I was recently the Divemaster in charge of leading two certified divers (both Advanced Open Water level) on a wreck dive, and experienced an unpleasant situation that I thought was worth sharing for the benefit of others.

All three of us descended normally along the boat’s anchor line to the deepest point of the dive (20 meters) where the plan was to conduct an external exploration of the wreck (neither of the two divers being trained or equipped for penetration). Visibility was around 5 meters, with no significant current and a temperature of 24C. I was swimming in front, with the two divers behind me, one on each side, forming a triangle; this allowed me to periodically check on them by rotating on my back while effectively leading the tour.

Shortly after we started our exploration, the diver to my left, who was closest to the wreck, took a peek through a porthole. I stopped, took out a flashlight from my BCD pocket, handed it to him and showed him how to operate it. By the time I turned to the other diver, who must have left my field of view for no more than twenty seconds, he was nowhere to be seen. I felt anxiety build as I looked for telltale bubbles all around.

I signaled to the remaining diver that his buddy was missing, and that he should follow me closely as I would initiate a search for the missing diver. I had in mind the buddy separation protocol that my diving organization instructs divers to follow – search for your buddy for no more than one minute and then surface. I made the call, however, not to follow this protocol for reasons I will explain. We kept on searching for the missing diver for about 3 minutes when we came across a group of fellow divers, led by an instructor, who had all been on the boat with us. I signaled to the instructor that we were missing one diver, and he motioned me to join his group. We continued going around the wreck, looking for the missing diver, and eventually reached the anchor line several minutes later. We ascended normally and swam back to the boat, where, much to my relief, the missing diver was waiting for our return.

As I climbed on board, he explained that his BCD had self-inflated abruptly, causing him to shoot up to the surface, and that he had been unable to disconnect the quick release on his low-pressure inflator hose. Thankfully he was not exhibiting any signs of lung over-expansion injuries or decompression sickness (both being caused by a rapid ascent), so the whole incident turned out to be nothing more than an inconvenience to everyone.

The reason I did not follow the buddy separation protocol is that it is primarily designed with the safety of the remaining diver in mind. A separated diver underwater can no longer count on his/her buddy in case of an emergency, such as an out-of-air situation. This is why the diver should search for no more than one minute for his/her buddy, and then surface. If both divers ended up just losing sight of each other, they will reunite easily at the surface; if it is more serious than that, then the remaining diver can call in a rescue team for help. In our situation, however, the remaining diver was not alone; he was accompanied by a Divemaster (myself), who was trained in search and rescue techniques. After one minute of searching for the missing diver, I figured that there were two options:

• the missing diver had surfaced (either right away, or after one minute of being separated from us as per his training) – in which case the boat crew would pick him up and tend to him as needed
• the missing diver was still at the bottom, which meant he was unable to ascend (e.g. from being unconscious, trapped in the wreck, stuck in a fishing net) – in which case prolonging the search for him until our air was up was the best chance we could give him

Following that logic, it seemed to me that the best course of action was to keep searching; but I cannot stop myself from wondering whether an investigation would have come to the same conclusion, had the outcome been tragic. Many psychological factors come into play, such as the guilt of having lost a diver, the dread of ascending and not finding him at the surface, the feeling of failure at having to abort a dive. I am still wondering if any of those affected my judgment when I made the call not to follow the buddy separation protocol. I also realize that I had not, at that time, articulated in my mind the logic described above as clearly as can in retrospect; however it just “felt right” to keep searching under the circumstances. Intuition is a powerful driver in the heat of the moment, but it is not necessarily the best adviser. Ultimately, a diving professional has a duty of care towards his customers and must display sound judgment in emergency situations; but as experience shows, there is no black or white definition of what sound judgment is – in this particular case, it may have been in violation of an established protocol. There is a broad spectrum of situations, from nominal to highly degraded, with many factors that make the answer not obvious and open to interpretation. While every situation is unique, it is desirable to rehearse as many scenarios as possible in one’s mind prior to the dive – that will form a baseline for action that can be revisited as needed, but takes away a lot of the angst of having to do all the thinking when the clock is ticking.

Hopefully sharing this experience can help a fellow diver.