Conflicting messages?

[brnt999]

I am a new diver who reads the board often to become smarter at diving. There seems to be conflicting messages in many of the comments over whether or not to drop your weight belt when your in trouble. One message laments the fact so many victims are found with their weight belt on, another message warns about the dangers of a rapid ascent and suffering an artereal gas embolism. One message says it is a no brainer in that it is better to suffer the risks of an AGE and be alive than to drown and be dead. But I can imagine the risk of an AGE weighs on divers minds and they decide tragically--they can make it to the surface without dropping their weight belt.

So let me ask about a common scenerio I witnessed. A 200 pound male diver wearing a shorty wet suit and 14 pounds on a weight belt diving at 60 feet in the Caribean. If he dropped his weight belt would the loss of 14 pounds cause him to lose buoyancy control and rapidly rise to the surface? And if it did, whats the probability of him suffering an AGE?

 

[mala]

I am a new diver who reads the board often to become smarter at diving. There seems to be conflicting messages in many of the comments over whether or not to drop your weight belt when your in trouble. One message laments the fact so many victims are found with their weight belt on, another message warns about the dangers of a rapid ascent and suffering an artereal gas embolism. One message says it is a no brainer in that it is better to suffer the risks of an AGE and be alive than to drown and be dead. But I can imagine the risk of an AGE weighs on divers minds and they decide tragically--they can make it to the surface without dropping their weight belt.

So let me ask about a common scenerio I witnessed. A 200 pound male diver wearing a shorty wet suit and 14 pounds on a weight belt diving at 60 feet in the Caribean. If he dropped his weight belt would the loss of 14 pounds cause him to lose buoyancy control and rapidly rise to the surface? And if it did, whats the probability of him suffering an AGE?

he would indeed become immediately positively buoyant and end up on the surface.
if he breathed out during the ascent the chance of a hit from 60 ft would be low.

 

[Rich Keller]

Dropping your weight belt should be your last resort when everything else has failed and there are no other options. In a case like that I would take whatever the odds are of an AGE. Where the conflicting messages come in are at what point in the emergency do you drop the weights. My opinion is that the training stresses working on the problem and rarely mentioning dropping weights or when to do so. I believe this leads to a diver trying too long to fix a problem rather then getting out.

 

[Jon_R]

The answer is it depends. Assume the person is neutral at the moment he decides surface is the answer a fast but safe rate is 60 feet per minute so on the surface in 60 seconds keeping weights. Once on surface I likely ditch them. If 60 seconds is just to long dump the weights and try and manage the rate best you can.

Hard to come up with all the scenarios.

Out of air and no buddy switch to pony and ascend. No pony I try and keep my weights and on the surface in 60 seconds.

Medical, strong chest pain, etc. I fear I will lose physical ability dump weights and hope for the best. At least won't take long to recover me.

Medical leg issue where I can't kick probably evaluate on the bottom. If I have to go up and have air manage it with my bcd and keep weights until the surface.

Also for me I only carry 4 lbs in salt water with my lava core so for me dumping 4 lbs should keep me from being a rocket anyways. I am 200 lbs.

 

[lamarpaulski]

Some divers are dividing their weights between integrated and weight belt to be able to get positive without total catastrophic launch to surface. That also minimizes the harm if weight belt or integrated accidentally deploys. Best to work real hard to avoid the ditching deep scenario though.

 

[Wookie]

I'll put it this way. I've pulled a few dead folks off the bottom. Every one was wearing their weights. Most were out of air. I've rescued a few folks on the surface. Every one of them was in distress until I dropped their weights, and their distress went away almost immediately. I've never had to assist someone who dropped their own weights, because they rescued themselves. I've never had one of the tens of thousands of folks who have dives off of my boat be treated for AGE for any reason.

It's an armchair quarterback issue, not something to really be concerned about.

 

[Hatul]

On the surface if you get into trouble and need buoyancy it's a no-brainer, you dump weights. At depth it depends, and in general you dump weights a last resort, or if possible dump just enough to be able to start an ascent.

In the above example if he keeps his airway open as he ascends he should avoid pulmonary air embolism. Whether he gets bent or not depends on his bottom time and how much nitrogen is in his tissues.

Also, I suspect he may be over-weighted with that much weight and the light wetsuit. If so his net buoyancy after dumping will be less than 14 lbs.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think your mixed messages are primarily the result of where people dive. Remember why you're wearing weight ... to offset the buoyancy inherent in your exposure suit. If you're diving in a place where you're wearing a shorty or 3 mm full suit, you're usually wearing somewhere between 5-15 lbs. If you're diving in a place where you're wearing a 7 mm farmer john or a drysuit with 400g thinsulate, you're likely to be wearing 30 or more.

Dropping 10 lbs isn't a big deal ... it'll make you buoyant enough to get to and remain on the surface, and as long as you maintain an open airway on the way up you'll probably be OK.

Dropping 30 or more lbs can be a much bigger deal ... it'll result in enough buoyancy to make your ascent extremely rapid, which significantly increases the risk of injury. It is for this reason that I recommend that people diving in cold water distribute their weights in such a way that it's easy to drop just part of their weights if they should need to make a buoyant ascent.

If that's not possible, then there's this fundamental concept to consider ... DCS is (usually) treatable ... death is (always) not. If it's a choice between DCS and drowning, the answer should be obvious ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

I've seen two people die of AGE. In both cases, I think the fear of whatever made them feel they had to go to the surface also made them hold their breath. If someone has retained the presence of mind to drop their weights, I doubt they would be that panicked.

I think where you see the controversy is not whether to ditch weights, but when to do it. I don't think ANYBODY questions the wisdom of ditching weights at the surface, if you have a serious problem and you have gotten there. All of us have read too many stories about people who managed to surface, only to slip beneath the water again and drown. If you require weight to dive and you ditch it, you will be positive and unable to sink, and your risk of drowning is much diminished.

However, many of us have difficulty envisioning a situation where you need to ditch weight at depth. Needing to do so means you climbed a long way down into the incident pit -- you may have gear that isn't balanced, have failed to monitor your gas, and have gotten too far away from your buddy. Ditching weight at depth means giving up a small or large degree of control of the subsequent ascent, depending on how MUCH weight you have dropped. Now, if you are alone and feel as though you are going to lose consciousness, this might be the ideal move to make. In most other situations, you probably could have avoided the problem by better planning or execution.

 

[Skittl1321]

I'll put it this way. I've pulled a few dead folks off the bottom. Every one was wearing their weights. Most were out of air. I've rescued a few folks on the surface. Every one of them was in distress until I dropped their weights, and their distress went away almost immediately. I've never had to assist someone who dropped their own weights, because they rescued themselves. I've never had one of the tens of thousands of folks who have dives off of my boat be treated for AGE for any reason.

It's an armchair quarterback issue, not something to really be concerned about.

I think the idea of dropping on the surface should be stressed so much more. Any distress, just drop the weights. Instead- even on the surface it is treated as last resort- you wouldn't want to lose $50 or so. (At depth I think the medical danger is probably more on people's mind than the money.) But really- I think often the diver in distress on the surface is panicking and not thinking. I know just from pool time, when I was panicking on the surface I was kicking as hard as I could to stay above water, and the instructor came over and pressed the inflate button: oh yeah....