with a lift bag to bring it to the surface.
Never forget that your actions can affect other divers. In
this case, two members of our group were in the right place
at the right time. They reacted quickly and got the situation
under control, but a situation like this can place potential
rescuers at risk. Fortunately, we all surfaced from this dive
unharmed; we just had a bit of “what could have happened”
to think about.
AD
The Right Tool
for the Job
98
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SUMMER 2011
102
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Tips, advice and updates from your fellow divers
B y E d J a M E S o n
do you have tips, advice, travel strategies, dive techniques, lessons
learned or other words of wisdom to share with your fellow divers? Alert
Diver wants your story! Email it to M2M@dan.org, or mail it to “Member
to Member,” c/o Alert Diver, 6 W. Colony Place, durham, nC 27705.
Share YOUr StOrY
never use your BCd to try
to bring a heavy object to
the surface — that’s what
lift bags are for.
S T E P H E N F R I N K