piikki
Contributor
I do not know the exact definition for catastrophic failure but I have now experienced a failure that had it happened to me in less safe conditions - with the experience I have - things could have turned out pretty stressful if not nasty. It also serves as a good reminder to check your gear extra careful every time you change anything or have anyone touch any part of it.
The incident happened in the end of the first dive of the day (in OW). It was the first dive I was wearing a long-hose/necklace reg setup. Buddy and I had rented one setup for a brief dive getaway. Buddy had worn the setup for the previous day, now it was my turn to get it into the water after some dry runs. Neither of us had been diving since early Nov, and since both us had some new bits to our setups, we were reserving quite a lot of time to play around with our stuff to shed off the rust.
The plan was to scout out the day's site for a later dive, then use about 15-20 minutes in the end of the dive for drills. About 35 minutes into the dive we returned to a platform, so I could do more deploy&replace practices, then wed air share without ascending, do some mask/less drills, and do a final air share on ascent. Things sped up drastically as we started our first air share. Let me add that we both had rental (single) Al80s, and at the moment the incident began my buddy had 1800PSI to my 1700PSI in the tank. Max depth had been 40 feet, we had already done 5 minutes around 20 feet, and the incident started at 18ft.
As agreed buddy signaled OOG. I got the long hose to her, and as I was breathing from my back up, I freed the rest of the hose from under the pocket, and tugged firmly on it to free the rest (?!) We exchanged OKs and I motioned the direction of the swim. Then I looked back at buddy, and I saw things were not Ok no more. She was motioning hectically. I reached my hand towards the back of my head and asked, "WHAT"?? She was trying to sign bubbles, and stupid me asked like "From where"? Like it mattered!!! It was obvious from her expression - and now I could hear it too - I was LOSING AIR rapidly! I grabbed my SPG (the quickest unclip of the day), and I saw that the needle was approaching 1000 pretty fast!!! It was a freaky feeling. I reached my right hand towards the tank but I knew in an instant that no way in the world would I be able to shut THIS valve. The tank had one of those flat plastic knobs, I had been barely able to turn it at the picnic table with bare hands! I waved and pointed to my buddy to shut it. Well, basically I was yelling through my reg for her to shut it.
At this point, she later reported having the irrational panic-approaching thought that Oh-my-gosh, we are BOTH breathing from the failing tank we will run out of air in few seconds. We didnt know it at this point but the O-ring on the rental long-hose had blown. My tugging the hose was probably the final insult. I was still yelling for her to shut the cursed thing but at the same moment it seems to have finally traveled through our systems that we are both indeed on the emptying tank, and we have to do something else about it!!! My buddy grabbed her rib shoved her octo towards me, and I fished up her primary and basically smacked it to her mouth as she discarded the long-hose. Forget about clipping it back, I let fly away in spaghetti while my buddy finally moved behind me, and started frantically turning the valve. Meanwhile I squeeze my SPG in one hand, and start groping hers with my other hand. Mine reads 500 at this point, and all of a sudden its zero. (Btw, it took me quite awhile after the dive to realize I did not drain the tank but it jumped to zero because the valve closed, heh).
I had wondered how hard it is to grab someone under the hog harness in haste if you need to. Well, it isnt hard at all. We were now doing an air share ascent for real, and my buddys hand was under my webbing, and I did not even know when it got there. Forget about the horizontal ascent we had planned for though. We were now vertical but we slowed down, became more aware of the surroundings, and nearly managed to do what we had planned - which was to go up foot at a time. (Buddy was mad at me on the surface though. She was like Drills over and get outta there - what are you slowing down any more!!)
As we arrived on the surface, there was 1500PSI left in buddys tank, and from computer profile we can see that instead of 5 minutes (like it felt) the whole incident took more like 40 seconds plus the controlled ascend on top of that.
Lessons learnt have to be in another post.
The incident happened in the end of the first dive of the day (in OW). It was the first dive I was wearing a long-hose/necklace reg setup. Buddy and I had rented one setup for a brief dive getaway. Buddy had worn the setup for the previous day, now it was my turn to get it into the water after some dry runs. Neither of us had been diving since early Nov, and since both us had some new bits to our setups, we were reserving quite a lot of time to play around with our stuff to shed off the rust.
The plan was to scout out the day's site for a later dive, then use about 15-20 minutes in the end of the dive for drills. About 35 minutes into the dive we returned to a platform, so I could do more deploy&replace practices, then wed air share without ascending, do some mask/less drills, and do a final air share on ascent. Things sped up drastically as we started our first air share. Let me add that we both had rental (single) Al80s, and at the moment the incident began my buddy had 1800PSI to my 1700PSI in the tank. Max depth had been 40 feet, we had already done 5 minutes around 20 feet, and the incident started at 18ft.
As agreed buddy signaled OOG. I got the long hose to her, and as I was breathing from my back up, I freed the rest of the hose from under the pocket, and tugged firmly on it to free the rest (?!) We exchanged OKs and I motioned the direction of the swim. Then I looked back at buddy, and I saw things were not Ok no more. She was motioning hectically. I reached my hand towards the back of my head and asked, "WHAT"?? She was trying to sign bubbles, and stupid me asked like "From where"? Like it mattered!!! It was obvious from her expression - and now I could hear it too - I was LOSING AIR rapidly! I grabbed my SPG (the quickest unclip of the day), and I saw that the needle was approaching 1000 pretty fast!!! It was a freaky feeling. I reached my right hand towards the tank but I knew in an instant that no way in the world would I be able to shut THIS valve. The tank had one of those flat plastic knobs, I had been barely able to turn it at the picnic table with bare hands! I waved and pointed to my buddy to shut it. Well, basically I was yelling through my reg for her to shut it.
At this point, she later reported having the irrational panic-approaching thought that Oh-my-gosh, we are BOTH breathing from the failing tank we will run out of air in few seconds. We didnt know it at this point but the O-ring on the rental long-hose had blown. My tugging the hose was probably the final insult. I was still yelling for her to shut the cursed thing but at the same moment it seems to have finally traveled through our systems that we are both indeed on the emptying tank, and we have to do something else about it!!! My buddy grabbed her rib shoved her octo towards me, and I fished up her primary and basically smacked it to her mouth as she discarded the long-hose. Forget about clipping it back, I let fly away in spaghetti while my buddy finally moved behind me, and started frantically turning the valve. Meanwhile I squeeze my SPG in one hand, and start groping hers with my other hand. Mine reads 500 at this point, and all of a sudden its zero. (Btw, it took me quite awhile after the dive to realize I did not drain the tank but it jumped to zero because the valve closed, heh).
I had wondered how hard it is to grab someone under the hog harness in haste if you need to. Well, it isnt hard at all. We were now doing an air share ascent for real, and my buddys hand was under my webbing, and I did not even know when it got there. Forget about the horizontal ascent we had planned for though. We were now vertical but we slowed down, became more aware of the surroundings, and nearly managed to do what we had planned - which was to go up foot at a time. (Buddy was mad at me on the surface though. She was like Drills over and get outta there - what are you slowing down any more!!)
As we arrived on the surface, there was 1500PSI left in buddys tank, and from computer profile we can see that instead of 5 minutes (like it felt) the whole incident took more like 40 seconds plus the controlled ascend on top of that.
Lessons learnt have to be in another post.
