When Things Go Wrong

[Jax]

Yes you can.

The instructor leaves, panicked, and calls Edd. Edd enters and finds them, and leads them out.

They exit with 1100 psi

So... WHAT THE HELL WAS THE INSTRUCTOR'S TANK PRESSURE???

Remember years ago we had a long thread on what psi one should exit with when losing a buddy. These guys were close to the exit. No instructor worth their salt should have CONSIDERED exiting until their gas hit 1100 or so.

This guy probably EXITED with over 2000.

...####. Now I've started the guessing game! But my first thought when I read this was, why did the first person leave so early?

Not only should he not instruct, he shouldn't even cave dive. Assuming of course that my assumptions are correct.

So, if I understand correctly, the instructor should base his exit on time / gas, not on "I executed my search tasks without finding the students, so I need to call for reinforcements."?

[SuPrBuGmAn]

to be clear, what i expect the instructor/partner/buddy to do is to search for their team members until they reach the pressure calculated in step 3. Based on the little information we have it doesn't seem that step was completed.
However these are just things i hold my buddy accountable for...an instructor should be able to retain control, not panic and manage these situations to an even higher degree. I would expect an instructor to pull off a lost buddy drill with a silting out scared diver every single time....they may not be able to wrestle the diver out, or find them...but i'd expect an instructors lost buddy drill for their students to be damn good, executed without panic. Maybe i'm a minority in this perspective; i just don't think it's unreasonable to expect this of instructors teaching cave diving.

What if he couldn't physically follow?

[Jax]

BTW - thanks a lot for this discussion! I learn a lot from others' views.

[aainslie]

So, if I understand correctly, the instructor should base his exit on time / gas, not on "I executed my search tasks without finding the students, so I need to call for reinforcements."?

What are the chances that reinforcements will be there? This was a very fortuitous situation.

[aainslie]

What if he couldn't physically follow?

Then he had no right to take his students there. No instructor should ever be instructing in a cave he doesn't know backwards.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Then he had no right to take his students there. No instructor should ever be instructing in a cave he doesn't know backwards.

Agreed 100%

[whitecrowro]

The instructor leaves, panicked, and calls Edd. Edd enters and finds them, and leads them out.

Please note that the two students are alive, the instructor is alive and Edd is alive, thus it might have been the perfect solution for the incident.

[Jax]

Please note that the two students are alive, the instructor is alive and Edd is alive, thus it might have been the perfect solution for the incident.

That sounds good, but "All's well that ends well." isn't a good way to learn a lesson.

[JamesK]

The fact remains that none of us have all the facts. How about we just wait until we truly find out what happened instead of playing this guessing who to point the finger at game.

[roguediver]

Facts? What's the fun in that?