In your opinion, would this be a valid technique in a serious uncontrolled ascent emergency? Why, or why not?
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Hi
Good on you to think about it before it happens, Cudos for that !
if you have a question ask them, sooner or later you will have someone answer them for you, I personally belive that any question is good to ask, unless its a joke question....
There is some problems that we in the coldwater regions have to think about, when you dive in -1 C degree water at deapth and -17 C in the air, freezing comes very easy,
when you breath and you fill your vest and or drysuit you cool down the first stages, but also every other part of the diving equipment that comes in contact with the air. such as the second stage and the inflator for the BCD and the dry suit.
I have personally had a frozen drysuit inflator, I could not even rach the end of the hose since it was embedded in a block of ice, the block was about as big as twice my fist.
how do you resolv it ? that depends on what equipment you have, I dive doubles so I can just shut down the offending post and the problem will go away by itself in a matter of time (ice melting), or I can resolv the problem immediatly (hack the ice away and let the remaining ice melt) or just shine my halogen lamp on it from a short distance and the ice will certainly melt !
if you dive singles as I would suppose you do you would hopefully have your buddy or a pony bottle in the near vincinity, one thing you could do is,
either dump the air out of the BCD with the dump valve, trying to match the inkoming air to not rocket to the surface.. remember that air expands when preasure is releaved..
another thing you could do wich is both more dangerous, and needs more skills and moverability is shut down your post BUT KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE VALVE KNOB, or let your buddy do that for you and fix the ice problem then reconect and abort the dive. breathe either the pony or your buddys octo, but gently... if your buddy shuts down the valve then make shure you can look them in the eyes all the time so they can understand if they need to turn it on again...
however if the freeflow problem comes from salt partickles and / or bad maintennance then just remove the hose, and attach it again a couple of times to see if the problem goes away, if it does, fine, abort the dive service your gear if it doesnt abort the dive and service your gear.
either way, practice practice practice