Blown Tank Face O-ring at 80'

[harleyxx]

SNIP Can you reach your valve to shut it down? Have you ever practiced breathing from a valve you're feathering? Is your buddy close enough to see and react to a problem? Would your buddy stay calm in the same situation?

This wasn't all about me, the people I was diving with were as calm as I was and it was a nothing but that's not always the case.

R

Thats good advice. I read another thread where a diver had to shut his tank off for a different reason. Being able to reach your own valve was something my instructor never mentioned. I am planning on a dive with my daughter this weekend so I will definately practice this. I may have to do some stretching though. I'm not as limber as I used to be.

 

[pescador775]

All you had to do was hand off your gun, give a hand sign and return to the surface. The entire dive was scrubbed for that? Give me a break.

 

[runamonk]

All you had to do was hand off your gun, give a hand sign and return to the surface. The entire dive was scrubbed for that? Give me a break.

Nice attitude. It's not all about the diving. There will always be another dive. His buddies all decided to call the dive, I don't see ANY problem with that. The people I dive with would have called the dive as well, just to make sure both me and my buddy made it back to the surface without incident.

In any case, they could easily have all went up, fixed the problem and proceeded to do another dive after a short sit. They weren't down long enough to incure any serious penalties.

 

[ScorpioScuba]

This happened to me in June in San Carlos on my first "official" dive after I was certified. The instructors let us go off with our buddies for the first time. I'd been having bad luck with o-rings the whole weekend. Every time I tested my air they'd blow. On this dive the same thing happened before I got in the water so the DM changed it for me. I double checked it - it looked good and got in the water. About 15feet down all of a sudden I hear all these bubbles and I had no idea what it was. I looked at my spg and noticed the needle going down fast. I signaled my buddy and we surfaced since we were already close to the surface and we had only been down about 2 min. I was so grateful for all my training. I didn't freak out and calmly ascended with my buddy and the DM's gave me a new tank. I was actually glad it happened because it made me realize that I can calmly handle a situation as it arises.

Now that I've read through the OP's posting though I'm wondering if I did mess up and should have shared air?? It didn't even cross my mind because we were so close to the surface and hadn't been down more than 2 min at that point. What do you think? I'm a newbie and still learning.

Oh and I'm getting ready to go on another trip to San Carlos on Saturday! Hopefully no more o-ring issues.....

 

[limeyx]

See, everyone told you that long hose was gonna cause trouble one day. Now you are seeing the consequences!

All that air stuck in the hose must have blown out the O-ring.

 

[CBulla]

Rachel - you did a wonderful job with asses and make a decision.

 

[jonnythan]

I think it's odd that everyone went up with you. Other than that, textbook stuff. Great example.

 

[daniel f aleman]

What would you have done, or what will you do, if that event were to happen with lesser trained buddies?

 

[wreckchick]

First of all, I was at 80'. I doubt I would have had enough air to do a proper ascent to the surface if I hadn't shut the tank down. My plan was to feather the valve up but with the AAS offered, I took it. If I'd been close to the surface, I would have just gone up and shut down once I was up.

pescador, I didn't call everyone's dive. They called their own dives. I was planning to just go up and throw another o-ring in and switch to an extra set of regs I had on the boat and do the dive. The other people made the decision to call the day which I can't really argue with.

daniel, I'm not sure what I'd do if my diving partners didn't react well. I've actually been giving it a lot of thought. That this went very well is great, but there are a lot of ways it could have gone wrong. I don't doubt that what I did was correct but I worry about being dragged to the surface by someone overly enthusiastic. Preferably I'd dive doubles all the time and wouldn't have the issue at all. Unfortunately, I don't really think of that as an option. I like diving them but at no point would I consider that rig nimble and when I'm dealing with unknowns and students, nimble is good. I've considered slinging a 40 pony but again, not so nimble. The other thing is, I've got a few dives under my belt and this is the first time anything has gone seriously wrong. Seems to me I might be OK just to keep on keeping on and not worry about it too much.

R

 

[ianr33]

If it were me I would at least consider using a DIN tank,maybe an H/Y valve as well. that would give a fair amount of redundancy/reliability and not involve lots of extra gear.