RedyTedy
Registered
Figured I would post about an incident involving Carbon Monoxide, for documentation and everyone else's benefit. This occurred last summer, but since this type of incident is apparently very rare, I am posting it; feel free to move if this is the wrong section.
Last summer I went with some friends to Capurganá, a rural village in Colombia. I was definitely more precautious than most other travelers: I found and booked a PADI certified shop in the village ahead of time, and brought a Cootwo carbon monoxide/o2 analyzer with me.
The day of the first dive, I immediately started checking tanks at the diveshop, and each tank was INCREDIBLY high in carbon monoxide. I was almost in disbelief as I had only seen reports of ~10-20ppm on the forum. My analyzer read 50ppm and the number itself started flashing, which from my understanding indicates an even higher value (meaning I had exceeded the max reading).
I never thought through what I would do if a CO test actually failed, but prepare for an awkward situation if this ever happens to you (since you're essentially insulting a diveshop's equipment, from their perspective). I obviously didn't dive, but the divemasters were adamant that they had dived on these tanks multiple times a day without issue. They were convinced my sensor was inaccurate, so I had them blow into the top with their own lungs to see the CO count lower. They said that they had never heard of carbon monoxide before ("are you sure you don't mean carbon dioxide?"). I actually brought up a chart on my phone from the British navy with various ppm safety threshold recommendations for them to take it any seriously.
One of the divemasters was a bit more open with me, and eventually they started investigating the cause of the issue. Turns out that the entire village was running off of generators from a power outage, and they had positioned the compressor intake in a backyard which a high CO count, probably near the exhaust of a neighbor's generator. I assume this issue didn't start the day I arrived, since the village had been running off generators for several days before. I actually held the sensor around the compressor intake, and the ambient CO was still at a level that caused my sensor to flash. I wish I could find a better photo, but I can only find where the display is mid-flash..
The story ends with me going with a different diveshop for a day, while I left the sensor with the original one so that they could to lower the reading. They were able to get their CO readings down to 10ppm, which was still unacceptable to me, by changing the compressor intake position. They finally got it down to 2ppm which I was willing to accept since I had several dives booked already.
Probably the most interesting data from this story is that I had measured nearly every tank in the shop as originally 50ppm+. While all this drama was going on, the diveshop continued to dive with those tanks! And as far as I can tell, no one died. I guess CO poisoning during scuba is just not well studied and unpredictable? Definitely a risk I'm not willing to take!
Last summer I went with some friends to Capurganá, a rural village in Colombia. I was definitely more precautious than most other travelers: I found and booked a PADI certified shop in the village ahead of time, and brought a Cootwo carbon monoxide/o2 analyzer with me.
The day of the first dive, I immediately started checking tanks at the diveshop, and each tank was INCREDIBLY high in carbon monoxide. I was almost in disbelief as I had only seen reports of ~10-20ppm on the forum. My analyzer read 50ppm and the number itself started flashing, which from my understanding indicates an even higher value (meaning I had exceeded the max reading).
I never thought through what I would do if a CO test actually failed, but prepare for an awkward situation if this ever happens to you (since you're essentially insulting a diveshop's equipment, from their perspective). I obviously didn't dive, but the divemasters were adamant that they had dived on these tanks multiple times a day without issue. They were convinced my sensor was inaccurate, so I had them blow into the top with their own lungs to see the CO count lower. They said that they had never heard of carbon monoxide before ("are you sure you don't mean carbon dioxide?"). I actually brought up a chart on my phone from the British navy with various ppm safety threshold recommendations for them to take it any seriously.
One of the divemasters was a bit more open with me, and eventually they started investigating the cause of the issue. Turns out that the entire village was running off of generators from a power outage, and they had positioned the compressor intake in a backyard which a high CO count, probably near the exhaust of a neighbor's generator. I assume this issue didn't start the day I arrived, since the village had been running off generators for several days before. I actually held the sensor around the compressor intake, and the ambient CO was still at a level that caused my sensor to flash. I wish I could find a better photo, but I can only find where the display is mid-flash..
The story ends with me going with a different diveshop for a day, while I left the sensor with the original one so that they could to lower the reading. They were able to get their CO readings down to 10ppm, which was still unacceptable to me, by changing the compressor intake position. They finally got it down to 2ppm which I was willing to accept since I had several dives booked already.
Probably the most interesting data from this story is that I had measured nearly every tank in the shop as originally 50ppm+. While all this drama was going on, the diveshop continued to dive with those tanks! And as far as I can tell, no one died. I guess CO poisoning during scuba is just not well studied and unpredictable? Definitely a risk I'm not willing to take!
