Close call in Hawaii...what happened?

[NudeDiver]

"I felt like I was a bit culpable for being so far behind." At least. Although the instructor of course carries the most liability, it is the diver that suffers the most from death due to drowning or other causes. One is always the most responsible for one's own safety.

When my wife did her DSD in Hawaii, the instructor held her hand the entire time (Kona Coast Divers). As my wife describe it, "I was holding on so tight I thought I would break his arm." Compare that with being 20' away from the instructor.

As for "love of scuba..." I dunno how much love there can be when one hasn't even bothered to take the OW cert class. Even my poor wife took the OW course after the 2-dive DSD class, and she was much less interested in diving than the OP seems to be.

The decision to go back in the water, given the seeming disinterest of the instructor and lack of interest in the equipment failure seems questionable.

I agree with all the posts about rental gear. The way I see it, if one can afford to travel to Hawaii to go diving, one should be willing to spend money on basic diving gear. Highly recommend getting a computer and regulator of some kind. Save the BC for last.

Good luck!
nd

 

[scubajcf]

It was water in the tank.

The diver before the OP probably drained it down to zero PSI.

The person filling it should have done a visual when they cracked it to fill and found no pressure behind it.

Then filled it with air. Since air always rises, when he went upside down, the water ran to the first stage (kind of like what happens in a water bottle when you go to take a sip) and voila, wet breath.

The real danger is you don't know how much (cu ft) of air versus water you have. You think you have 80 cu ft when you only have 20. This becomes a major problem when doing a deep dive. You think you have a full tank. The PSI reads 3000 psi, and low and behold your SAC rate goes through the roof.

Sent PM.
Keep diving!

John

 

[rmarrash]

I agree with all the posts about rental gear. The way I see it, if one can afford to travel to Hawaii to go diving, one should be willing to spend money on basic diving gear. Highly recommend getting a computer and regulator of some kind. Save the BC for last.

This is exactly what I did... But being a believer in buying the best (so you do not waste money upgrading later) it certainly was not cheap But hey, there is no price I can put on my or my wife's life (well okay there might be one my wife can put on mine but the DAN insurance would not cover it!).

I figured having our own regulator/computer was the most important thing. My wife and I took our OW and AOW within a 3 week period (last month) to get the training out of the way so we could try and enjoy our first dive trip to Honduras more in 2 weeks. I was very glad we took the AOW prior to our trip. It was a huge help in getting a bit more experience under our belt before the trip.

Russell

 

[IceBergSlim]

the guy had water in his tank.

Every thing he stated leads to that conclusion.

 

[Thalassamania]

The instructor who took you out should have his card revoked. Period, end of story. If he can not supervise two students in the water he should stay on land. Becoming a "certified diver" would not likely make a damned bit of difference in the bag of tricks that you would have had available to deal with the problems you encountered. You did really well and I'd suggest that you find a Instructor who will work with you on a private basis to get you up to the Advanced and Rescue level. I keep a bunch of defective regulators (with defects that I know) to teach divers what might happen. I have one with a bad exhaust valve, one with a bad diaphragm, one with a leaky high pressure seat, one with the IP set too high, one with the IP set too low, one with no cable tie on the mouthpiece, etc. I hate for my students to be clueless when the feces hit the ventilation device.

 

[ArcticDiver]

I few weeks ago I had a close call in Hawaii that has made me reconsider my love for Scuba. Let me first say that I am not certified but I have taken intro courses on 3 seperate occasions and I am usually pretty cool under (water) pressure. I was just beginning the second of two dives and had hed descended to about 20 to 30 feet of water. I decided that I wanted to dive closer to the sea floor to examine some coral and proceeded to dive with my head slightly lower than the rest of my body when I felt and heard a loud pop or busting noise. I felt this explosion (for lack of a better word) and felt it vibrate my body. I immediately stopped and hovered but when I took my next breath, my regulator flooded with sea water with about a ration of 75 to 25 percent water to oxygen. Obviously, being still a relative beginner I nearly panicked. My dive instructor had traveled about 20 to 30 feet in front of me which seemed like a mile underwater. I knew that I couldn't shoot to the surface safely and yet I (miraculously) kept my cool and decided I to exhale and hope that the water would be flushed through the mouthpiece. I just prayed that once my lungs were empty that my next breath wouldn't bring more water. Well, my next breath brought more water, but fortunately it was 75 to 25 percent in favor of oxygen. I continued to expell the seawater but each successive breath brought more of the same. After a few breaths my instructor noticed that I was in distress. He came back to me and I didn't really no how to signal my problem to him while under water so I I gave the "thumb up" sign and started to slowly ascend to the surface. When at the surface I gave him the lowdown on my technical issue and he gave me the option to return to the boat to have a new regulator place on my gear and I agreed. The captain of the boat replaced the regulator and I stubbornly resumed my dive, although I was a bit shaken at what had preceeded me. My story doesn't end here, sadly. I soon discovered that whenever the angle of my body went past perpendicular to the seafloor (with my head lower than the rest of my body), I would get a nice sip of seawater gurgle into my regulator. I would flush it out and I could resume my dive as long I remained relatively upright in the water. Aside from the initial horror of thinking I was going to die in Hawaii, the rest of my dive was marred by my overall unease and lack of confidence that hung over my head the rest of the time I spent in the water.

To make a long story short, I felt like I was annoying the dive personnel with my accounts of the incident. The captain said he had never heard of anything like that happening before and that he would have to consult a technician, then went about his business as if it never happened. This was more concern than my dive instructor showed. He acted like it never even happened or that it was figment of my imagination. I know something went wrong that day, though I can't seem to pinpoint anything using the internet. Does anyone know what the heck happened here?

GS

After reading this, and no fruther posts, I think this is a garbage post. Or, in internet terms a Troll.

Read the details of the post. They are inconsistent and smack stongly of fiction.

To the poster: Good on you that you sucked so many into your fantasy!

 

[Ayisha]

After reading this, and no fruther posts, I think this is a garbage post. Or, in internet terms a Troll.

Devilvike has made several posts in this thread.

 

[rmarrash]

When it comes to Accidents, I do not believe there is any such thing as a garbage post. Even if the OP made up the entire thing (which I do not believe he did) all of the follow on posts are meant to help educate others and it does just that. Being a new diver, I have learned something from this post and I review other accident threads to help me learn things I did not learn as part of my OW and AOW classes. So troll or not, these threads help me

Russell

 

[anthrax]

Congrats from Spain for being lucky and for not panicking.
The question is....if you´re not certified....how could your "instructor" left you alone???? ( being your "instructor" 30 ft away from you seems very irresponsible....on both of you)

I agree with Teamcasa. In my opinion he´s giving you very good advices.

PS: Sorry for my english!!!

 

[ItsBruce]

My 2 cents: As I read the initial post, my reaction was that an o-ring blew out. That would explain the pop and "explosion." I think it might also explain the water in the system.

As I read on, I thought you were attacked by a TROLL. That, too, could account for everything described in your post. And, while discussion of hypothetical incidents may educate the community by making everyone think, call it what it is.

A subsequent post made my thought of a TROLL attack even more solid. The OP said this incident occurred on his second dive of the two-tank dive. So, after the failure, the captain swapped equipment and then let the OP, without a certification or buddy (remember the OP returned to the boat alone while the instructor was with the other diver) jump back into the water to complete the dive. What captain would do that?

To the OP: Please identify yourself so we can tell if you are real or just a TROLL. If you are for real, I sincerely apologize for this post and instead simply berate the captain for letting you return alone to the water. I'd like to know what boat it was.