BC Failure

[dumpsterDiver]

Yup, and this is the point that I was trying to make... I think that a new diver might take away from this thread that since there was a logical way to complete the dive given this equipment failure (albeit by a skilled and experienced diver), that calling off the dive would be wrong, that it would be an admission of poor diving skills.

Judging from the pushback that I got here, I can certainly see a new diver looking at this thread, and finding themselves in a similar situation feeling a lot of pressure just to work it through and figure out how to complete the dive safely. Which might be fine, or it might not if something else went wrong (cramping, etc..). I'm not saying that we should never try to fix things underwater, or never try to work out backup plans - to the contrary, new divers like the rest of us should be encouraged to think things through, hopefully before an emergency happens. But they should also not feel that calling off a dive when a piece of equipment fails is a mark of weakness.

FWIW, I don't think that my instinct to call the dive in these circumstances is quite as off-base as it has been depicted here - I ran this scenario by a friend at a dive club meeting last night who is an instructor on multiple rebreathers and he felt that it was reasonable to call the dive as well.

Please understand that his opinion or my opinion does not mean that the OP or any of the other divers here are wrong, arrogant or foolhardy, but it does mean that there are reasonable and different opinions about how to handle this situation, and I didn't want the thread to be archived here without the other point of view.



OK, I agree that overweighted has intent implications that negatively buoyant does not, but I think that we have already identified that terminology issue.

I do think that you should be able to swim your rig to the surface in case of failure of your primary and secondary flotation devices (wing and dry suit). I agree with the GUE guideline: "The diver should be able to drop unnecessary weight and swim up without a functioning BC. As with all diving, the key component to proper buoyancy is diving with a properly balanced rig."

I didn't say anything about an arbitrary amount of lead implying overweighting (hard hat divers carry a lot more then 10 lbs and are correctly weighted).

Sorry to frustrate you. I'm not a tech diver but I dive regularly off the NYC area dive boats in cold water.

I agree with you and said twice in previous posts that it would have been prrudent to abort the dive when the BC failed. I certainly would not have STARTED the dive if the failure was discovered (say by a good equipment check on the boat).

These types of discussions are probably useful if they simply make people think: what would I do. The whole idea of spearfishing solo, in cold water, with sharks in rough water and currents is NOT "safe" and is not attractive for most people. I was serious when I said the battle with the jewfish was the most dangerous part of that particular dive.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I agree with you and said twice in previous posts that it would have been prrudent to abort the dive when the BC failed. I certainly would not have STARTED the dive if the failure was discovered (say by a good equipment check on the boat).

These types of discussions are probably useful if they simply make people think: what would I do. The whole idea of spearfishing solo, in cold water, with sharks in rough water and currents is NOT "safe" and is not attractive for most people. I was serious when I said the battle with the jewfish was the most dangerous part of that particular dive.

DD, thanks for the discription above.

DoctorMike,

Here is what DD said in his first post:

BC Failure
Had an interesting dive before Christmas. Hardly even an “incident”, but possibly this will be a decent reminder to others. I was solo diving on a wreck in 80 feet of water in a full 7 mm suit with hooded vest and another hood. I was using a HP 120 steel tank, a pony bottle and 16 lbs of lead on my wt belt. Water was around 60 degrees, COLD for me.

Dove for the prior two days with no issues. Entered the water and descended quickly with no visual reference. As I approached the wreck, I added air to the BC.

Did it a few times and it had no effect on my buoyancy. Landed on the wreck with a thud and laid on my inflator for 5-6 seconds, while holding my breath and could hear the bubbles leaving the BC as fast as they entered. BC held zero air. Thank goodness I can clear my ears easily that day, because it was pretty much an uncontrolled descent for the last 20 feet.

I was quite heavy. What to do? No anchor line to climb. I finished my normal dive and sent up a large smb on a reel and reeled myself up (with a little kicking to help).

I do not see any reference to the question of calling the dive in his discussion. This means that it didn't enter his consciousness. To me this means that he was very comfortable with this situation, and it did not stress him a bit.

I have seen this many times in the past, when diving or in my rescue work. I remember talking to one USAF Pararescueman who was on an Apollo SimEx (simulated exercise). He had jumped out of a HC-130 in parascuba gear to attach a floatation collar to the Apollo capsule (a mockup) in front of NASA and a Navy ship. And...he had jumped without his fins. So here he is, on a one-minute descent to the Apollo capsule in a parachute, entering water without fins, and in front of "the whole world." What did he do? Did he call the jump, and say "Oh, sorry, forgot my fins so I cannot do this job."? No, he swam to the capsule swam the collar around the capsule and attached it as if this was the planned method of doing so. It took maybe a minute longer (he landed close to the capsule).

So the decision to abort is an individual one. You are looking at it from the perspective of a new, inexperienced diver. DD was obviously no such thing, and indeed felt it almost did not warrant the word "incident."

So, when should a diver (new or experienced) call a dive? My rule of thumb is whenever that question enters his or her head. The fact that the question is there shows that there is a part of this diver saying to him- or herself that something is wrong, that there is doubt about whether the diver should continue. We many times try to rationalize this fear, and continue the dive. That should not happen in sport diving. When the question enters the mind, it's time to abort.

Let me illustrate this with an incident which could have been fatal from my diving past. The following are two photos taken by our girl friends during our dive, an dive we made in December on the Oregon coast under questionable water conditions. We had looked over the water for half an hour, trying to decide whether it was divable. We wanted to dive, as we had driven numerous miles to get to the coast. At one point, the surf looked up, another fine. We finally decided to gear up and try it. Here's the photos, first of us on entry:

Here you can see that both of us are wearing our helmets, and ready to descend in this turbid water. We went down, and then the surf kicked up again. We felt like flags on a flagpole in a hurricane as monster waves washed over us, and we held onto the rocky bottom. We surfaced, decided to call it, and made our way back toward the cove at Rocky Creek State Park north of Newport, Oregon. Then I looked up at a huge, breaking wave which came in over us. Here is a photo after that wave hit us.

Note that I have my helmet (minus mask) and my dive buddy does not and is also mask-less. We spent the next 3+ hours bobbing off the coast, unable to get to shore. We stayed together and were able to assist each other due to a 1/4 inch nylon buddy line, 3 feet long, and heavy-duty harness we each wore which tied us together. Our girl friends saved the day by calling the U.S. Coast Guard to come out and haul us out of the water. They were really happy, as we were their first live pickups in quite some time. We of course were really happy too. At the Coast Guard Station at Depot Bay, I was changing out of my wet suit when I bent over and water from that big wave drained out of my sinuses. The only reason the Coast Guardsmen were able to see us was that red helmet with white stripes I was wearing.

That next spring, I again went to the coast to meet with this same dive buddy, in the same general area. He was going through the same discussion about whether to dive or not. I aborted them on the spot.

Rule One: If the question enters your head about whether to dive or abort a dive, abort!

SeaRat

 

[TSandM]

I think the bottom line is that, given a certain diving situation, there can be a number of strategies to deal with it, and which one you choose may depend greatly on your level of experience, your risk tolerance, and the resources available to you.

I would not have continued the dive DD did, simply because I would have been negative enough to make the dive annoying. But you can also argue that, if he was able to complete his objectives in that condition, by breathing some of his gas, he gave himself less to swim up at the end. He also had redundant buoyancy, and ditchable weight. He had a lot of options, which is what pre-planning does for you, and he had enough experience to view the problem as an annoyance and not an emergency.

Would I recommend that a different diver do what he did? No, I wouldn't. Someone with less experience or more anxiety would not be well served to remain underwater. (And DD might have been better served, as well, but he certainly has a right to make his own choices.) But his decision is far from indefensible. (Assuming you accept the decision to go spearfishing solo in rough water and low viz, in the first place, that is!)

 

[Karibelle]

I find this interesting. I'm inching up on 1000 dives, and I would say at least 950 of them were dives where nothing went wrong at all. I think that's the virtue of a good dive plan, a thorough equipment check before getting in the water, good underwater communication, and good dive skills. Of course, there are those times when water conditions change, or the very rare unexpected equipment issue . . . but overall, dives where anything goes wrong AT ALL are noteworthy in my log book.

+1. I was thinking the same thing.

 

[doctormike]

DoctorMike,

Here is what DD said in his first post... I do not see any reference to the question of calling the dive in his discussion. This means that it didn't enter his consciousness. To me this means that he was very comfortable with this situation, and it did not stress him a bit.

Hmmm... here is what DD said in his last post:

I agree with you and said twice in previous posts that it would have been prrudent to abort the dive when the BC failed. I certainly would not have STARTED the dive if the failure was discovered (say by a good equipment check on the boat).

I certainly don't mean to put words into DD's mouth, but this last sentence to me suggest that a non-working BC is considered a non-trivial failure.

In logistical terms, what would the difference be between fixing the BC on the boat before the dive, and when recognizing the failure at depth, immediately returning to the surface, fixing the BC on the boat and then descending again? Apart from the quick bounce and whatever time it took to make the repair (if possible).

I know that DD had said that there was a time constraint in this particular dive, but if he actually wanted to add air to his BC at the beginning of the dive, perhaps the better dive experience with a working BC would have been worth the time spent fixing the BC on the surface?

I don't know, maybe not. But possibly...

You are looking at it from the perspective of a new, inexperienced diver.

Yes, precisely, as I had mentioned before.

That was the only reason why I made the points that I made, so that new, inexperienced divers would see another side to this analysis.

 

[knowone]

Great idea with the helmet not just for carrying lights, and the stripe John C.
Ratliff.

I'm in constant contact with a Guy from Melbourne that has regularly dived from both shore and boat in conditions as in your photos, and conditions that surpass.

He wears any vest bcd that can accommodate an eight inch 3400psi, 120cf.
And for protection, not just thermal, a farmer john semi dry type thing
that is basically two layers of heavy 1/4" neoprene from neck to mid thigh.
The suit is over 6 feet long and weighs about 15 lbs dry.
The diver dude is about 230lbs and quite reasonably Diving Fit.

Wheeled sports, nylon wrist guards with the plastic palm pieced removed come in handy.

The Guy tells me that he can hold any attitude he wants as long as the ocean lets him and if he removes his gear, not necessarily in extreme "washing machine" conditions but close, if he finds a relatively calmer nook, he still becomes upside down vertical or at an attitude, once again depending on the direction the ocean wants him.

Due to the bulk and quantity of neoprene

Diving dry is not an option due to lack of protection from the suit, definite perforation and the impending hyperthermia due to lack of cooling water in suit ability.

In order to have some control with that rig in those conditions and minimise mask lens scratches and dislodgement, the diver dude wears a seven pocket belt, utilising only the front four very secure yet easily accessible, holding 2.2lb lumps.

Sometimes sixteen lumps.

With minimal air for buoyancy and without having to crawl or drag himself over anything, just some holds and then propels.

Or sometimes a hug.

Or a serious wedge.

And only single tanks with fins strapped to chest so he can roll and run
when he attempts to time when the ocean spits him out onto a ledge.

So it is probably obvious that with this set up I prefer to do vertical hangs.

And remember the much debated horizontal, was invented so the body mass
would be on the same plane and under the same pressure for off gas.

Good luck to all the diver dudes out there.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Hmmm... here is what DD said in his last post:

I agree with you and said twice in previous posts that it would have been prrudent to abort the dive when the BC failed. I certainly would not have STARTED the dive if the failure was discovered (say by a good equipment check on the boat).

I certainly don't mean to put words into DD's mouth, but this last sentence to me suggest that a non-working BC is considered a non-trivial failure.

I think we all change perspectives upon retrospect. There is a difference between the decision at the time, and looking back at it. To tell the truth, I think that huge fish taking his grouper may have something to do with this too. But at the time, he was comfortable about the dive.

I think we agree more than disagree on this one though, that for a newer diver, especially inexperienced or with fewer aquatic skills, it would have been a good thing to call the dive. As you can tell from the story of my and my buddy's Coast Guard rescue, I'm not one say dive when things go wrong. What I was pointing out is that this line between comfort is very different for different levels of diver experience.

SeaRat

 

[doctormike]

I

I think we agree more than disagree on this one though, that for a newer diver, especially inexperienced or with fewer aquatic skills, it would have been a good thing to call the dive. As you can tell from the story of my and my buddy's Coast Guard rescue, I'm not one say dive when things go wrong. What I was pointing out is that this line between comfort is very different for different levels of diver experience.

SeaRat

Absolutely, and I think that on close analysis, most of us posting here are in full agreement about the basics - plan your dives to fit your skills and training, never be afraid to call a dive at any time for any reason, and always try to learn from your own mistakes and those of others...

Safe diving, y'all...!

M

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I certainly would not have STARTED the dive if the failure was discovered (say by a good equipment check on the boat).

I am so lucky to be living No Ka Oi!

I have shown up at dive sites with no inflator unit once and no kindey dump unit another; for those max depth 60' shore dives in a 5 mm full suit, I just went 4 lbs light and had to swim down some below 700 psi on the way in.

I certainly don't mean to put words into DD's mouth, but this last sentence to me suggest that a non-working BC is considered a non-trivial failure.

I would say a non-working BC is trivial for some divers and/or some profiles; some of us learned to dive without a BC. There were probably divers doing very similar dives to the OP, before BC's. Other divers and/or other profiles are more dependent all the way up to completely.

 

[vladimir]

I would say a non-working BC is trivial for some divers and/or some profiles; some of us learned to dive without a BC. There were probably divers doing very similar dives to the OP, before BC's. Other divers and/or other profiles are more dependent all the way up to completely.

As you note, though, there is a difference between starting a dive with no BC and discovering yours doesn't work on the bottom.