Posted by MHK on November 06, 2000 at 11:38:20:
In Reply to: Re: Diving the Yukon posted by tleemay on November 06, 2000 at 11:02:58:
Posted by tleemay on November 06, 2000 at 11:02:58:
A word of advice to those that get panicked - drop
your weights, your life isn't worth $30.
Terry,
Excellent point and I'm glad that you reminded me about this.. Many of us on this list have done our fair share of assists and/or rescues and no matter how many I do it always amazes me the level of value that some diver's place on a few dollars worth of lead.
In yesterday's example, as Terry mentioned, a diving team of 2 came up the wrong mooring line. They were diving from there own boat and came up the bow line, when they were tied into the stern. The seas were pretty choppy and rough and we had already finished our dive and were in dry clothes. We watched the team swim on the surface and I could see that they were struggling and out of habit I gave the OK sign and one of the buddies started waving at me pretty frantically so I grabed Terry fins that were right next to me and jumped in with shorts and T-shirt, as I got nearer to the diver's I began yelling to drop his weightbelt and his buddy said I got it.. So when I got to the 2 I asked what was going on and made sure his weightbelt was NOT on and his BC was fully inflated. I reached down and felt no weightbelt and put some air in the bc. I was told he was having trouble breathing. I tried to calm the guy down and asked a few questions of the buddy, most importantly, did they shoot to the surface. I was told that they did a slow, safe ascent complete with safety stop. The guy was late 40's, maybe early 50's so I of course ( in my mind only ) was thinking maybe heart attack. I calmed him down, unzipped his wetsuit and towed him back to his boat. As we approached the boat he was starting to calm down so I took off his BC and handed it ot the buddy who could'nt hold it because he had the paniced diver's weightbelt in his hand.... Fortunatley all worked out, but I still for the life of me can't understand why diver's are so reluctant to drop a weightbelt..
To all the guys on my team, if you ever need to ditch mine, don't worry I won't hold it against you, ditch the damn thing I can always get another one ;-)
Later