Have you ever "died" during training?

[Redshift]

Haven't seen this discussed anywhere except in some random posts of people talking about their courses.

Have you, a buddy or the team "died" during training?

I did and my buddy lived. Well, I don't know if the outcome would have been the same in a real situation... This is how it happened:

We were coming out, he was leading and I was #2. The instructor gives me the out of gas sign and I signal my buddy with my light, spit the reg out of my mouth and swim towards him doing the out of air signal. He takes a while to turn over but eventually he does and I slow down not to bump against him and wait for him to donate his reg but he just stays still and doesn't do anything... and then he turns to the exit and continues swimming!! And I start cursing him in my head, signalling with my light like a mad man and swimming fast towards him. He didn't respond to the light signals and so I grab him and take the reg of his mouth and start breathing. I was mad at him but I thought the worst was over. Off course it wasn't. He places his back-up reg in his mouth and then takes it off and pulls the one I had out of my mouth and starts breathing from it. At this point I was thinking what the hell was going on! And I died... I put my own reg back in my mouth and turn to the instructor asking what had just happened. Interestingly he shows me the card with the out of air message again and I thought "here we go again". But this time it was ok and we exited the cave without any more deaths.

When we surfaced I was really mad at the other guy but the instructor was faster at giving him a really bad time, which he deserved. He had just let me die! His excuse for not doing anything at first was that he hadn't understood the signal and that it hadn't been very clear! Apparently waving my light in fast movements, not having my reg in my mouth and giving the ooa sign was not enough. And then the reason he took the reg out of my mouth again was because he did something an OW lerns not to do. He inhaled of his back-up reg before exhaling and took a mouthfull of water.

In a real situation I would have taken the reg back to breathe but when that happened during the exercise I thought it would be more sensible to go back to mine instead of fighting over his reg and turning an exercise into a real accident.

Any comments? And what about your own training?

[chimie007]

hehe... I did... well probably would have....

Sharing air lights out 3 guys. I'm #1 on the long hose. We are coming out of Ginnie past the keyhole. I hit a wall and got stuck on one side of the line while my buddy flew past me on the other side. The long hose got caught between my doubles and my backplate and bent so hard that there was no flow coming out of the reg. I elected to go back to my own gas. In a real situation, I'm not sure I would had the luck to get the hose free... We were doing this lights out and all I knew was that I had a reg in my mouth with no gas...

[FW]

Sounds like you made the right decision, in going back to your own regulator. I have had various students do similar things over the years. The worst one was a kid that took the donors reg, and put in his mouth upside down! He got a big gulp of water, and bolted for the surface. Luckily for all of us, we weren't in a cave at the time. Like you said, that is something every OW diver should know better than doing.

[Slüdge]

Any comments?

Yeah, your buddy had no business taking a cave course. My instructor insisted on 100 open water dives. If you can't put a wet reg in your mouth instinctively, you're not ready for a cave.

[Redshift]

chimie007, maybe in a real situation getting #3's reg could be an option, no?

[sea2summit]

Near death.

Silt out drill following the line then got the signal to bail out (CCR). Let go of the line to bail out...sort of caught with the line with a leg well I unfudged myself.

[aainslie]

I suppose most of us "died". It was also fun watching others "die". One of my favourites was observing another class, and the guy was doing a "lost line" drill. He did everything perfectly... except when he got back to the line (which was in the first 300 ft of ginnie) he shoved an arrow pointing at the lips. When he exited, he was furious to be told that he had failed and would have to retake that section of the class. He felt that choosing to swim into rather than out of the cave was a mere technicality...

I'm not even going to mention my own "deaths", they're too embarrassing...

[chimie007]

chimie007, maybe in a real situation getting #3's reg could be an option, no?

Possible but unlikely since we are doing this in a no vis situation. The only contact I have is with #2 guy. Actually, he is the one holding my leg since I have one hand on the the line and one on the regulator. So that would mean, grabbing him, moving towards his fins to hopefully meet up with #3's hands/head and yank the regulator out of his mouth... Now, at this point the #2 guy is side to side to me almost with me being kind of tangle with him since the 7' hose is stuck under my backplate...

I remember that drill very well and I still know the exact spot on the wall where it happened close to 3 years now. The main line is still at the same place.

I don't think there is any reason to be worried about these events. Training is training. It's there to fail you at some point and make you better. Heck, it happened on my 3rd or 4th cave dive... Looking back I'm surprised I didn't kill myself more times than that...

[Dsix36]

Hell, you guys are wimps.:roll:

My buddy and myself killed the instructor, (sorry Jill).:smt102 But in our defense, we did go back to get her body.

[FW]

Hell, you guys are wimps.:roll:

My buddy and myself killed the instructor, (sorry Jill).:smt102 But in our defense, we did go back to get her body.
:rollguy

[Squirrel Girl]

Between actual class dives, I did a solo cavern dive just into the entrance of Jackson Blue. I think my fin caught the line, so I decided to practice with my eyes shut and see if I could unentrap myself. I couldn't. I wound up opening my eyes to remove the line from my fin instead of continuing on with the test, and cutting the line.

[Redshift]

Hell, you guys are wimps.:roll:

My buddy and myself killed the instructor, (sorry Jill).:smt102 But in our defense, we did go back to get her kit and sell it on ebay.


The truth at last.

How did you kill her?

[outofayr]

I got killed by a student during a trimix class at Lake Wazee a couple weeks ago. I gave him the out of air signal 20 ft before a gas switch, and he just stared at me. I gave it again, just got the puppy-staring-at-a-fan look again, so I took the reg:roll: Had to tell him afterward he killed me. He thought I wanted him to go out of air on one of the other two divers. He felt pretty bad about it - but not as bad as me, seeing as how I was the dead one!

Brian

[hannah]

my buddy and I also killed our instructor during our cave class.

we were instantly suspicious when he told us he was going to be part of the team, and of course, when I finished tying in a jump and looked up, he was gone.

so I went into the lost diver drill, which we had only practiced before. Needless to say, I didn't find him, and my buddy started to signal to me that we needed to go as he had reached thirds. I was very slightly panicked, as I really didn't want to break thirds, but I felt that I should finish the drill (tying a backup light on to the line). after some internal debate, I just left the light dangling, and we headed out. I didn't see our instructor the whole way out, and when we reached our primary, I made the mistake. I took out the primary, and happily practiced my valve drill at our safety stop. Then we ascended. I was wondering aloud how long he was going to make us wait when a not-so-happy instructor behind me informed me that I had killed him.

sigh. i was pretty worried that it was an auto failure, but i guess not. :smt102

[Dsix36]

The truth at last.

How did you kill her?

My buddy and I were doing the whole zero to hero thing in a week. We started our training with a third member who was on OC. All of our training was around a 3 person team and Jill just kind of hovered above us and laughed at our mistakes.

On this fateful dive, the OC diver was finished and was out of the picture. My buddy and myself were still in the mindset of Jill just hovering and watching rather than a team member. The plan was to do a line repair drill at the turnaround point. Jill signaled the turn, My buddy signaled the turn to me, my buddy and I proceeded to exit the cave. We pulled 2 jump reels on the way.

The Dive was in Little River. My buddy signaled me as we reached the top of the chimney and let me know that #3 wasn't there. I still remember hearing him cuss through the DSV as we turned to go find her.

She had waited for a bit to see if we turned, but when we pulled the jump reel she followed us out with her hand over her light. She was just waiting around the corner when we went after her, and we exited as a team.

In the basin, it was obvious that things did not look good for us. Jill only said one thing until later. She asked us "When you guys ran into me, where you returning for me?". Needless to say, we couldn't have said "Yes" fast enough. She never mentioned it again, at least to us. I am sure it is another story to tell her students though. We beat our selves up pretty good over it without her help.

[BgDadddy]

I died during my intro class. During the Lost Line drill, I never did find that freaking line.

The funny thing was, not once but TWICE I got the line hooked on my isolater, reached back, unhooked it and kept looking for it.

The instructor finally called the dive because he had a brand new drysuit and hadn't put a P-valve in it and couldn't wait any longer (he really had to go).

In my defense though, in my full-cave class, I insisted that my instructor throw every drill he had at me and I aced all of them. :-D

[NWGratefulDiver]

First post ... just joined this board today, so be gentle.



Have you, a buddy or the team "died" during training?

Not in the sense that you meant ... but on one of my training dives I thought I might have killed myself. Coincidentally, it was for making a mistake you also described ... one I definitely knew better than to make.



And then the reason he took the reg out of my mouth again was because he did something an OW lerns not to do. He inhaled of his back-up reg before exhaling and took a mouthfull of water.

My buddy and I had flown down to Florida to do the Cavern to Full Cave class with Jim Wyatt. We're both pretty experienced divers ... full trimix, wreck penetration, all that. But there's nothing like caves in Puget Sound. So a lot of this is new to us.

We've gone about three quarters of the way through the class. We're at Ginnie, doing our first dive involving jumps. We're on our way back. It's Jim, myself, Kam (my buddy), and Carl ... another instructor who's crossing over to NSS-CDS. Jim and Carl are having fun tossing failures at us on the way back out of the cave. At one point we're riding the flow coming out and Jim has my buddy (who's in back of me) stop and cover his light. It was right at the Park Bench, where the main line takes a right turn. I'd taken the turn and my buddy didn't. It took me a few seconds to realize my buddy wasn't behind me ... so I had to turn myself around and pull against the flow to get back to him. As I shined my light on him I saw Jim signal for him to uncover his light. Fine ... so I turned back around to continue the exit. I no sooner did that than his light started flashing. Oh for God's sakes ... I spun back around, shoved my reg at him, shoved my backup in my mouth, and inhaled. My mind wasn't on the reg exchange ... I've done that thousands of times. It was on how we were going to change positions, to get him in front of me. That's something I haven't done in restricted spaces very often. And so I got careless. I've inhaled on a wet reg before ... usually with little to no effect, you just hack a bit and blow the water back out thru the reg. Not this time. For whatever reason ... the exertion, the CO2 buildup ... who knows why ... that little bit of water caused my windpipe to spasm and just shut down. I couldn't damn breathe! It was like somebody had just punched me in the chest.

All I could do is lay on the bottom and try to relax. I signaled my buddy to Hold ... then to give me back my primary. The thought occurred to me that maybe my backup was leaking, and I wanted the one I knew was working back ... even though I couldn't use it till this spasm passed.

I laid there for what my buddy later told me was close to a minute, trying to take air into lungs that surely needed it. And yes, the thought did cross my mind that I might not be leaving this cave under my own steam. But I also knew my best chance for making sure that I did was to just relax and wait for the spasm to ease. Eventually it did ... and I took a tiny, squeaky first breath of air. Damn, that was sweet. Next breath was a little better, and the next better still. I signaled OK and Hold ... an waited till I was breathing normally again, then signaled for us to exit the cave.

I read the comment that somebody who makes that mistake doesn't belong in a cave. Incidentally, that same thought occurred to me at the time. A lot of thoughts went through my head ... but I had a dive to finish and they would have to wait.

Sorting them out in hindsight, it was a dumb thing to do. I know better. I teach Open Water students not to do that. But we're all human, and humans make mistakes. If you're good, or you keep your head, or you're just damn lucky, you'll survive them. I did.

Mistakes can give you some of your best learning moments ... that's one I doubt I'll ever forget.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[divingabe]

My buddy and I were doing the whole zero to hero thing in a week. We started our training with a third member who was on OC. All of our training was around a 3 person team and Jill just kind of hovered above us and laughed at our mistakes.

On this fateful dive, the OC diver was finished and was out of the picture. My buddy and myself were still in the mindset of Jill just hovering and watching rather than a team member. The plan was to do a line repair drill at the turnaround point. Jill signaled the turn, My buddy signaled the turn to me, my buddy and I proceeded to exit the cave. We pulled 2 jump reels on the way.

The Dive was in Little River. My buddy signaled me as we reached the top of the chimney and let me know that #3 wasn't there. I still remember hearing him cuss through the DSV as we turned to go find her.

She had waited for a bit to see if we turned, but when we pulled the jump reel she followed us out with her hand over her light. She was just waiting around the corner when we went after her, and we exited as a team.

In the basin, it was obvious that things did not look good for us. Jill only said one thing until later. She asked us "When you guys ran into me, where you returning for me?". Needless to say, we couldn't have said "Yes" fast enough. She never mentioned it again, at least to us. I am sure it is another story to tell her students though. We beat our selves up pretty good over it without her help.


That is very similar to an episode we experienced also in Little River. My friend was teaching a class and I was along as a helper. The 2 students had done their drills and we where returning from the merrigoround. They where both ahead of us and the instructor signaled me to turn off our
lights and just wait. So we did, and waited and waited some more. He motioned to me to stay put and he followed the line to see where the students had gone. A few minutes later he returned and we turned our lights back on and exited. Well we got to the end of the line and they had also removed their reel.
We got the hint we where not supposed to return. I really did not think that we had been that hard on them!!!!!

Gabe

[scblade27]

I think some of these things occur because of the inherent confusion caused by instructors with the class. Sometimes the instructor is conducting the drill and sometimes they are telling someone else to conduct it. Is the instructor part of the team, or just observing? Some of these examples show the instructor was not part of the team during some of the dive, then all of a sudden is part of the team. My instructors have gone as far as to turn of their lights, tell us to pretend they aren't there, then cause failures as we go to see how we react. We can't kill them, because they "don't exist".

For instance, when the instructor gives a student an OOA sign, they may mean they are out of air, or they may want the student to be out of air. When that student goes to perform the drill, the other team member may think they are supposed to be the one out of air. I think the actual class causes more issues than if it were a real life occurrence where an OOA always means I NEED AIR NOW!!!

All that being said, I have been a little slow on the draw when given an OOA in class, but I will attribute that to being confused as to who was running the drill. I would like to think in real life, I would have the regulator ripped out of my mouth and we would go from there.

[*Ag*]

My buddy and I were exiting the cave, masks blacked out. There are two jumps and you must pick both spools up along the way. (In a real situation you would leave them in and get the hell out of there, but this is training).

Could not remove the first spool as it was tangled (obvious inexperience with putting spools on and off without looking). My buddy decided to cut the line... the line then dropped out of her hand. We were in a cave, blacked out and with no line - very dead divers.

Moral of that story, be very careful when wielding a cutting device at a line.

[Slüdge]

Moral of the story, what kind of instructor would ask you to pick up reels in a zero-vis exit?

[aainslie]

Moral of the story, what kind of instructor would ask you to pick up reels in a zero-vis exit?

Good point... but it's good to hear from Agnes again.

Welcome back, girl! How's Oz?

[*Ag*]

It is part of the adv cave course in Oz.

It is an interesting scenario, you have to work with your buddy to get out, neither of you can see so you have to use tactile signals to communicate, you pick up jumps along the way, demonstrate good buoyancy skills even though you can't see and make sure you exit in a reasonable amount of time...

[*Ag*]

Ha, I never left... well not the board anyway. I lurk :)

Oz is treating me well. Thoroughly entertained... seems FL is not the only place with caves left to be explored.

[crazyduck]

Intro to Cave at P1.
1. Birds nested the reel at log while tying in. (dooope)

2. Caught my fin on my own line while looking for the cinder block to hold down the line.

3. The power of HID- went cruising down the line and did not check on the team.
Looked back and no one was there- oh D,,,, it. That was a really bad feeling.

That was all in one dive and one ugly debrief.
Not to mention I was the smart diver that asked why the instructor why he was carrying more than one primary reel on the dive. Oh, I was the smart one....

Cave training made me humble.
Andrew

[LCF]

I think some of these things occur because of the inherent confusion caused by instructors with the class.

This is one of the most frustrating things for me in training. In Mexico, when we did the lights-out air-sharing exit, the instructor told us that he would turn his light on from time to time, and we were to use whatever information we got while the light was on, because in reality, even in a siltout there would be moments of better viz.

So, in the next class, when we were doing our lights-out air-sharing exit, and suddenly there was a light coming on when I passed tie-offs, I thought nothing of it, because that's what had happened before. As it turned out, the instructor had given the guy in the back a light to use, and then he was thoroughly irritated with us that we kept right on trucking as though we couldn't see. It was counted as a failure of situational awareness, when it was really the obedient behavior of a well-trained student . . . sigh.

[mattmexico]

yo

I have ...

Matt

[limeyx]

As it turned out, the instructor had given the guy in the back a light to use, and then he was thoroughly irritated with us that we kept right on trucking as though we couldn't see. It was counted as a failure of situational awareness, when it was really the obedient behavior of a well-trained student . . . sigh.

I sort of disagree here. Assuming the student in P3(back of team)had been given the light, then yes, I can mostly agree for the people in P1, P2 that was the case as it could be hard to tell a LED backup from the instructor occasionally turning on their HID etc.

But for the person who was given the backup light, this is a serious error. They needed to make sure all 3 knew there was now a light available to speed up the exit.

[LCF]

Agreed . . . but it counted against P1 and P2 as well. Or it may be that, at that point in the class, the instructor had simply lumped all three of us together in his mind as the Three Stooges, and it no longer really mattered who had actually made the mistake.

[limeyx]

Agreed . . . but it counted against P1 and P2 as well. Or it may be that, at that point in the class, the instructor had simply lumped all three of us together in his mind as the Three Stooges, and it no longer really mattered who had actually made the mistake.

point

[deepdiverbob]

I was told I killed my buddy. We was in Peacock heading to Olsen. we was almost to Olsen, when I looked back at my buddy. He was showing his light to Shelly (the instructor). I looked at them for about 10-15 seconds to make sure everything was okay. I should have signaled, but I just assumed they was checking out something on his gear. As soon as we surfaced in Olsen, she told me I killed him because his light failed. Lesson learned, dont take anything for granted.

When I went back the next year to finish up Cave class, there was 2 other people that joined us. One guy led the team to Olsen, and surfaced. He led the dive back to the main entrance, and as the first team member, he pulled the primary reel from the bottom by the bucket, and left the cave with us behind him watching, wondering what in the hell he was doing. Then clear as day on OC, we all heard John (Instructor) scream "what in the ^&%$ are you doing?" The guy didnt hear him, and just contiune out. When we got out, John looked at him, and told him he had just killed the whole team. The guy laughed about it. I quickly got a lesson on who I DIDNT want to dive with post class.

[cmalinowski]

Agreed . . . but it counted against P1 and P2 as well. Or it may be that, at that point in the class, the instructor had simply lumped all three of us together in his mind as the Three Stooges, and it no longer really mattered who had actually made the mistake.We give out team demerits and individual demerits within the team. If someone screws up and the team could have prevented it at all, the team gets one and the individual who caused it gets another. They're only good for mocking them later and nobody keeps score :)

I think your situation was a partial team failure as nobody asked the guy holding the light "WTF?" and he didn't signal enough (even grabbing someone) to go "Hey, I got this handy dandy glowy thing now."


...and as the first team member, he pulled the primary reel from the bottom by the bucket, and left the cave with us behind him watching, wondering what in the hell he was doing. Then clear as day on OC, we all heard John (Instructor) scream "what in the ^&%$ are you doing?" The guy didnt hear him, and just contiune out. When we got out, John looked at him, and told him he had just killed the whole team. The guy laughed about it. I quickly got a lesson on who I DIDNT want to dive with post class.Why wouldn't you signal and ask what the heck he was doing? Brain farts happen. But to just watch that brain fart waft through the etheral and not do anything about it may have been worse than the guy who screwed up with the reel, in my opinion obvioulsy.

Our demerits would have been one for the guy who took the reel. one for the team. two for the people who watched the screw up and did nothing to prevent it.

Of course, it's all training and we don't know better sometimes. Or, so many things wizzing at us that there is a giant team brain fart all at once. It sounds like in your case it was just utter amazement at what you were seeing :)

Chris

[cmufieldhockey8]

My buddy and I followed our instructor off the main line without realizing it (good ol Telford). The best part was watching my instructor flop into his back in the cave and play dead.

[JPIKE420]

I had a similar experience. My instructor told me "this is just an orientation dive, just stick on my heels and you'll be fine." Needless to say I followed him right off the gold line in Ginnie clear back to what he called the Bone room. He signaled me and pointed to the line and showed me the dual arrows. He shrugged his shoulders and put his hands up in the air and said "I don't know" just the way a little kid would do it. I made a jump back to the main line w/out using a safety reel and killed myself in the process.

[LCF]

I killed my whole team during C2.

We had jumped out of the junction room to the bone room/big room tunnel. The plan was to go until we saw the main line again, and set a jump there and turn right and continue into the cave, if we had gas.

We swam the tunnel, and I was very nervous because the line was above us and in the ceiling a lot. I was being hypervigilant about it, but when it turned left, it was nicely on the left wall. And in front of us, I saw the mainline -- but our line appeared to be continuous to it, whereas I had been told to expect a jump. I sat and looked at what was in front of me, and I checked my gas, hoping I could turn the team on gas, because I didn't like what I was looking at and it didn't make sense. But I had gas, and apparently everybody else did, too, because nobody signaled me.

[Now, had this not been a class, I would have turned the dive here, because I didn't like what I was looking at, and it didn't match the briefing. But it was a class, and we were supposed to go on, so I did.]

Since what was supposed to be a jump had turned out to be a T, I swam forward, placed my cookie on the exit side of the T, and turned right. The instructor then flashed me and I turned around . . . and saw somebody else's jump spool tied into the line we had been following on the left wall. I had completely missed it, my number two had missed it, and number three had swum up and looked at it but failed to say anything. The moment I saw it, I realized I could have killed all three of us with that error. Had someone come through and pulled that spool (and had we been somewhere else, where the shortest route out wasn't the one we'd been left on as a result) we could have gotten quite lost, beyond the ability of our gas to extricate us.

I was honestly sick to my stomach when I saw what I had done. It's the first mistake I've ever made that really could have killed someone, and the instructor didn't even set it up. I just had a major failure of situational awareness, ignored the voice that said, "I don't like this," and tried to commit the whole team to a potentially dangerous course.

I'll never, ever forget it. It still gives me chills, to realize how easy it is to make that bad a mistake.