Accidents and Incidents:What mistakes have you made?

[peterbj7]

Yes, that's it.

 

[BioLogic]

Beyond many already mentioned...

Using too much gas in my drysuit and not realizing it wouldn't dump as fast as my BC does. We were practicing shallow, which turned out to be a good thing as I made a graceless too-fast ascent.

Stressing myself fighting surge -- ruined the first part of what was later a beautiful dive, once I realized what surges In also surges back Out as long as you're not close to trouble.

 

[Herk_Man]

Forgot to turn my air all the way on, just cracked the valve. Didn't find out until I was at 75 feet. Always have your buddy double check your gear.

My son's very first ocean dive we were about 15 minutes into the dive. I'd been asking him for air checks and he'd responded. One time I asked and he looked at console and had to stare at it for a bit and then gave me a number with a shrug. So I looked for myself. When I first looked at it, it said zero! :shocked2: Then it went up to 1200, then zero, then 1500, then zero, then 500...

I thumbed the dive and we stayed in physical contact while doing safety stop so I could give him my octo if he needed it suddenly.

I either missed this in class or it wasn't taught but I asked the DM on the dock about it. He said, "sounds like he didn't open his valve all the way."

My son said (and this kid is #1 out of 500 students in his class and a great athlete. lol) "I opened it a quarter turn like they taught us." :shocked2: :shocked2:

After the DM and I got done laughing our butts off, we explained it was "open fully, then CLOSE a quarter turn." As far as I know, he had been doing it that way all the way through his classes as well.

My biggest dumb move was doing a descent with my snorkel instead of my regulator. Choke choke, gasp, switch, choke, gasp, ok signal. Dive. (Air consumption a little heavy for first few minutes.) [In my defense, I'd been floating around for about 15 minutes waiting on buddy with an equipment problem. So just forgot about it and got comfortable breathing off of snorkel. It will never happen again cuz I don't use snorkels any more!]

 

[Krenath]

On one single dive in West Palm Beach a couple years ago:
* Went in a few pounds underweight because the boat ran out of lead
* Went in with too thin a wetsuit for my build and the water temp. (not that I could have weighted a thicker suit if I'd brought one)
* Didn't hear my dive buddy (who was also my instructor and a regular dive buddy now) say 'I have a pony bottle and will use less air than you. If you have to go up, don't wait on me'
* Got too cold and was focusing on being cold and the wrecks around me and not paying attention to my gauges.
* When I noticed I was low on air, I headed to my buddy to let them know - and he pointed out that I'd blown my NDL in the process.
* During the (free) ascent, discovered I was underweighted with very little air and a serious need for a long safety stop that I had no way to maintain. And a significantly lighter tank on my back.

Luckily I squeaked by with no DCS symptoms. What really hurt my pride, though, was not being permitted to carry any of my gear, any tanks, or any other supplies off the boat after the trip 'just in case'. I now own quite a selection of wetsuits in an array of thicknesses as well as many, many pounds of lead so I never again have to worry about being the last one to the weight bucket.


On a dive last year inthe Bahamas, I had a reg swivel I'd added for comfort just before the trip loosen and try to vent my entire tank. My wife and I got to demonstrate a flawless out-of-air drill from 25 feet to our divemaster/instructor. The swivel got to stay in a toolbox for the rest of the trip.

 

[Angry Turtle]

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.

You are obviously NOT meant to die while diving.

My wife and I typically joke with each other when we surface after a dive and one will always say "we cheated death once again!". You sir, have done it for sure.

 

[ERP]

I've panicked underwater, I had proabably 20 or so dives under my belt at the time, there is a discussion about the incident on the board.

I've walked 200 yards with doubles, and carrying a scooter, only to realize that I left my fins in the car. The funniest part is my buddy also forgot his fins, so we did Rock Paper Scissors to decide who fetched them (I lost).

 

[skydiver30960]

Two recent incidents, both on a recent trip:

One: tried hard (made it to the entry point) to start a dive without fins. Mask on, regulator in mouth, BC inflated, awaiting final ok from DM. DM looks me up and down and with no effort at suppressing his glee states in a very loud voice for all to hear: "Planning on making this dive without fins, are we?" Much deserved taunting by DM's and buddies ensued. Thanks for keeping me safe, Tuna.

Two: Entered, forgot to dump weight since I was not diving with my wetsuit, headed to back of boat to hand off a couple pounds. Went to decend, forgot that I had been breathing on my snorkel throughout. Cough, gag, sputter, grab regulator, etc... Actually it was a very educational experience. Even though it only took a moment to figure out the problem, there was about 1.5 seconds of pretty legitimate panic when I first realized I was trying to breathe water. Remember to keep your cool Ike, and remember that nobody is immune to the flight or fight response.

Ike aka "BWRAF is your friend"

 

[Krenath]

forgot that I had been breathing on my snorkel throughout. Cough, gag, sputter, grab regulator, etc...

Ike aka "BWRAF is your friend"

"Breathing Water Really Ain't Fun"

 

[DianeKim]

In addition to some of the incidents already mentioned, I once (and I hope that will be the only time) removed my bc without handing my dive camera to the DM. Result was camera slipped off my wrist when I removed my bc. Since I was not use to carrying a camera (was one of my first dives while taking pics) I did not notice until we were back at the harbor unloading our gear. Lucky for me - I had taken some fantastic videos of sharks feeding in this current where our divemaster took us to. My camera was found because it was at a moored site where we exited our dive/lost my camera and another dive company retrieved the camera when they found it. They viewed the video and guessed as to the dive company that would have taken their client's to their "secret dive spot." They contacted our divemaster and the rest is history. Got my camera back and I think about that every time I surface with my camera. Would be hard for me to make this mistake again being that I now have a slightly larger camera and strobe - but still good habit to remember if you're diving with a smaller device.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Thought of a few more:

Kneeled down on a clean sandy bottom, in 20 feet of water to clear my mask and get situated, moments after my descent on a solo night dive. Almost instantly I am pounded in the jaw very hard. I begin frantically searching the water column (with my light) to find what caused the impact (it felt very much like a solid punch and all I could think was that it was a small shark that was startled by the light and had accidentally slammed into my face). Soon I noticed this ugly fish hovering in the water next to me. I must have kneeled on a buried stargazer who then electrocuted me in the face. My jaw muscle was almost completely numb on one side for the entire dive.

Many years ago, we were visiting a small island in the Bahamas and we decided to take some time off from work (lunch break) to try to spear a few fish. We pulled the work truck over on a random location along a barely paved road that ran along the beach for miles. We shared a single pole spear and snorkled out only a few hundred yards and found this absolutely beautiful little reef in just 30 feet of water! Immediately a grouper popped up and I shot it. I had cut offs and a belt on, so I removed the belt and used it as a stringer for the fish and then tied it to this great big (antique) anchor that was picturesquely learning up against the coral. My buddy and I took turns blasting the curious grouper as they came in to investigate the catch of grouper that was growing on my belt. Finally, after we had convinced ourselves that we were incredibly good freediver hunters and there were no more groupers coming in, we swam back to the truck with enough fish to feed our families for a week! Later that evening, at a party hosted by the local dive shop, we began to describe this wonderful reef we had discovered by chance. When I described the anchor, the dive guide immediately recognized the place and told us that the anchor had been relocated to that spot as a prop for photos and that that particular little reef had been used for years as a “first dive” for visiting divers to check them out and also to feed hotdogs to their pet grouper. Luckily, we had not yet bragged about our spearing exploits. We both felt terrible.