Depth: 95 ft, In Deco, 500 psi, No Buddy

[beester]

I need to follow Lermontov on this. This has no use as an educational tool for new divers. You state you were not in danger and this was not accidental. Well if that's the case it a very bad tool to new divers, or divers in general.

What would be interesting is to see this scenario as an incident (oooops I ******up) and then your measures how you can avoid this in future. I'm not pointing a finger. When I was a beginning diver (about 80 dives) I accompanied an experienced instructor, and we ended up OOG (both within 1 min of eachother) at still reasonable depth (60 feet) while having about 20 min of deco. My internal evaluation was what in the end pushed me to make significant changes to the way I was diving. It's that kind of investigation/analysis which might be interesting for new divers (gasplanning). Not how to act when you are in that situation underwater, because honestly a new diver will not act in the way you just described.

In the end it's not hard to avoid this situation by having appropriate gasplanning.

Finally if I was in that situation as you describe I wouldn't give a rats ass about "deco". It's a matter of priorities, and priority NO 1 is to breath... specially if you are so close to NDL. If it's a dive with significant deco you are basically dead if you have no redundancy. I'm a very easy going guy when it comes to diving.... there is only 1 guy I made the conscious decision never to dive with again, and this was a technical diver who was repeatedly violating minimum gas planned.

 

[rhwestfall]

FWIW, I appreciate what DD has posted. On a recent dive, I experienced divers racing past us on the mooring line, rushing to beat the NDL clock. The lack of understanding that it is clearing on ascent is troubling.....

Although important, gas management is for another topic.....

 

[beester]

FWIW, I appreciate what DD has posted. On a recent dive, I experienced divers racing past us on the mooring line, rushing to beat the NDL clock. The lack of understanding that it is clearing on ascent is troubling.....

Although important, gas management is for another topic.....

Then they are not experienced divers

 

[CuzzA]

I think sharing information like this is good. They don't teach mind set in OW. And the biggest glaring point is mindset, "don't panic."

Everyone says, "never let yourself go into deco or never run out of gas", but guess what? It still happens. There was a thread last week where this exact thing happened. And what a diver does next is important. So maybe a diver finds themself in this position and they just so happened to have seen this thread or watch the YouTube video and they remember... Don't panic. Slowly ascend and your deco obligation will clear itself.

I see no harm in starting discussions like this. One thing I quickly learned is open water course diving is nothing like diving in the real world. You better have your act together. Whether it's avoiding a situation like this or handling situations like this. You need to be able to do both.

And frankly, what do you guys want to talk about on here? Rehash another A.I. pissing contest?

 

[beester]

Cuzza, the don't panic mindset doesn't magically happen whenever you hit the doodoo. The only way to have a reasonable chance to avoid panic is to have good training, good procedures, which are ingrained by practise and on top of that experience.

Why do you think commercial/military pilots don't panic? It's not because of some innate ability to suppress panic. It's because they move into procedure mode whenever the **** hits the fan. They have no time to panic in their head, because it's busy prioritising the main issue and following procedure and training to tackle it.

The only reasonable thing in the video message I agree to is: "1 min of deco won't kill you"

 

[oldschoolto]

My GOD... Are You Crazy.... That was the most erroneously dangerous thing I have seen... (sarcasm off)

Nice job, Shows that it's all about working the problem..

Jim..

 

[archer1960]

Then they are not experienced divers

This was something that I found surprising on my recent Cozumel trip. Even relatively experienced (50-300 dives) divers were so concerned about avoiding deco that it probably made them less safe overall. My buddy and I talked about it early in the week, and while we tried to avoid getting into deco. we decided that if we did go into deco obligation, we'd start heading up slowly following our computers' ceiling and time requirements. He had two computers, and we would follow the most conservative of the 3, and wouldn't surface until mine and both of his were clear.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Then they are not experienced divers

What he said was -

I experienced divers racing past us on the mooring line

Meaning - I saw divers racing past us on the mooring line - not Experienced Divers Racing Past Us...

 

[tcphil]

I appreciate him posting this. I have worked in the safety field for over 30 years and regularly see people blindly going from "everything is perfect" to "oh my god I am going to die" just because some monitoring instrument reached a predetermined set point that is based on inexact information. Of course the situation was not ideal, but this stuff happens to either you or someone near you if you dive, or work, long enough Posting a real life case reminder to NOT PANIC and proceed smartly is practical and appropriate.

 

[scubadada]

This post is in "Near Misses and Lessons Learned", that seems like an appropriate place for it. Nearly everyone probably agrees that it is not good practice to enter deco at 100 ft with 500 psi in their cylinder. So it happened, what can you learn from it?

The "don't panic" is the most obvious. Regardless of all else, you will have to ascend for the surface as soon as possible to make the most of your remaining gas. It would be better to maintain your usual RMV than to double it or more. This is drift diving, you always have immediate access to the surface on your flag, no navigation, no looking for the ascent line, nothing. This was solo diving, the redundant air source pony is standard, it's to be used for emergency requirements for additional gas instead of a buddy.

Having 500 psi in a LP108 is a lot different than having 500 psi in an AL80, a little over 20 cf vs just under 13 cf. Of course not all of it is available, but most. Even at twice my usual RMV, with a normal ascent, the 108 would give me around 8 minutes at 15 ft, the AL 80 around 3 minutes. If I kept my RMV near normal, I would have lots of time with either. Many of us know that if you just click over into deco as you start your ascent, it will generally clear before hitting the stop. This would not be true for a more significant obligation.

So...avoid situations like this. If one should arise, stay calm and maximally utilize available resources. Be appropriately equipped. Understand your gas availability and gas consumption. Understand your dive computer and what it's telling you. Seems like common sense