As a dive professional, I enjoy seeing divers coming out for their first ocean dive. A new diver is easily excited by every little detail, and it takes just one wonderful experience underwater to make diving a lifetime hobby.
Diving with young newcomers, however, requires your full attention. When a new teenage diver named Kylo came aboard our charter boat with his nondiver father, I planned to not let him get out of arm’s reach of me.
A diver named Scott arrived while I was getting tanks on board. He was much older than Kylo but just as new to the sport, having been certified for about five months. This would be his first open-water dive in the ocean, and he seemed a bit nervous as he prepared his gear at the dock.
The rest of the divers on the boat were familiar faces and experienced divers. We all settled in for the 45-minute boat ride to our dive site, and during the journey I briefed the group on the dive plan and the site and checked everyone’s gear. I asked Scott to join me and Kylo as a buddy team so I would have responsibility for the two newest divers on the boat.
Conditions were great at the dive site, with just small waves, no current, and amazing visibility. The three of us descended together without incident. We had an amazing dive filled with eels, snappers, reef fish, and even a couple of shark sightings.
Scott told me when his pressure gauge was at 1000 psi, so I motioned to both of them to swim back to the anchor line to begin our ascent. Kylo was lingering and watching the sharks below when Scott suddenly appeared above me on the anchor line. I pulled him downward and signaled for him to slow down, while I ushered Kylo to speed up.
Kylo had no trouble maintaining buoyancy, but Scott was too positively buoyant. I helped him dump some air from his BC during the ascent, and we finally arrived at our safety stop.
As I motioned for Kylo to move into position first, Scott moved past us and straight up the anchor line to the surface before I could stop him. He reached the surface and floated upright under the bow of the boat, making no effort to head to the stern to climb aboard. His regulator was dangling in the water above us, so I knew he was in trouble.
I signaled for Kylo to remain at the safety stop while I went up to check on Scott. Kylo had done great the whole dive, and I felt confident that he would be OK for a few moments before I returned back down to him. While it’s not ideal to have new divers both above and below me, I knew that Scott needed my immediate attention. This hard decision ultimately saved his life.
At the surface I found Scott in full panic, illogically trying with great desperation to climb the anchor line from the water to the bow of the boat. I immediately knew I would not be able to return to Kylo and asked the captain to send a diver down to ensure he surfaced safely.
I put Scott’s regulator back in his mouth and asked him to let go of the line so I could help him to the boat ladder at the stern, but the regulator fell from his lips as he continued to claw wide-eyed at the bow of the boat above him and far out of reach. Moving into the rescue position behind Scott, I fully inflated his BC and more sternly told him to let go of the rope so I could tow him to the ladder. At that moment I felt his body go limp.
I yelled for help, and the captain and Kylo’s father met us at the bow. Scott’s body was completely slack, apart from his literal death grip on the anchor line. It took all my strength to pry his fingers off the rope. I got him to the stern and removed his gear in record time. The captain saw that Scott was completely unresponsive and hoisted him out of the water and onto the deck with incredible strength.
With five years as a DAN instructor, I was on autopilot as I started removing my gear and assigning tasks to everyone on board: You get the oxygen kit, and you take notes. The captain had already called the Coast Guard and told them we had an unresponsive diver.
Scott was blue and gurgling water from his mouth. After I delivered two abdominal thrusts, water began pouring from his mouth, and he started breathing again as he continuously spit up water. We started administering oxygen as we sped toward shore.
We moved Scott to the recovery position, and within minutes his color began to return to normal while continuing to cough up water. At the Coast Guard station while waiting for an ambulance, Scott was able to walk off the boat under his own power, thanks to a coordinated team effort and the fact that we had practiced this scenario before and had an emergency action plan in place.
I wanted to find out what caused this ordeal, so I visited Scott in the hospital and met his wife. She explained that Scott panicked because he does not know how to swim. He had failed the swim test portion of his scuba certification course and was scheduled for remedial swim lessons at his certifying dive shop. When he arrived for that class, however, he joined the group of divers who had just passed their course.
The availability of oxygen on the boat and knowing how to use it are critical for keeping someone alive. Scott is a lucky survivor, and I hope he learns to swim before attempting to dive again.
© Alert Diver – Q1 2026