Accident analysis: Almost killed myself. . . three times!

[mikerault]

Murphy doesn't trap us, he just let's fall into those of our own making. I've had to cut dives short twice because the dive master didn't pay attention to my low air signal. IN the final analysis you are your number one protection, then your buddies. Unfortunately most of us don't react in time, then our buddies drink in remembrance.

 

[Vayu]

I have realized that if you can make it past your first 12 dives without killing yourself, you are golden. The second chance you have to kill yourself is between 50-100 dives.

Very observant. My first great escape was at dive 11, so i'll be sure to keep an eye open for 50 - 100 ;p

-V

 

[Rickster]

Hi everyone,

A very simple solution. If something is going on, when asked if you are OK by the dive leader, respond with something is wrong! Don't let your pride get in the way of someone that is trained to help. Most of us do a couple dives and get cocky. Experiance is earned, not by how many dives you can accumilate, but by having the perception to see experiances before they happen, or if they do happen, having the cool collectivness, and calmness, to analize, determine the fix, and taking care of this fix, then using this experiance for further reference.

The failure in this situation, was not, the tank being off, it was not the current, or the long swin back (by the way, was nowhere near where the Express travels). The failure was in not communicating a problem to the dive leader, period.

The first step is to admit wrongness, and not try to place, or divert the real cause of failure.

Tevis, from what I have heard, someone else checked your tank before the dive.

Thanks,
Rick

P.S. I take 3-4 breaths off of my reg, while looking at my pressure gauge, any movement and it is time to check what is wrong. Buddy checks are excellent, but, I have found my tank valve off, also, after a buddy check. I do the breath check as an extra measure.

 

[Archangel]

Thanks, sage wisdom Rickster.

Looking forward to diving with you this weekend.

Vayu, the best diving is yet to come.

T

 

[Sasquatch]

Good post and good comments followed.

I will consider myself reminded and remain respectful of the fact that Murphy is always around somewhere.

Sea ya!

 

[daniel f aleman]

We had done it so many times before, that we neglected to do it on this particular dive. We didnt check each other's air. Without going into the specifics of HOW it happened, my valve wasnt completely turned on, and on the surface, my regs both breathed normally.

Always start at the beginning: the single most important thing to do is to turn on the air.

 

[miketsp]

..snip..
I breathed carefully on my reg and watched the needle on my SPG bounce. We did psi checks all the way up and I never let my divebuddies know what was going on.
..snip..
Murphy was setting a trap for all of us.
..snip..

No, Murphy was on holiday, otherwise he would have triggered a regulator failure for your buddy and I'd be curious what sort of flow rate you'd get if someone grabbed your octopus after getting stressed!

I imagine the two of you would then be reaching/fighting for the third diver's octopus.

This could have escalated into something much worse.

This was a failure of "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong and at the worst possible moment."