Deep Dive Close Calls

[fookisan]

Watched Deep Sea Detectives where they recalled the death of one dive partner at 260 feet. Thought about my own deep dives (which are very few) and thought it might be of help to others to recount any close calls or mishaps here while diving deep. Most of my dives now are in the 60 to 70 foot range. And if I am diving solo they are much, much shallower than that.

In the mid 1980's my wife and myself were diving at Catalina and were down about 95 to 100 feet when my wife's tank started to slip down thorough her harness. Luckily I caught it and was able to tighten it up. Was told to wet the strap and then retighten it to avoid slipping, but found a better way to avoid this. I use a BC that has 2 tank straps on it and also use plastic mesh tank protectors around my tank so the tanks wont budge at all. If you dive solo get your gear bombproof and have many redundancies. I use a pony attached to my main tank. If I am in a kelp forest I might have 2 knives and some shears.

On another deep dive, a woman that had not been diving for a while, confused her deflation button on her BC with her inflation button. The more she would deflate (which she was really inflating) the faster she zoomed to the surface. She was lucky to not get bent with her fast ascent from 100 feet.

Any stories of your when down deep?

Dan

 

[String]

Tank slipping shouldnt be a massive problem, firstly the loop at top of BC around pillar valve will prevent it totally falling out, secondly a buddy can fix it or last resort it can be fixed yourself by dekitting.

The plastic nettings ive found protect the tank from getting banged but seem to slip more under water than a cylinder without - ive recently thrown mine away.

About the only incident ive had and even then i wouldnt call it deep (about 100ft) was an uncontrolled freeflow while inflating a bag that emptied my tank in less than a minute. Just switched to pony and surfaced.

Nobody and no equipment is perfect, things are always going to go wrong at some point so the best anyone can do is reduce the odds of it happening and then with training and the proper kit reduce the impact of these problems.

 

[Scottri]

I've never had a close call on a deep dive. I've always planned my dives very carefully and I've had a lot of training and experience. I've had equipment problems and narced buddies but they did not become close calls because I was trained to deal with them. I had an inflator fail on a deep dive but I simply disconnected it and aborted the dive. I was able to orally inflate my BC to maintain bouyancy. It's a matter of being prepared and staying within your limitations. I don't mean to sound preachy about it but I think people get in trouble when they over estimate thier experience and ability.


Scott

 

[Ishie]

On another deep dive, a woman that had not been diving for a while, confused her deflation button on her BC with her inflation button. The more she would deflate (which she was really inflating) the faster she zoomed to the surface. She was lucky to not get bent with her fast ascent from 100 feet.

Grrr... yeah, I got dragged up by a woman doing that (should have grabbed her equipment, not her hand).

When we breached the surface, she complained that the button had stuck (bull), and continued treating me like a clueless noob because she'd logged more dives than I had.

Fortunately, not deep at the time.

 

[ScubaBabe22]

I had an expierence where my DM had to do some real begging to get me back in the water! It was like my 10th dive (EVER) and we were off by Glovers Reef in Belize (the only place I've ever been diving)....It was an amazing dive, and we were down abt 80 ft...I checked my guage, registered 1800psi and kept swiming along with some HUGE groupers!...several minutes later, i was breathing harder and it was more shallow, so i checked again (nervous novice!) and saw 200psi... I abt peed myself and motioned to my DM...he handed me his alt, but b/c i was so scared, I didn't realize it was upside down and began to choke...luckily he motioned his hand, and I figured it out and turned it right side up! We headed up and once we were on the surface, he realized i had a leak that must have sprung abt the time I was playing with one particularly large grouper! It took some cajoling to get me back in the water for the 2cd dive of the day, but now, with abt 30 dives and an AOW under my belt, I am much more confident and comfortable in the water! I would never give this up! I learned an important lesson tho...NEVER PANICK...if i hadn't taken the step back and looked at the reg, who knows what I would have continued to do?