Lost Buddy Procedure "DON'T PANIC"

hey guys it's browning in from Lake kicker scuba marina gonna show you a quick diving video from this past week me and a buddy decided that we wanted to go do some deep diving down in our local quarry so we loaded up our gear we headed down there and we made us a dive land our original plan was to go spend about 20 to 30 minutes at the bottom which is around 95 96 feet give or take if we've had a lot of rain or not and then was gonna come up to what we call the playground area between 30 to 40 feet and spending about another 30 minutes or so so we loaded up our gear we headed down there when we proceeded to do our dive however once we reached the bottom I turned to check on my buddy and noticed that he wasn't there I pretty much out swim my buddy or lost my buddy so I performed just a proper buddy loss procedure and it goes all the way back to your open water class on how you're going to perform this particular skill now we understand that anytime you lose your buddy you want to search for a minute slowly make or make a slow safe ascent to the surface and then your buddies should be at the surface once he realized that he had lost you as well well when you deal with deep diving and we were like I said 95 to 96 feet deep or I was I couldn't just look for my buddy and come straight up to the surface because I had other obligations you may have dqo stops or deep stops or most importantly even safety stops that you're gonna have to perform so what I'm going to show you is a real-time footage and I'll go ahead and tell you upfront I've edited - just a small few little Clips out of this video just to try to keep it you know a shortened up video so you don't get too bored with it but I've tried to keep as much of what actually happened in there so that you can get a good idea of just how long it takes to do this procedure at such a deep depth and if you ever lose your buddy underwater don't panic remember to breathe remember to stop think and act stop everything you're doing think about what the problem is how to fix that problem and then act upon it so take a real quick look at this video I'll commentate through it showing you what I'm doing and then I'll give you some final thoughts at the end alright guys so here we are at the very beginning of the dive we just finished up our pre-dawn safety check with each other and we're headed down the DA thought that we're at this is the PDR a or otherwise known as the Piedmont dive and Rescue Association this is the Lake Norman quarry and we had all intentions of going down to the bottom it's about 95 96 feet down to the bottom to look at a big cruiser boat was gonna work our way over to say a 70 foot mark and then slowly come up a wall and then finished our dive in 30 to 40 feet and try to make a good hour-long dive out of this the gentleman is diving with me we dive together quite a bit if you see some of our treasure hunting videos this is the gentleman that's usually recording for me both the intro and outro parts to the video so he's a very experienced diver he's been diving for a while now and this was his first time going to the bottom of this particular quarry so we took a couple extra precautions I have a personal rule anytime that I'm doing say a deep dive below 60 feet or any time I'm in a night dive situation or you know we do a lot of ice diving in the wintertime any time we got an overhead environment and since we are big in public safety anytime that we're on a public-safety dive we always take redundant air with us and you can see I'm slinging there on my left hand side just a standard 80 cubic foot aluminum cylinder and that's just a redundant air source for me or for my buddy just in the event that something was to happen we would have a redundant air source and on this particular dive being this was his first time going down typically speaking I'd probably just have a 30 cubic foot pony cylinder with me but being that this was his first time going to this particular side or this depth here in the quarry I chose to go with an 80 just to give us a little bit extra air just in the event of an emergency he would have air and I would have air as well but we're headed down the line here and you probably already see a couple times I'll turn to check on him make sure he's okay and you know we do that on regular intervals you know I'm gonna say maybe every 30 seconds to a minute maybe up to two or three-minute intervals we'll just turn to each other check make sure everything's okay here shortly I will turn to check on him and he will say that he's okay but then he'll tell me that he's having a little trouble with his ears due to temperature change like I said we're going through several thermic lines here so I tell him just to slow his a cemetery or his descent rate just a little bit to help him eagle eyes out and before I know any different he he's going and you'll see it in the video and I didn't know it until I hit the bottom of the quarry here just how quickly after I checked on him last time that he actually we we become separated so as we're going down here I'll signal once again are you okay he signals okay I'm telling him okay just slow your scent down just a little bit I turned back to continue on and we're following a line down to the bottom of the quarry and then here you can see he's kind of headed back to the surface a little bit and he's slowing down you know partly my fault I should have stopped with him and checked on him but I assumed that he was just gonna slow his descent a little bit I didn't actually think he was gonna head onto the surface and then of course I turn I look I noticed that he is above me I'm on signal hey are you okay he signals yes I'm okay and he starts on back down the line so I just said well I'm gonna stop here for a second waiting on him to meet back up and I'm taking a guess here I think I looked at my computer there were probably about 75 80 feet deep so we had about 10 more feet to go to hit our target what we were going for so I descend on down assuming he's coming right behind me of course here you can see just how dark it is at the bottom of this quarry now we do have good visibility here typically speaking the reason you're not seeing much now is I've got the lot shining out in front of the camera that you're you're seeing and the camera that you're seeing is actually focused on me so I do have a camera on my forehead which you're not seeing the footage from it you'll see some footage from me out here towards the end of the video but you're only seeing the footage from the camera that I have on the camera pole that I got so there's there's not much light shining me there all the Lots projected out and from the cameras that's why it's pretty dark there but here I've really noticed that I'm alone that my buddy's not with me and so I'm gonna immediately start my buddy search procedure so basically all I'm doing is I've reached my depth I've started swimming counting a circle looking up above me looking out in front of me looking around and I'm gonna do that for approximately a minute and then I'm gonna start my scent now during my ascent there's several things that I got taking consideration now first of all I'm at 96 feet so you know my scent rates a foot every two seconds so at the maximum or you know at the the fastest I should go up would be a hundred and eighty some or 192 seconds from that depth of course it's gonna be slower because on this particular dive I did actually two stops on my way up I did a deep stop around the 65 70 foot mark and then also I did my safety stop my three-minute safety stop at 30 feet and that's once again something that a lot of times I think divers forget about they get into the mode of oh no I've lost my buddy I got a finding I gotta make it to the surface so I can finding and sometimes we neglect just our basic open water skills in basic open water we're taught to always do a safety stop you know if your computer if you're diving with the computer instead of tables and your computer tells you to do a safety stop then you do a safety stop don't don't jeopardize a risk unless you have the unfortunate event where you you are gonna run out of air and you have to make that direct ascent but I have plenty of air with me I'm still searching for my buddy I didn't panic and anytime we have that problem you want to stop thinking that stop everything you're doing think about what the problem is how to fix it and then act accordingly and that's what I'm doing I'm stopping everything I'm doing I'm doing my deep stop now around the 70 foot mark thinking about okay I've looked for my buddy I've shown my lot of look for reflections of the bubbles and I'm able to find him so I'm gonna continue my scent now during my scent I simply just reversed the course that I took to get to that depth I followed the line back up the wall of the quarry constantly looking around looking for my buddy this whole time I'm having the assumption that he made it to the surface and that he is following in my bubbles around on the surface so when I get to my safety stop depth and I decided to do a 3-minute stop I made a decision instead of continually swimming around looking for him at that particular depth that I would just stay in one spot for a three-minute safety stop and allow him to swim across the surface find my bubbles and then descend down to check on me so this was something that I usually discussed prior teenee dive with with a new buddy or even somebody that I dive with on a regular basis we usually already have our plans in mind we're gonna look for a minute make our scent daring our sin if we're to perform a safety stop we've most of the guys I dive with we've agreed that during your safety stop stay in place don't move if you have to shoot a buoy that way they can find you now we happen to be the only two divers in this quarry this particular day so there was no chance of him swimming across another diver so I didn't bother shooting a buoy and right now I'm getting to my safety stop depth I'm still looking for him but I'm trying to stay and I'm trying to stay in one one particular spot and the visibility was good enough I could actually see if he was up above me so I'm just sitting there waiting on him to swim now dear my safety stop I'll look up one last time and I will notice him kind of swimming over to me because like I said the visibility was pretty good for me and here's where I'm coming up for my safety stop but I do notice him swimming over to me and you know he basically gets right on top of my bubbles he'll signal down with his flashlight let me know or ask me if I'm okay and of course I signal back to him I complete my safety stop and then I head on back up to the surface and then we reconvene and then continue our dive from there but the purpose of this video once again was to show you that you know sometimes what we teach students you search for a minute come to the surface you can't quite always do that it's not quite as simple as it seems there's usually more steps to making a buddy loss procedure check or search for a loss buddy you know you have other obligations you may have a dqo stop or a deep stop or even a safety stop that you're gonna have to perform now it let's say that I was in a current if I was in a current during those stops then yes by all means I would have shot a buoy to the surface that way he could have found the buoy swim over to it and he could actually follow the line down to me if I just shot a buoy but there's absolutely no current here so and we had pre discussed you know as I as I do with all my dive buddies what to do if we become separated and we simply followed our procedure we you know we planned our dive and we simply dived our plan it was as short and sweet as that we both came out of this perfectly okay no neither one of us was shooken up you know we're both experienced divers so we were perfectly okay being alone for the brief time that we were alone I felt very comfortable at that depth even with limited visit the bottoms where you could see how dark it was I did have a redundant tear source I knew my equipment and guys I've been diving for 28 years I just crossed over the five thousand dollar mark so you know I did feel very very comfortable alone he also felt comfortable we both understood our procedures that we should follow in the event that we lost each other and that's what we did we followed the procedures and then we found each other back at the surface so I really appreciate you watching this video guys I hope you understand that not everything is so black and white in the training that you get from your instructors wherever you take your dive training you know a lot of times we follow it by the book we talk about what the book tells to do or what your instructor tells you to do but sometimes there's more to it than that and and sometimes we don't have the time to go that and depth but you got to use common sense you can't just make a direct descent from a hundred feet of course you need to do it slower than a foot a second we prefer a foot every two seconds if not slower do your your stops if you're obligated to do a stop whether it's a dqo or a deep stop or even a safety stop and the only time that you should really stray away from that is in the event that you are going to run out of air and you have to make that direct ascent then then it's okay to to eliminate those stops but in this particular situation I there was no need to actually eliminate it once again we both felt comfortable being alone and so and then of course here I'm finishing up my safety stop and I'm headed back up to the surface you're actually seeing it from the other cameras angle or other view now so but just be careful out there guys remember your basic skills from your open water class you know slow safe ascents are always the best always do a safety stop regardless of what dive your own unless you run the unlikelihood of being around just be safe out there discuss your dives beforehand you and your buddy you know whether it's a lost buddy procedure or whether it's an entanglement situation or whatever the problem may be and of course stop think and act stop anytime you have a problem stop everything you're doing take a few breathing soccers and then take another couple breathing cycles the guys you know I do appreciate you watching this video really hope you learned something from it but I just wanted to show you what a lost buddy procedure from you know close to 100 foot would look like so guys as you can see in the video I took my time I relaxed I kept looking for my buddy throughout the entire ascent process I did a deep stop I did a safety stop just for my safety as well one thing that I kept my calm about I knew that I had a redundant air source I knew that my buddy had a redundant air source we both felt comfortable diving together and we both kind of felt comfortable diving in a lost buddy procedure even a solo diving type scenario so guys anytime you lose your buddy it's not something that you need to immediately panic on but it is something you need to take care of them how do we take care of problems underwater you simply stop everything you're doing think about the problem what's causing it and how to fix it and then of course act upon it so guys I really appreciate you watching this video if you got any comments concerns please put it down in the comment section below we'll try to get to you as quickly as we can as always make sure you follow us on Instagram and Twitter like us on Facebook pin us on Pinterest subscribe to us here on YouTube and as always guys we appreciate your business

Channel: LakeHickoryScuba

Views: 22,222

Rating: 4.8278146 out of 5

Keywords: Lake, Hickory, Scuba, Marina, Taylorsville, North, Carolina, Alexander, County, Diving, Drysuit, Wetsuit, BCD, Regulator, Fins, Mask, Snorkel, Public, Safety, Under, Water, Criminal, Investigations, Mares, OS, Systems, Ocean, Reef, Full, Face, Training, XS, Trident, Charter, PDIC, PADI, SEI, CMAS, Educators, International, Boating, Bait, Fishing, Docks, Search, Recovery, Specialty, Night, Drift, EFR, First, Aid, CPR, AED, Emergency, Oxygen, Provider, Divemaster, Assistant, Instructor, Trainer, Board, Discussion, SSI, School, Commentary, Treasure, Hunting

Id: WZQi3LOqiNc

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2016