Comments on: What it feels like to shoot your friend to save his life

By: Brent

Brent — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:22:08 +0000

Wow. Incredible story.

By: George Askew

George Askew — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:00:03 +0000

Cam. This story intrigues and puzzles me
I`m S African and I have never heard this before.
We have the occasional death but 3 guys in 1 day would be BIG news.
I`m not saying it`s not true but it sounds suspect. I have heard some tales about SA that were patently untrue.
I will do some checking my end.

Can you verify this story or connect me with the guy who told you please?

…..a friend of ours tells a story of growing up in South Africa and a group of four divers working 100+ deep water off the remote coast of Mozambique. One guy passes out on a deep dive and his partner dives down to recover him… and blacks out as well on his way up from depth. The third diver descends and grabbing his freind on the bottom heads for the surface and on the way up blacks out and now all three bodies are on the bottom in 120 feet of water. One guy left. On the surface. 500 miles from help.
I can’t imagine the mental strain he had to go through deciding not to dive to help his three friends.

By: George Askew

George Askew — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:38:57 +0000

Reading about you shooting your buddy.
Firstly I want to endorse what everyone else here has said.
My greatest respect Cam.

I want to share this – An extract from my coming book
“You should of course know where you buddy is / buddies are at all times [You should never be more than 20m apart. Ideally you should be much closer esp in deep water where you should be almost on top of each other – mainly for safety reasons as if your buddy doesn’t surface in good time you will know where he is so you can bomb down to see if hes still OK. If you are able to time him so much the better.
Always establish a routine/ protocol when diving deep. Be honest with each other in your abilities & limits There is always the chance that if your buddy blacks out that you may ‘panic’ a bit [more like adrenaline pouring into you] and become stressed all of which will limit your bottom time.
My buddies and I agreed that if one of us was blacked out on the bottom and if the rescuer could not reach him he would shoot his buddy in the leg or buttock. It might sound drastic but one should always recover from the shot – whereas death is rather final”.

I often wonder what it would be like to have to face that situation. Thanks for sharing it. I felt every damn second of your anguish. But Well Done Cammy – and as you say “Lots of ifs” . Makes one believe in Divine Intervention. I do.
And being the superb athlete you are helped too.

I had to try and revive a close friend for over an hour but to no avail. He had been down just too long before being found. Do not want to go through that again.

By: BradentonSpearfisher

BradentonSpearfisher — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:08:11 +0000

Hey, guys. Last year I pulled my buddy off of the bottom in seventy feet of water near the South Jack Wreck. Same deal…freediving and a shallow water blackout. He spent about a week in Bayfront in St.Pete. We thought he wasn’t going to make it. the C.G. wouldn’t send the chopper to the boat, we had to get him to land. He’s mostly recovered now that 7-8 months have passed, but our freediving days are pretty much over. Too much at stake to go through it again. Awesome that you’re giving God the glory, we all did the same believing that without his help things could have gone completely differently! Paul in Bradenton

By: mike jutt

mike jutt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:46:02 +0000

hey just wanted to let you know that reading your story has helped save lives particularly my dive partners life last week. We were diving in about 80 feet of water on the southeast side of oahu looking for ono. since we didnt see any we decided to anchor our boats and look for some uku or ulua around an artificial reef there. we came across a nice size ulua in the 50 lb class. I told my partner to go get him since it would be his first big ulua (not like i’ve shot many but did get one last year). we decided to double up on him and i let my partner hit the bottom before i made my drop (mistake). he put a good shot on the fish but didnt stone it. it made a run out of the cave and unfortunately my partner followed him (mistake). I was already on the other side of the cave and luckily put a good shot in the fish and stoned him. happy as i swam to the surface ready to congratulate my partner (who was making his way up only a few yards from me i saw that he never broke the surface. I looked back down and saw him convulsing and sinking back down only a few feet from me and about 6 feet from the surface. i swam down and grabbed him and pulled him to the surface and luckily after reading stories posted by divers like yourself and others had an idea of what to do. i took off his mask and weight belt and began yelling his name and keeping his airway open. Then i gave him 2 rescue breaths and he came back. Withing a minute he was breathing fine and all his color came back to his purple and gray face. i’ve never been more scared in my life. i just wanted to say thank you to you and the other divers who have shared their stories . my whole perspective on the sport has changed and im taking the performance freedive class in kona in dec. and so is my partner. We really had someone looking out for us that day because we were about a mile offshore diving off kayaks with no boats around at the time. my friend got checked out and was 100% okay and able to dive in a tournament 3 days later! A cool side note is that we were able to retrieve the fish (a 53 lb white ulua) and all the gear except the weight belt.
thanks again for sharing your story and i will do the best to share mine and point out where we went wrong.
dive safe
mike

By: Ashraf

Ashraf — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:51:50 +0000

I’m glad I’m not the only hero around..

Seriously.. What most people who read this story don’t know, is that the choices you make at such moments are both uncontrollable and unchangeable.. not even by you yourself..

This is when the real “you” takes over.. and the rest of “you” takes a back seat, watching with bulging eyes, in disbelief.. the 4th of the 4 SA didn’t go into that very same mode you went into, although he wanted to.. But it wasn’t in his hands.. It was in yours though..

I’m glad to have heard of you.. and if you ever come to Dubai, drop me a line.. and I’ll show you around..

Ashraf

By: nigelr

nigelr — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:16:59 +0000

Thank you for the privalige of being able to read this story. What a fantastic role model you are for this sport.
Cheers, respect to you, sir.

By: Mike McCallister (Pirate_diver)

Mike McCallister (Pirate_diver) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:35:28 +0000

Cam, I read this on the board when it first happened, and reading it again I still get choked up…and I’ve never met either of you. Thank you for being brave enough and humble enough to post this.

By: Stan Cates

Stan Cates — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:58:12 +0000

Old timer Terry Maas agrees with me “dive in your comfort zone” Terry had 3 blackouts as a young guy. He said he has never even come close since. Terry tragically lost his son to SWB.

I saved a St Lucien named Slim Francis from SWB. It made me feel real good. He was better than me, but I saved him.
I recently stayed too long with sow snapper teasing me just out of range – I scared myself and immediately got back into my comfort zone. Dead divers can’t eat those snapper

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:58:17 +0000

Cameron, you are a hero and a pioneer of the sport. Hats off to you.