I thought I'd share a near miss that happened to my wife a couple of weeks ago.
We live on the island of St Croix and frequently dive with one of the local dive shops off their boat. I'm Rescue Diver certified with over 100 dives and my wife has a basic OW cert and also around 100 dives. On this particular day a couple of friends that are relatively new to diving joined us for the trip. They have 20-30 dives and are very comfortable in the water. My wife had gotten a new BCD last fall and had been having trouble with the inflation valve sticking. She and I talked it through and she was comfortable inflating the wing orally, so we disconnected the low pressure hose and went on with the dive. We had the same issue a couple of months prior, and she did the same thing at that time. The boat crew and DM were notified of the problem and ok with us proceeding as planned.
The dive was going well up to about 1/2 way through when our friend noticed the disconnected LP hose at around 50' depth. He moved over to my wife and proceeded to reconnect the LP hose to the malfunctioning inflator. Immediately, the wing inflated to full and the overpressure valves opened up. My wife began to quickly rise to the surface with a large stream of bubbles. Our friend tried to hold her down and did manage to slow the ascent until he lost his grip at about 25' depth. I noticed the activity and ascended as quickly as I could safely. My wife was in a state of mild panic when I got up to her and I managed to calm her down and verify that she was ok. She didn't realize that our friend had reconnected the hose, only that she was suddenly shooting up and there were bubbles everywhere. Once I had her calmed down and the LP hose disconnected, we called the remainder of the dive and went back to the boat. She suffered no ill effects and we have since had the inflation valve replaced.
There are a few lessons in this one that are obvious to me, you may find others as well.
1. Our friends were mortified that they had almost injured another diver. We talked it through and while we always want our co-divers to keep an eye on each other, it is best to not make changes to another persons gear without clear communication before hand.
2. My wife remembered her training and exhaled for the entirety of the ride to the surface.
3. If a diver is going into the water with a non-standard configuration, there is value in talking it through with the rest of the boat. It's that diver's choice, but shared knowledge and expectations are worth a little effort.
Mike
We live on the island of St Croix and frequently dive with one of the local dive shops off their boat. I'm Rescue Diver certified with over 100 dives and my wife has a basic OW cert and also around 100 dives. On this particular day a couple of friends that are relatively new to diving joined us for the trip. They have 20-30 dives and are very comfortable in the water. My wife had gotten a new BCD last fall and had been having trouble with the inflation valve sticking. She and I talked it through and she was comfortable inflating the wing orally, so we disconnected the low pressure hose and went on with the dive. We had the same issue a couple of months prior, and she did the same thing at that time. The boat crew and DM were notified of the problem and ok with us proceeding as planned.
The dive was going well up to about 1/2 way through when our friend noticed the disconnected LP hose at around 50' depth. He moved over to my wife and proceeded to reconnect the LP hose to the malfunctioning inflator. Immediately, the wing inflated to full and the overpressure valves opened up. My wife began to quickly rise to the surface with a large stream of bubbles. Our friend tried to hold her down and did manage to slow the ascent until he lost his grip at about 25' depth. I noticed the activity and ascended as quickly as I could safely. My wife was in a state of mild panic when I got up to her and I managed to calm her down and verify that she was ok. She didn't realize that our friend had reconnected the hose, only that she was suddenly shooting up and there were bubbles everywhere. Once I had her calmed down and the LP hose disconnected, we called the remainder of the dive and went back to the boat. She suffered no ill effects and we have since had the inflation valve replaced.
There are a few lessons in this one that are obvious to me, you may find others as well.
1. Our friends were mortified that they had almost injured another diver. We talked it through and while we always want our co-divers to keep an eye on each other, it is best to not make changes to another persons gear without clear communication before hand.
2. My wife remembered her training and exhaled for the entirety of the ride to the surface.
3. If a diver is going into the water with a non-standard configuration, there is value in talking it through with the rest of the boat. It's that diver's choice, but shared knowledge and expectations are worth a little effort.
Mike