Accidents and Incidents:What mistakes have you made?

[dumpsterDiver]

I’ve forgotten at least once about every piece of dive gear and still entered the water. Once I almost entered the water without the entire scuba unit. I’ve entered the water many times with the primary tank off and many more times I finish a dive and discover my back mounted pony is off. I did a 180 ft solo wreck dive with my new steel tank valve barely cracked, open (which made for an abbreviated dive).

I’ve got tangled in a lift bag with a large anchor, got the line around my ankle and the bag dumped air at the surface and I got a fast ride to 90 feet (with a near empty tank). I’ve been tangled in rope and fishing line and float line at least 100 times. I once removed my entire scuba unit to crawl deep in a wreck to get a lost fish/spear and then got stuck upside down and far away from my tank (while solo). I’ve has to fight off sharks with my hands on one occasion and used spears on several others. I experienced dual leg cramps while making a solo surf exit while freediving that nearly killed me. I’ve been nearly run over by a boat several times. I’ve been bent once and probably several other times. I got lost once in a Florida cave with no guidline and zero training. I’ve gotten an unsecured second stage caught in a lift bag and got a very fast, uncontrolled ride from 60 ft to the surface. Once I was dragged to the surface by a fisherman who had lodged his hook around my heel strap of my fin (it was shallow and at night, so not a big deal).

I’ve been stuck in deep mud (in a pond) up to my waist for several minutes while severly overweighted and actually thought I might die (solo). I’ve been keyed into obstructions (a wreck and a reef) both solo and had a tough time getting out. I’ve been lost on drift dives (probably 6 times) and floated for 2 hours while drifting several miles away on the surface while watching sharks and ships pass by me. I ran out of air on my first kelp forest dive and had a hell of a time getting through it to shore. I once climbed a tree and used a rope swing to enter a spring with full scuba gear (and the entry did not go well). I’ve speared large fish that have entangled me with 400 lb test monofilament and left me tied to a wreck (after I dropped my only knife), I’ve chipped my front tooth by bear hugging a grouper and had the metal second stage smash my teeth. I’ve shot my speargun several times from the wrong position and had the recoil smash my mouth. I’ve almost blacked out twice while snorkeling and spearfishing solo. I’ve put my hand in the wrong place and been bitten by eels three times, once I could hear the bones crunching in my hand. I’ve accidentally allowed a large speared fish to smash me in the face and kick off the mask and remove the regulator from my mouth while solo on a deco dive.

I’ve had many computer failures, one memorable bc failure. Once I did a night dive from shore while hand carrying my tank because I forgot the backpack and bc (and still caught more lobsters than my buddy). I once allowed an inexperienced buddy to run completely out of air at 100 feet. I once fell from a dive ladder back into the water and landed on another diver and somehow missed severly injuring him. I rolled off a boat for a night dive and left my light inside the boat and ended up over the side, suspended above the water, tethered only by my very strong dive light cord attached to my waist strap while I screamed for the captain to cut the line. I once recovered a lost speargun and thew the band over my shoulder and continued to hunt and drag the gun around over the reef, without realizing the gun had one band loaded and the tip was pointing at my head for most of the dive. I once found a lost explosive power tip for spearfishing underwater and very casually shoved it down the chest of my suit for safe keeping on the dive, never thinking that the device was loaded with a live bullet (or to check if the safety was on it; it wasn't). I once bought a discount, used air integrated dive computer and did not check it out at all and took it for the first dive to 180 feet and could make no sense of the display for several minutes (on the bottom (until I realized the thing was metric) and the depth of 588 really meant 58.8 meters, not 588 feet. Many times I have laid a loaded speargun down to catch lobsters and somehow I end up positioning myself (after cahsing a lobster) so that the loaded gun is pointing at me. I once got entangled with a steel oxygen bottle (at 20 feet) that was clipped to a rope hanging from the boat in very rough seas and ended up being bashed repeatedly in the head by the bottle and being unable to get away because the suicide clip on the bottle had self clipped to a regulator hose behind my head. I used to use a crappy regulator from work which had no compass and swam way offshore at night, aborted the dive and began to swim "in" for 25 minutes on the bottom until my air was exhausted, only to realize when I surface that I had been swimming straight offshore.

Once I dove with my wife and another couple from an unattended boat in 80 feet in strong currents, got lost, ditched the wife in an attempt to make the anchor line and somehow made it back with zero psi, turned around and the wife was right there on my tail, but we could not operate the boat to retrieve the other couple because the boat operator had hidden the keys (of his father in law's $300,000 boat) because he didn't want anyone to steal the boat (and I was too stupid to ask where he hid the boat ignition key).



I’m sure there are a lot more screw ups, but that is all I can remember right now.

 

[TMHeimer]

Dumpsterdiver: I'm dumbfounded.

 

[iztok]

I got reminded of this event by a poster here. According to him I've pulled someone's weights off (not at their request) at depth and put the diver in grave danger.

The true story actually goes like this:

Group dive Thursday evening and this diver (experienced otherwise) joins with new Zeagle BCD and severely overweight. While diving I've noticed him walking on the bottom and at other time uncontrollably raising to the surface. When I've noticed that I've held on him slowing his ascent a bit. We've then continued to dive and towards the end we did a surface swim towards the entry point over the training area in a quarry. While swimming I asked him if he wants to descent to the #1 platform and adjust the weights. He agreed and we went down to the the platform at around 20ft. Now here is where I made a mistake. I was not familiar with his BCD and I saw a handle that looked similar to my handle (I was diving 5 Oceans with quick dump pockets). So I was trying to help him to get some weights out. Thinking I will pull one pocket and take some weights and put the pocket back in. Well here I am trying to help pulling the "rip cord" on the Zeagle. The "rip cord" comes out but no weights drop. I shrugged and he became visibly upset and we ascended and went to the gear up area. It turns out that he put the weights in BCD pockets, not the weights pockets and that I've pulled the wrong thing.

What I've learned from there is (not in order of importance) that Zeagle has different system than many other BCDs and unless emergency on the surface, don't pull it. I've also learned that I will not be so eager to volunteer to help not knowing more about the situation. And I've also learned that story gets twisted really fast and lingers around and people don't bother to actually ask what really happened.

So from the story I've heard about event that pertained to me:

Story: I pulled weights.
Fact: No weights were removed.

Story: not at their request
Fact: descended for the purpose of fixing weights

Story: at depth
Fact: 20ft at the platform

Storyut diver in grave danger
Fact: no danger as no weights were removed

Oh well.

 

[onefastpony]

Dumpster diver, either this is a joke or I will never have you as an instructor. Please don't take offense, I just don't like to temp fate.

 

[peterbj7]

Sounds as if a buddy check would have been handy before that last dive

 

[peterbj7]

Dumpster diver, either this is a joke or I will never have you as an instructor

Well, at least he wouldn't have been scuba diving with a spear gun here in Belize - it's illegal. I've never liked it and have never permitted it from my boats.

We haven't covered all the drysuit stories. Like the time I went in with a new drysuit (first dive) for a trimix CCR dive that was to last three hours, and discovered that the chest inflate valve wasn't tightened. The suit flooded within a few minutes and I did the whole three hour dive totally soaked. Or another when a friend went in with his shoulder zip almost tightened.....

One of the most spectacular was on a cold water CCR liveaboard when one of the guys needed to pee. It was so cold that the sheath (I'm sure women can work out what I'm talking about!) slipped off mid-pee. I don't know if anyone has succeeded in stopping once started, but he didn't manage it. As they say, "he must have lost his presence of mind" for he forgot to retighten the pee valve. The suit then flooded with sea water. He continued the dive and gave no external sign anything was wrong. When he surfaced he found with his suit totally flooded he couldn't get out. The dive boat was a converted trawler with very high sides and a long ladder. So with someone's help he got all his gear off and then took off his "dry" suit. He climbed out still wearing his Thinsulate, but as soon as anyone got near him they retreated - the smell was vile. He did the only thing he could - he jumped back into the sea and thrashed around a bit to try to wash the Thinsulate a bit. This is the north Atlantic in September. Then he got out again and put it in a large bowl of soapy water that someone had left for him. He also tried unsuccessfully to clean out his drysuit. We had two more days of diving, which he did in a damp and still smelly suit. Ah, the joys of diving!

 

[gcbryan]

So far (with a few exceptions) someone could learn from this thread that several common mistakes are made (probably once and then not repeated because of that) and that in general people don't make that many mistakes because we do think about the consequences.

That's been my experience as well. I had to think hard before I could come up with a couple of situations to start this thread with. I think this is the way it should be. I think this would be a good lesson for a newer diver to take away with them.

Reflect on the dive accidents/incidents that we read about where someone loses their life and you see that (other than health issues) people generally made poorer decisions that the stories we've recounted here (with exceptions).

Keep up the stories, they are interesting and do remind us of the kinds of things that can and actually do happen. Of course we've all had things that happened just because s$%t happens but this thread is interesting (to me) because the key point is that whatever happened started out with us making a mistake.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Dumpster diver, either this is a joke or I will never have you as an instructor. Please don't take offense, I just don't like to temp fate.

That's ok I don't teach anymore. Diving scares me. Don't even get me started on how many accidents I have seen other people make, how many I have seen die or get crippled while diving around me. If it can happen it will happen. My post was not a joke at all.

 

[seaducer]

I have at times forgot some piece of gear or another. In general I have never forgotten anything critical, but some dives were harder than they needed to be. On its own not a big deal, but increased anxiety could begin a domino effect, so it is worth mentioning.

First dive in a then brand new 7mm farmer john, I found out the hard way that the suit was very much more buoyant than the rentals I had used, and from piling in extra weights and rocks I did the entire dive vertical and inverted. Since it was an inlet with a max depth of 20 feet I just dealt with it.

At the aquarium I dive at, first dive with a brand new 5mm farmer john I was badly underweighted for the dive show ( needed 30 pounds for this suit, normally with a 5mm full I was using 22 and considered that overweighted). Luckily the large female roughtail ray was attracted to the new suit (strange smell?) and spent the entire show literally rubbing on my head, which in effect kept me at depth. It made for a neat show, and not too terribley long after the Steve Irwin incident so the crowd was wowed.

Probably the most embarrassing, one for me and one for another guy, both at the aquarium, a buddy jumped in and too late realized the top half of his suit was still hanging up in the locker. One reason I use a short sleeve rash guard...others notice I am not fully dressed.

I was about to make a negative entry and we were having trouble getting in due to animal traffic, when I heard the "go" command I stopped mid sentence and jumped in dropping down, only to learn I did not have my second stage in place, and had to do a quick recovery. Couldn't surface because the DSO was observing the operations and I didn't want to admit to that one...

Once cleaning the tunnel in the shark exhibit, the DSO was in the tunnel pointing out algae for us to scrub off (it is hard to see the spots you missed because it is dark in there). He pointed up and to my right, I reached up to scrub where he was pointing only to learn he was pointing out a large sand tiger shark who was about to pass very close to me...almost popped her in the face, don't know who was more surprised, him, me or the shark lol.

Early in my diving career when I was still a smoker I learned the hard way I was not fit to dive when the tide turned earlier than the charts predicted. Worst case I could have just drifted out of the inlet and rounded the jetty and done a surf exit, but I kind of fixated on not doing that and really over exerted myself. I think this was the most dangerous event for me personally.

On a dive vacation I had to tow in a buddy who was completely weakened and vomiting blood, once on shore he was shaking violently and complained of being frozen despite the 82 degree water and then laying in a truck cab in 95 degree heat and full sun under 3 towels. Despite my insistence he go to the hospital he refused, recovered and made the rest of the dives in that trip without incident. To this day I do not know what happened but I suspect due to extreme stress in his personal life he may have been developing an ulcer that was agrivated by the dive. I wanted to not dive with him but since he was going anyway I thought it best to look after him, he was my primary mentor when I was brand new, so in a way it was giving back.

On another trip someone in the group I traveled with was so severely bent the diver needed an Air Force medivac out of Cozumel just ahead of an oncoming hurricane. Multiple chamber rides and a train ride home with a nurse and probably will never dive again. This diver had done 3 dives, to a more conservative profile than any of my 4 dives that day (the first of the trip), and was really my major wake up call. Though I had logged hundreds of dives to that point, I have to say I really knew very little about what I was doing and this event marks the beginning of my true dive training. It seems physical fitness, dehydration and PFO are suspect, two of which I either didn't know of or put much emphasis on.

It is good to reflect on things every now and then, lessons learned are worthless if we ever forget them...

 

[Sas]

-forgetting to change weighting and being underweight for a dive
-forgetting to change weighting and being overweight for a dive
-only cracking my tank open partly before jumping in - actually I only realised after the dive, breathed fine luckily
-not connecting my drysuit hose
-forgot to put my drysuit hose on some regs, was fine until about 8m and then got mega squeeze though the dive was only 10m deep so not so bad
-a couple of times I have forgot to do a modified S drill, realised underwater and of course found my long hose to be trapped
-forgetting to take my necklace off after a dive before taking my BC off
-dived with buddies who I have been unsure about
-weight belt fell off when I was fiddling with it but I was at depth and was able to swim down and get it
-when gearing up put my BC around the wrong way always makes one look like a n00b
-dropped a reel when in the middle of attaching it to my DSMB
-accidentally threw my very expensive compass off a boat

Probably more things along those lines.