A Near Miss at CSSP

[chrpai]

The question was directed to tracydr.

Sorry.

 

[TSandM]

I do not think any kind of BC will keep the head of a totally unresponsive diver out of the water, unless their feet are in concrete. But a fully inflated BC of ANY kind will bring you to the surface where somebody else can find you.

 

[beaverdivers]

I do not think any kind of BC will keep the head of a totally unresponsive diver out of the water, unless their feet are in concrete.

Have you ever tried a Scubapro Classic Stabilizing Jacket?

But a fully inflated BC of ANY kind will bring you to the surface where somebody else can find you.

The OP was diving alone. It takes less than 6 minutes to drowned!

 

[Max Speed]

2. It's very difficult to do anything as (oral inflate, turn valve on,etc,) when you have an empty set of lungs

An important fact which never seems to be mentioned in ANY classes. Apparently many or most instructors have never had a sudden equipment failure.

Empty your lungs, empty your BC, now perform a CESA and establish buoyancy.

Empty your lungs and now exchange regs without lung air to clear it. Many divers never use the purge.



Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2

 

[DiveDaddyDale]

So much good advice and help here, thanks.
In the future:
inflate wing before descending stairs
move slowly
watch where I put each foot
grip handrail tightly

Also I have obtained a Hollis AL bp and will use weights to compensate for the buoyancy reduction ffrom switching from a steel HP100 and SS bp to the AL 80 and
Al bp. I think I will have to stow the SS bp and steel HP100 for use after I get a drysuit.

P.S. don't tell my wife how much a drysuit costs!

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

So much good advice and help here, thanks.
In the future:
inflate wing before descending stairs
move slowly
watch where I put each foot
grip handrail tightly

Also I have obtained a Hollis AL bp and will use weights to compensate for the buoyancy reduction ffrom switching from a steel HP100 and SS bp to the AL 80 and
Al bp. I think I will have to stow the SS bp and steel HP100 for use after I get a drysuit.

P.S. don't tell my wife how much a drysuit costs!

A couple of thoughts....

Consider also using a necklace octo. While a long hose is nice, the necklace positioning a 2nd stage anchored in position is a more important feature IMO. I can literally grab it with my mouth if needed, saves having to sweep and find my primary. While I have not had stairs take me down, more than a couple of times I have been knocked down by waves or slipped on rocks at low tide, its all too easy to drown in a few feet of water.

 

[Tortuga68]

One of my instructors was adamant about keeping your reg clipped off until you were in the water. This was to prevent losing track of it, and dragging it through the sand or something.

I never thought that was a good idea, and always worried about a scenario like this. I keep my reg in my hand or my mouth until I am far enough onto dry land that there's no way I can trip and land in an inch of water.

As others said, if you're using a hog/long hose rig, your backup will be bungied right under your chin, so no problem

Even with my primary clipped off (boltsnap attached to hose with cave line) if I pull it enough hose will come out that I can get it in my mouth (some people call this "nipple breathing" i.e. while still clipped off to your right chest d-ring).

Either way I would have my gas on and some in the wing before going down the stairs in this situation.

If you're unconcious, well...

 

[Matt S.]

Having my reg in my hand or mouth is even better than relying on the necklace, though I have one of those too.

The chances of forgetting about my primary reg and dragging it through the sand are about the same as doing that to my camera. Clipping off your primary on the way to the water is a "best practice" that I just don't agree with. YMMV.

 

[tracydr]

Were you wearing a SS or AL backplate?

At the time I actually had my old jacket BC on. I was doing my DMC and my instructor wanted ,e to wear a jacket BC for it. I had a steel tank and no extra weight. But, the steel tank is (-) 4 empty and was probably close to full. It's an HP 80 but I usually can't get a complete fill from our LDS, they only go to 3,000 PSI.
I'd say it had around 2,000psi in it, since we were part way through our training but not using a lot of air to sit on the bottom or do search grids in shallow water for the search portion of DMC.
I don't need much weight when I only have a 3ml on and it was so hot, there's a chance that I only had my Lycra skin on,which would have been even worse for bouyancy. It was the middle of our summer, water temps were around 80-84 degrees.

---------- Post added August 29th, 2013 at 07:44 AM ----------

Having my reg in my hand or mouth is even better than relying on the necklace, though I have one of those too.

The chances of forgetting about my primary reg and dragging it through the sand are about the same as doing that to my camera. Clipping off your primary on the way to the water is a "best practice" that I just don't agree with. YMMV.

I once entered a rough surf and I was so focused on the entry that I somehow forgot to put the reg in my mouth. I was able to do regulator recovery easily enough but a necklace would have been much better,especially if the surf had slammed me down or caused me to turtle, as it has done on other occasions
This was before I used a long hose and necklace. You're right, it would be hard to walk around with the long hose dragging although if you have it clipped to the d-ring it would be easy enough. After one time of forgetting it I don't think I'll ever do that again!.