Posted by scarybarry on April 30, 2004 at 09:18:34:
In Reply to: RESPONSIBILITY aka why did THEY leave floating in the sea... posted by Doug Williams on April 29, 2004 at 21:41:46:
There is plenty of talk about the diver and the DM sharing responsibility here; what I am curious about is why the three dive buddies aren't being included in all of this discussion. I'm a brand new diver (12 dives) so maybe this is all very fresh in my head, but I've already seen for myself on a couple of occasions how important it is to maintain visual contact with your buddies as you descend, and to tailor your descent rate to the slowest descending person in the group. It makes no sense to me that a lot of experienced, perhaps over-confident divers seem to take the attitude with their buddies of "I'll see you at the bottom" and this case is a textbook example of why. This seems especially prevalent during bug season when everyone bolts as soon as they hit the water so they can get first pickings. It sounds to me like Dan's buddies had no idea he was having equalization problems. A dive buddy isn't really behaving as a dive buddy if he/she just assumes you're right behind. Completely defeats the purpose of a buddy system, if you ask me.