Posted by R Bear on February 13, 2001 at 13:55:30:
In Reply to: Clarifying Misconceptions/Solo (3 of 5) posted by Ken Kurtis on February 13, 2001 at 12:03:16:
You say that a bad buddy is at worst a zero. Take a bad cave diver into a low silty room and he will most likely silt you out. If this same guy then gets tangled in the line and breaks it you may very well be dead. I can't think of a situation like this in open water and I realize that is probably your reference. But in a cave we call a bad diver a stroke. Rule number one is don't dive with strokes. I dove with a stroke over Thanksgivng and found myself totally silted out 1700 feet from the entrance.
The other thing is that you seem to feel a buddy can only help you by reacting to your emergency. A good buddy can/should be PRO-ACTIVE. If you run out of air a buddy can give you his octo. A GOOD buddy will point out that you are about to have a problem. I have done this while diving with a newbie diver. My newbie buddy never even encountered an emergency. He had my redundant second and never actuallt ran out of air. There are a ton of ways this can happen in a cave. That is why a good team is essential. But this is not a cave issue only. Pro-active rescue is a key point in basic rescue class. I submit that if the buddy rescues me you are correct that I would have been in the same jam diving solo. But if a buddy keeps me from getting into trouble, I WOULD have been in trouble had I been solo. Solo can cause accidents.
DSAO
Ron