Sometimes, what can go wrong, will go wrong.
Some of Us Survive for no known reason. I’ve had that happen to me twenty times in my life. When I tell people that, they think that simply can’t be. I don’t understand why either. It seems to make no sense.
I’m now 72 years old, soon to be 73. I’ve broken almost every bone in my body, except my femurs and my pelvis, including two skull fractures, a broken neck and back. By itself it’s not really a big deal, many have seen worse. But what is strange, is that the nature of the accidents were often in situations where life or death depended simply on luck.
I was a well trained emergency services worker specializing in rescues either in vertical environments, swift-water environments, dive rescue emergencies and structural collapses. So, yes I was well trained to recognize rapidly deteriorating situations where life or death depends on a simple choice, to stop, recognize the risk and escape or push on with whatever you were supposed to be doing. However, many of the situations I encountered, also involved other people, in endeavours where due to the nature of the event, safety should have ensured, all was well.
But, sometimes, it wasn’t.
We make assumptions, and in so doing we give up control to a situation, a party, organization, or activity where unless you are prepared to ‘assume’ responsibility for someone else’s actions or inaction, by acting yourself, that person will either perish or in turn put others at risk in their being rescued.
I never thought about it as brave. It was my job. One I loved doing, and one that I would gladly do over.
But some events some incidences leave one questioning the intelligence, or the ignorance of people, who will, without any reason for their certitude about how an event will unfold, take risks that to the trained, knowledgeable or educated in the action they are partaking in, would seem irrational.
Knowledge is truly power. But so is rationality and intelligence.
Out of thousands of incidents that I responded to in my career(s), a couple stand out for the horror they induced in others, and the outcome of those events.
The following event is not meant to titillate or entertain. It is simply an example of what can, and will go wrong, if people refuse to consider the law of unintended consequences or what can go wrong, will go wrong.
For those who are easily upset or empathic and may be affected, I recommend that you don’t read my reiteration of the following event.
This incident happened to me about 30 years ago when I was on vacation in the Caribbean on a dive holiday. It started out innocuously enough. I was a dive rescue instructor in the fire service and a former naval ship’s diver. I then lived in a very cold city in Canada, famous for its extreme temperatures, and so, having the opportunity and funds to get away for a diving holiday, booked a series of advanced dives at depth with a very well known dive company in the Caribbean, at a site that was famous for its visual effects and the amazing sea life found there. The company’s personnel were all PADI or NAUI instructors, and I knew I was a competent diver who was used to diving in challenging situations where large marine life could arrive, without warning.
As a diver who primarily dove in rivers, often in turbid conditions with low visibility, and sometimes under moving ice, which I wholly do not recommend, diving in pristine conditions where visibility was well over 100′ seemed like a timely, incredibly relaxing and beautiful holiday.
That is, until it wasn’t.
I had been in country for a few days, and seeing as I had travelled without my wife, who has no interest in diving or in any adrenaline inducing hobbies, was key to get on with the dives that I had planned for the next two weeks.
It was the first dive of what was to be many, when I arrived at the jetty and boarded the former US Navy cutter that had been turned into a dive boat.
On the day of the dive there had been a major storm the previous day and the swells at sea were large. As we boarded the launch, which looked to be a former coast guard cutter, approximately 70 feet in length, I paid attention to the other divers in order to hopefully be paired with one who was also comfortable in the environment and didn’t seem to be overtly nervous or so excited as to be a liability. Unfortunately, except for several couples who obviously were diving together, there seemed to be mostly those who were either new to diving, or appeared particularly nervous as we navigated out of the harbour and soon hit open ocean swells that were quite high, I’d guess 8-9 foot swells.
As we hit the open ocean and the continental shelf fell away, I had this sixth sense that the ocean would be a challenge for some of those aboard, but the thought quickly passed as I took in the deep blue and turquoise sea, on what was simply a beautiful day.
We were travelling a significant distance to get to our location, and after about an hour of plowing through the swells, it was obvious that quite a few people aboard were seasick. I wasn’t seasick, fortunately, but hoped that the constant pitching, rolling and yawing of the cutter would at least slow down, as we were hitting the waves obliquely, yet we continued, probably doing 20 knots as we made our way to a rather famous wall dive off one of the more famous diving islands, where supposedly the movie, the Abyss had been filmed.
After several hours there was the aroma of stomach contents down below, so I stayed topside amidship so as to lessen the effects of the ships movements. At some point, several hours into the day’s travel, the dive master came through the seating area where I was seated with a clipboard with each person’s name on it. He was about to hand me a coloured ribbon, and then asked;
“I noticed that you’re a well qualified diver from the application forms for this dive. Do you think you might be able to help me out by taking a new open-water diver as your dive partner? I’m short staffed, and could use the help.”
I didn’t really want to have anything to do with supervising a ‘newby’ diver, especially when it was obvious that today’s dive was going to be a major challenge for even seasoned divers, but instead of simply saying no, I agreed.
The dive-masters pleas had simply overrode my better judgement and stupidly, I had begrudgingly agreed.
When we finally did arrive at the dive site, there was no land in sight, from horizon to horizon. It was just after noon and the sky was cloudless, temperature about 30 degrees Celsius. The seas seemed actually rougher, which meant that side-entry off the cutter, which was normally about 6-7 feet above the ocean would require some careful timing.
I was about to put on my equipment, when a young man, maybe in his early twenties came up to me. He also had the same colour of ribbon attached to his buoyancy compensator as I. He introduced himself, and it was immediately obvious that he was really nervous.
I introduced myself and commented on his equipment, which appeared to be brand new. He stated that it wasn’t all that new and that he was from Michigan and had received his PADI Open Water Certification, although there were no stickers attached to his BC or buoyancy compensator, which is where most guys would place them, if they weren’t using their own tanks.
Air regulations disallow the shipping of dive cylinders, unless the tank valve has been removed from the cylinder, something most people will not go to the trouble or expense to do.
I helped him place his BC on the aluminum 80 cubic foot cylinder that was provided and to mount his regulator on his tank. He didn’t have an octopus, or another second stage regulator attached, but that wasn’t all that common 30 years ago. We checked his tank and his gauges for air pressure, and the regulators for flow. I reviewed hand signals with him, which surprisingly he didn’t know all of, and I explained to him that I had a curved Eustachian tube connected to my ear, and that because of that fact, my equalizing of pressure would take me a few seconds longer than normal, as this was an early dive on my dive holiday. Later dives would have forced enough pressure into my Eustachian tubes to have opened and cleared them, making it easier to equalize pressure on subsequent dives.
The dive master then came and stood in the middle of the seated assembly of what I guessed to be eight pairs of divers along with four dive masters who would stay between two pairs of divers on the dive, in case anyone should encounter any issues.
He explained the dive plan, maximum depth, bottom time, ascent time and everyone either wrote it down on a their dive slates with a grease pencil or for those with all the latest toys, entered the information into their dive computers, (a very recent invention at that time) which back then were large and by today’s standards rudimentary.
We were to dive on what was known as a bounce dive, on air, not any rarified gases (which 30 years ago were not available), which meant diving to a depth of 140 feet for a fairly short designated dive profile, spending only 5 minutes at that depth and ascending up to 110 feet for another short spell and ascending to the surface.
We reviewed nitrogen narcosis, its effects and the point where one should use discretion rather than valour, if the effects became overriding.
The rule for divers is simple. We plan our dives, and we dive our plan.
We all agreed as to the dive profile, and times, noting that because of the swell conditions, that it would be imperative to never hold our breath due to the swell action and the remote possibility of embolism or over-pressurization of our lungs.
We were diving at a very unique location, on what was known as a big wall dive. The cutter would be anchored on the continental side of the wall where the bottom depth was approximately 110 feet. Then over the edge of the wall, the ‘abyss’ as it is actually named, goes straight down 6,800 feet vertically into what is called the ‘tongue of the deep’.
The dive can be unnerving, as the effects of narcosis, the psychological factors of diving at depth and narcosis induced tunnel-vision, dizziness, and even paranoia in very rare cases, can occur. Generally, experienced divers will feel like they’ve had a few drinks, hence the name also know as the ‘martini effect. Dive Rescue Instructors learn to experience these events in order to manage their physiological reactions. These effects can be worsened by fatigue, alcohol consumption or those who may suffer from the slightest amount of claustrophobia. For very few, but some, deep dives can induce anxiety that becomes overwhelming. People who have never experienced this, should obviously avoid diving anywhere near a depth where they begin to feel this effects.
And all of this, becomes evermore important if one is to likely encounter either large or aggressive sharks.
The cutter finally arrived. Everyone was eager to get into the water, due to seasickness, and we had even lost one couple who were so sick they ended up not diving and spending the trip visiting the ‘head’ for hours on end.
The Captain dropped the cutters anchors and backed off from the shelf a short distance to make sure the anchors were ‘set’. The dive master had deployed a trailing float which was just above the wall and he asked me if I would go check to ensure the anchor had been ‘brought up’ and that the cutter was effectively grounded and no longer ‘making way’, or dragging the anchor on the sea floor, for obvious reasons.
Visibility was so good that I had only descended about 30 feet when I was able to see the anchor squarely dug into the sea floor down below. I surfaced and was in the water below where my dive buddy was to roll off and join me. The cutter would rise on the swell and then descend into the trough, which was then at the point where a diver would simply fall backwards off the rail of the cutter after a short fall of four feet from the gunnel and would enter the ocean, ensuring he had secured his mask and had his regulator in his mouth with his tank’s air supply valve turned on.
I looked up at my ‘buddy’ and realized, as the cutter was rising on the swell that he had his snorkel in his mouth, did not have his mask firmly attached and holding onto it with his hand, and was to my surprise carrying a large camera housing with a flash attached. I was about to yell at him, when instead of rolling off at the bottom of the cutter’s drop into the wave’s trough he rolled off while the boat/ship was at the crest of the wave, where the drop to the ocean was now closer to 12-14 feet.
He hit with such force that his mask flew off and his snorkel tore out of mouth. He wasn’t holding the actuator for his buoyancy compensator and was now ten feet under water with no mask, searching for the actuator to his BC. I quickly swam down, depressed his actuator and in a couple of seconds he was on the surface gagging from having tried to inhale under water.
One of the dive masters swam over, gave me a questioning look, and we made sure he was okay while another diver retrieved his mask and snorkel that was rapidly sinking.
My first thought was, “Why the hell did I agree to babysit this guy?”
He obviously had not idea what he was doing or had never dove either in rough seas or in what was very open water.
As the remaining divers assembled in the water we all made our way over to the float, and with a descend signal from the dive masters, flooded our BC’s and began the descent towards the ocean floor next to the wall.
As I began to descend, I took additional time to ensure that the pressure in my Eustachian tube was equalizing properly.
I turned around to find my dive partner, and he was nowhere to be seen. I looked down and saw him near the ocean floor, now probably 50 feet below me. I took out my knife from my leg scabbard and banged on the tank telling him to stay put at that depth. He gave me a thumbs up and I continued my descent.
He had found a large parrot fish that was brilliantly coloured and now began chasing it with his camera, not paying any attention either to me or his depth gauge.
The shelf tilted away to the wall and the other divers had congregated farther away from us and were following the dive masters and the larger group.
I banged on my tank again signalling to the dive master who was assigned to my pairing and pointed to my buddy who was continuing to descend, now on the edge of the wall’s abyssal drop.
He swam down and I joined him at the edge of the wall’s abyssal drop, and noted we were already at 130 feet in depth. The diver was banging on his tank, as was I for the diver to return, signalling him to come back.
We realized that he was already suffering the effects of narcosis, and at 130 feet of depth, the light began to fall off rapidly, leaving only hues of blue below, and then sheer blackness below that.
By now two other dive masters had abandoned their groups and were beside us, their eyes wide-open at the horror of watching this diver continue his descent, which we were sure was well beyond the depth of our intended bounce dive. One of the dive masters had ascended with the remaining divers, and had dropped a shot line with a pair of twin tanks attached to where we now remained, carefully watching as our bottom safety time lapsed.
The diver who was now in trouble, finally realizing he was in danger had begun to ascend, but was doing so much faster than he should have been. Obviously he had added some inflation to his BC and was ascending so fast that two of us grabbed him on his ascent and deflated his BC. As I looked at him, his face was contorted in pain and there was blood coming from his regulator.
We ascended with him, forcing his regulator into his mouth, as we ascended. One of the topside divers ‘designated’ as a safety diver had entered the water and took the diver from us as we took the time to off-gas nitrogen where the decompression tanks had been lowered for us to use, although the planned ‘bounce dive’ was not meant for this to take place.
We stayed for the allotted time required by the chart to off gas, and then ascended to the dive platform.
The magnitude of the disaster was such that the captain had immediately sent an SOS to the Bahamian Coastguard and any other ships in the vicinity that might have either a helicopter and SARTEC or search and rescue technician aboard to immediately arrive and transfer the diver to emergency care.
As I climbed on the swim platform, which was a task in itself in what were seas too large for safe or comfortable exiting while wearing gear, I pulled by tank and back mounted BC over my head and passed it up, removed my flippers and climbed out, trying not to be swept off the platform by the waves.
When I got to the main cabin area it was immediately obvious that the diver was both unconscious and in great danger of not surviving. A large emergency medical kit was open and oxygen was being applied through a ventilator and bag, while one member of the crew was doing CPR.
There was a fair bit of blood, and what I realized was pinkish lung tissue visible.
Being hours away from assistance, the SOS was answered and to our great surprise a US Navy Dive Tender was within reach of our boat by helicopter.
After what seemed an interminable time, a US Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter arrived, hovered above the boat and a SARTEC/Swimmer descended with a basket. We strapped him in and the Rescue Technician asked what time the diver ascended. We have written the time and his vitals on this forehead with a grease pencil.
I asked the Tech what he thought the diver’s likeliness of survival looked like, he looked at me shook his head, said, “not good”, tapped me on the shoulder and he and the basket with the diver in it, were winched up and in seconds, they were gone.
Except for a woman who was quietly weeping, there was total silence on the boat.
We made our way back to port. The local police were waiting at the dock. I filled out my explanation as to exactly what had occurred on paper, and the police took possession of the documents. I told them where I was staying on the island and was told that if they needed further information, that they would contact me.
I completed by dives over the next two weeks, mentally totally preoccupied by the events of the week prior.
I flew home to Canada, never finding out who the diver was, or whether he survived.
I even contacted the Canadian High Commission after returning home and provided them once again with my information.
To this day, I’ve heard nothing more.
The lesson’s are many.
For me, it proved that even with good preparation, training and experience in emergency operations, that things can, will and sometimes do go terribly wrong.
I also never dove again with a diver who was not provided by the dive company and certified as a dive instructor.
My career in diving ended in 2001 at the age of 48, when I suffered a life threatening dive injury during recertification for my Dive Rescue Instructor from DRI in Fort Collins, Colorado. The cause of the accident was that I ruptured my sinuses, and suffered a ruptured ear drum and an embolism, which should have killed me. Somehow, instead of the air bubble lodging in my brain, it entered the blood supply to my maxillofaciary nerve, which was one of the most painful injuries I have ever had to endure.
It should never have occurred, but our bodies are simply imperfect, with weaknesses that we will never be aware of, until we are.
Be well, be safe and be cognizant of the risks for whatever you do that is not the norm.
Enjoy, I still do, and have branched into new wilderness activities, including adventure motorcycling.
Life is still, a joy.
