Catastrophic loss of gas during air share drill

[jeckyll]

piikki: Good job! I had a o-ring blow on my long hose as I was adjusting it, but luckily mine was at the surface as we were about to descend. 40 seconds sounds short out of the water, but I'm sure it felt like an eternally.

 

[Vayu]

I was quite surprised to hear how limited the selection was on some of the Fl springs (I see you are from that area).

Yeah.. I am one of the warm water wussies and in this time of year it is good to have access to all the springs.

I have never rented a tank from the dive site itself. I will usually go to a local shop I trust and ask for a couple tanks. I check the inspection dates at the shop and take them home. At home I check the o-rings and the valves. If something does not work for me I take it back and they apoligize and give me a new one.

I hope you don't give up on the long hose. Does Poseidon require custom hoses? Is this an upstream regulator? I am just wondering.

I did some valve drills today. Play around with your setup a little. I found what I can reach comfortably while horizontal and underwater is dratically different than what I can reach on the surface. I usually align the top of my wing to the bottom or midline of the valve. Some people do it differently.

I second all the congratulations. You got out of a sticky situation. These things happen and seldom happen more than once for the same reason... so scratch it off the list.

-V

 

[TheRedHead]

Don't mean to be overcritical, but you were only in 18 feet of water. The biggest hurdle in a crisis situation is assessing it realistically and squashing all the panicky thoughts. Even if you hadn't shut down the valve and lost all the air, it wouldn't have been a big deal. Your buddy had plenty of air at 18 feet and there's no need to yell through your regulator.

 

[DandyDon]

Yeah, you were lucky you were only at 18 ft, and - you handled it well.

I encourage my buddies to just grab my alternate reg if needed, tho, and we'll explore why after. Anyone, buddy or not, grabs my alternate reg - I'm going to simply accept that they needed air and work with him/her from that point, grabbing his/her BC, reviewing ascent needs, ending the dive as quickly as safetly possible. If other than my buddy, then my buddy better be paying attention to me, as I won't be able to chase him down.

 

[tparrent]

Glad you came out ok. SOunds like you both had presence of mind.

One question though: why did you you feel it so essential to close the valve? If it's convenient fine but you were relatively shallow and headed right up anyway. I suppose you don't want to blow all the air though and have it go dry (or worse - wet!).

Maybe I answered my own question. Hmmm

 

[dumpsterDiver]

It is really hard for me to understand how a regulator failure (air leak) in open water at a depth of 18 feet was so stressful for 2 certified divers. How hard is it to slowly swim up from 18 ft? Even if you had an air leak, it sounded like the reg was working and you could both leisurly swim up without shuting the tank down or switching regulators.

I sure hope that you both consider pony bottles if you dive to any depth over 20 feet.

 

[Jason B]

One question though: why did you you feel it so essential to close the valve?

Good question as you and your buddy were both breathing off this tank at the time. You would have been killing gas to everyone in your team at that point in the game. Glad you guys came out okay.

 

[piikki]

Glad you came out ok. SOunds like you both had presence of mind.

One question though: why did you you feel it so essential to close the valve? If it's convenient fine but you were relatively shallow and headed right up anyway. I suppose you don't want to blow all the air though and have it go dry (or worse - wet!).

Maybe I answered my own question. Hmmm

I think it is a good question. I was quite occupied with shutting the valve but I am pretty sure that if the situation was different I would not have been. If there was more urgency to head to surface, I would have said that screw that and get the heck out. The flow was not so strong that it was obscuring visibility, for example, and I for sure was not thinking of saving the rental tank (from extra VIP for letting water in). I only started thinking about gear issues after the incident (like buddy’s first stage).

I have to say that the main thing driving me was that I wanted to get the situation in control under water. I had at no point any urge to shoot up. I did worry my buddy had, and she admitted that there was a moment she thought I did not realize the severity of the leak because I was signing her to slow down. I know for sure I was like a bird at the feeder - my head kept going from my SPG to buddy, then to take a glance where the surface was, then trying to twist to see behind me and back to buddy again etc.

Generally, buddy and I are trying to adhere to the principle that problems are dealt with underwater, unless it unnecessarily increases other risks. This rule is for all situations, be it ‘pool conditions’ or for a dive when we have no other options. This way there is less to ‘discuss’ at the first choice point wherever we are in the dive. In this particular incident, I did not see too many reasons to come up unnecessarily fast. We are trying to create ascending routine like we were supposed to be practicing that dive anyway. Even if one of us panicked, we had a fairly easy way out. It was very reassuring to know surface was so close but I would have been a bit disappointed if we came up as soon as the show started, ripping my gear off to shut the valve on surface. Happy that we are safe but a bit disappointed that we rushed it when there was no reason to.

So, I guess my answer goes beyond just shutting the valve. It was a lot a gut reaction too though, ‘air’s coming out and thus I need to shut the source’ - unfortunately my sausage arm wasn’t going there on its own. If it did, a lot of seesaw communication would have been avoided and time saved. By the way, I was not yelling in a state of panic, I raised my voice because it appeared my buddy had some trouble hearing me clearly

 

[DandyDon]

Switching both of you to the buddies air was the thing to do, so that would be no rush on anything else.

There are lots of options for whatever else to do, with the only wrong plan being "Do nothing," which happens to some. You did good.

 

[gitterdun]

Did you have instruction with the long hose?