No one wants to exit the cave without their buddy — or, worse, not exit the cave because you did a lost-buddy search without paying sufficient attention to your own safety and well being. In this article, Safety Coordinator Jim Wyatt reviews the right way to conduct a lost-buddy search.
When a cave diver loses the guideline it is generally due to a lack of awareness. As we all know, awareness is our best friend while we are cave diving. We also know that when task loading goes up, awareness goes down. Cave instructors strive to have cave students develop muscle memory for the various skills utilized while cave diving to cut down on task loading. As muscle memory for specific skills is developed, task-loading decreases, and awareness increases.
Established muscle memory becomes an unconscious process. The muscles grow accustomed to certain types of movement. This is extremely important in different types of training for sports. The more often you do a certain activity, the more likely you are to do it as needed, when needed. If you’ve kicked thousands of field goals, exercise physiologists assume that the likelihood of being able to kick one during a football game is pretty good through muscle memory. You don’t have to think, “I need to make this kick.” Your body already knows how to do it (Christensen, 2003). The same process holds true for us while cave diving and in particular while deploying and taking up reels. Practice makes perfect.
Locating a lost buddy scenario: You and your buddy are swimming along in the cave. As the lead diver, you maintain your awareness of your buddy behind you through proper light awareness. Every 15 to 20 seconds your buddy in back should pass a light beam through your field of vision. This prevents the leader from having to stop and look back and it keeps the team together with a minimum of effort. How do you know where to shine that light into your buddy’s field of view? You can bet he/she is looking where his/her own light is shining, so it becomes easy to keep him/her aware of your presence by properly flashing your light every 15 or 20 seconds.
In our scenario, a lack of awareness by the leader leads to the buddy becoming separated. In this example the diver in the front realizes his/her buddy is no longer behind him/her and is completely out of view. What should he/she do now?
Step 1: Cover your light and look for your missing buddy’s light. It is easier to see their light if yours is covered. If you see their light and they are still on the line you were on, then the best action is to make contact with them, abort the dive, exit the cave and discuss how you became separated. Then agree on how to prevent this from happening on your next cave dive.
If when you cover your light you do not see them anywhere after you swim a few feet up and down the line. Then you need to get into the “Lost Buddy” mode.
Step 2: Place a line arrow with your name or initials on it on the line indicating the direction of the exit. This line arrow serves two functions:
- It orients you to the direction of the exit should you become disoriented during your search.
- It gives a rescue or recovery team a starting point to conduct a rescue or recovery dive in the event you do not locate your lost buddy.
Step 3: Check your gas supply to determine how much gas you can use to search. Do not exhaust your gas looking for a buddy whose gas is also almost exhausted. Neither of you may be able to exit the cave alive.
Set your new turn pressure. How much gas can you use? Breathe your tanks down to your original turn pressure, then use an additional 1/3 of your reserve. For instance, you started the dive with 3000 psi and at 2200 psi realized you had lost your buddy. You can use another 200 psi down to 2,000 psi, then an additional 300 psi, which makes your new turn pressure 1,700 psi.
The next steps depend upon circumstances. If there is a winding passageway and 50 feet behind you there is a turn, I suggest you go back to the turn, look down that passageway while covering your light. Don’t forget to look up to the ceiling in case your buddy has had a runaway inflation problem and is plastered onto the ceiling.
Step 4: After you have exhausted your search up and down the line on which you were traveling it is time to search off of that line.
Look for a passageway that your buddy may have accidentally strayed down. Perhaps he/she accidentally got onto another line or in another unlined passageway. The possibilities are numerous. If you see evidence of the direction your buddy traveled, tie your safety reel onto the permanent guideline and go look for them. Evidence could include a possible silt trail or percolation from exhaust bubbles. Cover your light frequently to look for their light.
Step 5: If you locate your buddy, put him/her in front of you and reverse course back to the permanent guideline. Make sure he/she has sufficient gas and is emotionally under control. If you need to leave the reel at the point where you located your buddy, leave it and go back for it another day or ask someone to retrieve it for you.
I suggest to cave divers that they practice deploying safety reels and primary reels periodically to keep muscle memory sharp. Remember that when you need a safety reel your emotions are likely running high and without sufficient practice and muscle memory you may fumble the reel making it useless, or worse, a hazard to you. — Jim Wyatt