Weekend dive report, drama!

Syrup Beaver

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Sep 30, 2004
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So.....

We had two dives scheduled for each day this past weekend, Saturday we were joining a group from a shop that used to be local to us when we lived in NH.

We had two seal dives planned out of the NH seacoast, a pile of rocks in the ocean that the seals liked to hang out at. Since we hadn't been to that site before, we opted to follow the dive leader on the 1st dive, and broke into two groups.

Big mistake, the dive leader and someone else in the group had reached their turn pressure by the time they got to the bottom - of course they thought we were starting out in 40-50', when actually the bottom was at 75' :rolleyes: so after 15 minutes of gazing at clams in 75' of 47 degree water, we surfaced. Granted the surface current was bad, which had everyone breathing hard.

During the dive, we noticed some fiasco with someone's weight belt from the other group, got back on the boat and found one guy from the other group had skipped the first dive. Oh, and there's a mystery weightbelt on the boat.

Waiting for the other group (who were happily watching a seal underwater) to get back, a call comes over the boat radio from another boat saying they have one of our divers, and he's not in good shape! :eek:

We're all like, no way - we have all our divers, must be from someone else's group.

Nope, the boat gets there right as the other group arrives and it's the buddy of the guy who skipped the first dive.

He does not look well, and has to be carried into our boat, he's screaming about his legs and they put him on O2 and take his wetsuit off, he calms down a bit.


It turns out he lost his weightbelt on the surface, and the dive leader of the other group and his buddy (the one who skipped the dive) retrieved it. He gets it back on and goes down again without anyone in the other group knowing except his buddy, makes it somewhere between 50 - 70 feet before losing the belt again, rockets to the surface in 2 seconds, and gets carried a couple hundred yards or so away by the current and somehow manages to hold on to a buoy at the surface.

So we rush to the Coast Guard station to get him to a waiting ambulence for a nice hyperbaric chamber ride, and end up spending the day at the station dock waiting for the boat captain and dive leader to be released. Yay!

I feel REAL bad for the poor bastard, and I hope he's ok. My wife is going to ask the shop owner later to see.

His buddy, when I last saw him being taken away in another boat to get his and this guy's stuff to his car, looked like he knew he had fucked up real bad. I only hope he's capable of apologizing to his friend.
 
Sarcasmo said:
Did his limbs or veins explode? I always liked seeing that in horror movies.
Nah, no exterior signs of embolism and he wasn't down long enough for serious DCS, more than likely he was just having some serious ass leg cramps and racing heartrate - but anything like that and you get a chamber ride automatically, a nice $10,000 bill that regular health insurance doesn't cover :happy:
 
KNYTE said:
Ouch. I'll take my chances in Death Valley any day.

Glad you had a good time though.
Saturday was shitty, but still better than working :p

Sunday however, kicked ass :drool:


First dive, to 80ft down a sheer rock wall and into a 4' wide canyon for 200ft in length, saw a couple small eels and other assorted marine life. Nice relaxing dive, and a balmy 46 degrees.

Second dive, to the stern half of the wreck of the Chester Poling, a tanker that sunk in 1977. Top of the deck was about 77', TONS of fish and beautfiul anenomes festooning the center catwalk. Peered down into the open hatches for a long time until my eyes adjusted and was able to make out some of the interior features and rigging.

Saw TWO sea ravens on the wreck, perhaps the craziest fish you could find in New England waters.

(Not my picture)

raven.jpg



Previously I've seen a bright yellow one, I thought it was a toy someone had dropped at first because there was NO WAY that could be a real fish up here :lol:
 
b_sinning said:
How old was the dumbass diver?
Not knowing the guy who got swept away, I can't say for certain he's a dumbass - equipment problems can happen to anyone (Though usually one tests such things in shallower / calmer water) :p

The buddy was certainly not paying attention enough to be called a dumbass, both were probably late 30's early 40's
 
Hmm. This is why God keeps me on dry land at all times, and why he made aquariums for me to visit. I'd end up on the news for sure.
 
ChikkenNoodul said:
Dive with us, I watch my buddies like a hawk :hi2u:


Can't do it, unless it's snorkeling in water that's about 10-12 feet deep. I have this weird hydrophobia I can't shake, no matter what kind of rational thought or logic I apply to dispel it. I've been that way since I was a kid. I'm just afraid of deep water.

I tried to dive while in Mexico, and I absolutely loved cruising around in the lagoon we trained in with our instructor. But then we went out to a reef and as soon as I hit the deep water I started to hyperventilate and became obsessively preoccupied with getting the hell back to land. I tried several times before saying fuck it and heading back to a club with some friends. I'm a big pussy. :(
 
ChikkenNoodul said:
Nah, no exterior signs of embolism and he wasn't down long enough for serious DCS, more than likely he was just having some serious ass leg cramps and racing heartrate - but anything like that and you get a chamber ride automatically, a nice $10,000 bill that regular health insurance doesn't cover :happy:

$10,000! OUCH! That's quite a gamble. How many divers have you known that had to shell that out?
 
Pandora said:
$10,000! OUCH! That's quite a gamble. How many divers have you known that had to shell that out?
I know a woman that made the ride twice, fortunately she had DAN insurance which takes care of it.

I don't know if this guy had the insurance, but I was trying to find out if he had it and I was going to grab his credit card and sign him up if he didn't, no-one was helpful in this regard.