Coolest Myth Ever! Deep Sea Diver CRUSHED

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

In some of the stories I have in old books on diving, one of scariest things was falling off a wreck. Because of the lead shoes, they would drop like a stone and couldn't adjust air fast enough and their bodies would be squished into their helmets. This video was a good demonstration of the effect.
 
Non-return valves have been common on surface-supplied gear since about the 1880s, but it is still an issue when they fail. See Bev Morgan, Diving Industry Pioneer, post #3 under the Innovations heading.

"Best Practice" includes removing and testing the non-return valve at the start of every work day in addition to making certain that hoses are blown out if they have not been properly capped.
 
Awesome. Proves that the tender in hard hat diving needs to be your very best friend.
A buddy of mine is a sat diver in the North Sea. He says his rule is that he plays poker with his tenders, loses a fortune, and then says, "I'll pay ya after next payday"... ;-)
 
The vital importance of a functioning non-return valve between the umbilical and sideblock was drummed into us relentlessly during our surface supply training. In simple terms, it's there to prevent helmet squeeze in the event of a severed umbilical. It also prevents loss of gas if you do loose umbilical pressure and have to switch to bailout.
 
I was under the impression that these hats had one way valves.

They do. The Mythbusters demonstration shows what happens when the non-return valve fails at depth; the diver gets squished into the helmet and possibly up the hose. Bill Stropahl told me a good non-return valve was one of the things he always brought along when traveling to jobs with E.R Cross. Another was a bottle of alcohol to wash the inevitable bad breath out of the employer's helmet. :cool:
 
They do. The Mythbusters demonstration shows what happens when the non-return valve fails at depth; the diver gets squished into the helmet and possibly up the hose.

Here is what happens when you don't test your non-return valve and keep your hoses clean:

Innovations
Bev and Bob constantly worked to improve the lightweight fiberglass masks and managed to make a meager living. One day, an abalone diver named Walt Swenson came to their shop. His whole face was badly bruised and the whites of his eyes were blood-red. He was not a happy customer. Walt was using one of their freeflow masks when the hose blew near the surface and the check valve on the mask failed. It sucked both of his eyes out of their sockets but he managed to pry the mask off his face before it starting sending soft tissue up the hose.


This in not unique to heavy gear, the red arrow points to the check valve. The valve above is for the bailout bottle and the valve on the front is for freeflow (like deep sea hats are)

1666880798825.png
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom