Catastrophic loss of gas during air share drill

[TheRedHead]

It think it's too easy to arm-chair quarter-back these things.

I thought the purpose of this forum was critique? I've seen people with much less experience than Piikki flogged around the fleet here.

 

[Steele]

I'm with Rick on this one.

In addition, IMO - Problem solving at depth is a requirement, not an option.

 

[Steele]

Yep...!

I like my pony on any deeper dives, but for appropriate reason and use only.

Care to share the reasons and uses? What defines 'deeper' to you as well?

 

[Diver0001]

I've seen people with much less experience than Piikki flogged around the fleet here.

Yes, sadly, but you have to wonder if that's helping them..... Actually, I don't have to wonder. When people get hammered on they generally don't listen.

I thought the purpose of this forum was critique?

It certainly is one of its purposes and you made some good points.

I just think we need to be a little more balanced in saying what can be improved while not forgetting to say what you thought they did right.... It's just a little pet-peeve of mine. If we only focus on what people do wrong they won't see their *good* habits developing either...

This isn't point at you, specifically. I'm as guilty of it as you or anyone else. Just see it as a little critique and take it or leave it for what it is.

R..

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I was not being sarcastic at all about the pony bottle. I think it is deadly serious. I use one at 60 feet or more. I have seen a number of people die scuba diving and others crippled and and others nearly drown. If a bad air leak at 18 feet depth is even remotely stressful, I can't imagine what happen at 40 or 80 or 100 feet.

And I agree with the important prinicipal of solving problems on the bottom, however 18 feet is so shallow the safest and most appropriate response would be to continue to breath from the regulator and slowly ascend.

 

[Diver0001]

I was not being sarcastic at all about the pony bottle. I think it is deadly serious. I use one at 60 feet or more. I have seen a number of people die scuba diving and others crippled and and others nearly drown. If a bad air leak at 18 feet depth is even remotely stressful, I can't imagine what happen at 40 or 80 or 100 feet.

So.... Let me see if I really understood you:

1) if you're stressed flee to the surface if you can
2) if you can't flee to the surface use more gear

Am I following you?

R..

 

[dumpsterDiver]

1. So what if the air leak happened at a depth of 3 feet, should they have done all this activity or just come up and shut the tank down? How about 5 ft, 10, 15, 18? It is shallow and I would have ascended.

2. Hell yes, if you can't flee to the surface have enough gear to bail yourself out! Don't depend on a buddy!

 

[DandyDon]

Care to share the reasons and uses? What defines 'deeper' to you as well?

On this thread...? :11:

I don't feel any need for it on a 25 ft deep reef dive. After using it on a deeper wreck dive, I'll remove it for the second shallow dive, drop 4# of weight in a pocket on the left side where my pony was, and do the next, shallow one without it.

I do like it on a 80 ft dive for any unplanned extra air needs that may arise. Perhaps I don't review mutual dive plans with buddies well enough, especially boat-pick buddies, but a few times I've had them hit 500# at 100 ft before I knew they were worse on air than me. I've had times when I deployed my alternate second stage* to a buddy only to see him burning my back gas quickly in the stressful situation, so I grabbed my pony gas. Other buddies are bad about wandering off, or maybe it's me at times, and I have had 2 reg failures in my dive experiences. It can happen on any dive and reg, so good buddy work is best, but - I seldom get a buddy I feel I can trust. I usually feel I need to be able rescue myself and any buddy both if things go badly.

Between 25 and 80 ft? Depends. If you can dive with the same buddies and develope good buddy skills, that'd be better, simpler, easier, and cheaper. I'm leaving for Cozumel in 2 months alone, and who knows what I'll draw for a buddy.

* I make it clear to anyone I dive with that if they need air, they can just grab either second stage hanging from my BC without even asking, but do not try to grab the one in my mouth. I wear dentures so I don't want to risk a fumble there, and I use a Manta mouthpiece - it'd ain't coming out until I let it. It could be jerked out, but I discourage that strongly.

 

[piikki]

And finally, I think it's logical that he felt stressed. It's probably the first time he had to solve a real world problem in real world conditions. Regardless of the depth, these divers did the right thing and that's a big confidence builder that will help him feel less stressed in the future and he has a right to feel satisfied with himself for how it went.

Thanks for your post (and by the way it’s her not him). You helped me put a finger on one thing that was bothering me in some of the posts both in this thread and several others in the incidents. I am always wondering how people get blamed for being stressed or how things should not be stressful at all. To me that sounds unnatural and kind of competition talk: The great diver just floats around unstressed and reacts with casual ease to everything when the wimps admit that things affect them.

What’s wrong with having a little adrenaline rush when something unexpected happens? Even if you are experienced? (And you remember correctly that I am new to diving, and this was my first incident). For most normal people little stress/adrenaline improves their performance. I usually have no problem admitting that “I was stressed” but looks like in scuba-circles that is something like opening yourself to criticism about being a panicky type of person who is a liability. I was taught long ago that a little stress perks one up and gets you more vigilant in a pinch. The word stress seems to have a very negative connotation here (MOF).

I said from beginning that many things could have been done better. I find it rather funny that it always goes this way on the internet – that someone will pretty surely have you drown in next two months whatever you do. I appreciate the support and concrete suggestions made, while criticism for criticism’s sake and accusing that ‘feeling’ something excludes being able to think are gleefully ignored

 

[Diver0001]

1. So what if the air leak happened at a depth of 3 feet, should they have done all this activity or just come up and shut the tank down? How about 5 ft, 10, 15, 18? It is shallow and I would have ascended.

o....k....

Would you agree that the main concern was the stress level and not his depth?

And even given the stress they solved their problem and seemed to deal with it effectively. I don't understand why you would suggest fleeing to the surface as a response to this. Fleeing to the surface is a knee-jerk instinct that we spend a lot of time and training hours trying to "unlearn". Why would you want to reinforce this behaviour?

2. Hell yes, if you can't flee to the surface have enough gear to bail yourself out! Don't depend on a buddy!

Now we're confusing two issues, namely redundancy and diving with a buddy vs. dealing with problems under stress.

R..