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Old 11-07-2013, 04:58 PM   #6
jadairiii
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Re: Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) safety weekend

Quote:
Originally Posted by goldfinchs1 View Post
Again, great info. I think it's very important to talk through these things. I'm still struggling with a certain scenario, however. We're in the technical diving forum, so in this scenario I'm assuming we're discussing deep diving with deco obligations. If you find your buddy unconscious, or he becomes unconscious while diving beside you, you cannot revive him underwater. The next thought is to bring him to the surface. If I'm coming from 200' and have a 15 minute ascent, my buddy is going to be dead by the time I get him to the surface if I take him with me on my controlled ascent. I understand you saying that he may become conscious, but I find that highly unlikely if he's breathing an open circuit system that requires draw from a regulator. I assume you could manually provide him with air through his regulator, but that would probably be futile since you can't hold his regulator in his mouth and form the seal necessary to prevent him from aspirating water. So that leaves us with a controlled ascent with no air and 15 minutes to the surface. Where I dive, surface traffic isn't a concern (usually very far off the coast with no company). At this point, the only benefit I see from doing a controlled ascent with the body is not losing it. I can prevent that by attaching a lift bag or safety sausage to him. Why would I want to endanger my ascent by holding on to dead weight and an uncontrollable buoyancy. The body will inevitably have gasses that blow up when ascending from 200,' especially with no lung capacity to exhale. This seems incredibly dangerous to save a corpse.

Thanks for your thoughts.
First off, coming up from 200 will not take you 15 min. Actually, fully controlled ascent should be 6 min or less. I am blowing off deco to get my buddy to the surface. Second, done properly, you can keep the reg in the mouth and functioning while operating the victim's inflator and dump valve. Just takes practice (ergo, the training weekend)

The "body" is completely controllable, proper control of airway to vent the lungs and the victims gear and you can even do safety stops (not that you would want to with a non-breathing diver)

Point is, you are not doing it to "save a corpse", you are bringing the diver to the surface in the hope of resuscitation. And bringing a diver up is a skill, not something you want to wing if the worst case happens.

But the first assumption is that you are team diving and you are right there at the time of the emergency.
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