Unknown Diver airlifted to hospital - Venice, Florida

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Is that with a full tank?

The safetystop weight check is 500psi as I understand it. This is a different check, and one I'd like to do next time out.
Yes, with a full tank. The idea is that holding a normal breath is making you buoyant enough to offset the weight of the air in the tank. You then exhale fully and hold that exhalation while you descend. On the way back up, with 500 psi in the tank, you should be able to hold your safety stop with no or very little air in the BCD.
 
FWIW, my Garmin transmitter appears to update every second, on the surface at the very least.
The Garmin uses a very different system in air vs in water; in air it uses radio, u/w it uses acoustics. The u/w transmission interval is 4 secs. I do not know what the transmission interval is for the above-surface radio signal; Garmin is not very forthcoming with the actual operating information. You just have to trust them, I guess, like with Apple.
 
A properly weighted diver (with a totally empty BCD) should only be at most a couple pounds negative when very near to the surface like that.
More like 5-6 pounds at the beginning of the dive. One has to compensate for the weight of the gas to be used from the tank.
 
Really? I don't think I have ever seen any post say that, let alone seen it "all too often." What I have seen frequently are posts saying that the cases in which dropping lead is necessary are far fewer than many people think, that dropping weights would make no difference in the overwhelming majority of fatalities. I don't think I have ever seen a post saying that there is "no reason" to drop lead.

Since these posts appear "far too often," perhaps you could link a few here so we can see them.
Try typing "balanced rig" into the search bar. you will find plenty of posts from people calling ditchable weight unnecessary or fluff.

"Two words: Balanced. Rig.If you can swim up with full cylinders and compressed wetsuit, you don't need ditchable weight."

"Yup, I had to chuckle when demoing to my far-more-experienced-but-oldschool-BCD-sporting dive instructor just how easy it is to get in/out of my fixed DIR / Hogarthian harness. No clips, buckles, padding, ditchable weights or other fluff required when you have a proper balanced rig."

"I've got 860+ dives and at least 800 of those have been with no ditchable weights. Some of us believe in diving a balanced rig and managing the risks that could require ditching weights in a different way. There are also very real risks that come from ditchable weights, namely losing them..."
 
"Two words: Balanced. Rig.If you can swim up with full cylinders and compressed wetsuit, you don't need ditchable weight."
Remember the context in this thread--the diver was supposedly so severely overweighted that she could not swim it up.

Also remember that we really don't know what happened, so we are speaking hypothetically.
 
The Garmin uses a very different system in air vs in water; in air it uses radio, u/w it uses acoustics. The u/w transmission interval is 4 secs. I do not know what the transmission interval is for the above-surface radio signal; Garmin is not very forthcoming with the actual operating information. You just have to trust them, I guess, like with Apple.
I just pulled a .fit file, and it looks like it's getting pressure 1-2 times per second when above the water. Underwater it's every 5 seconds (at least in this log)
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Remember the context in this thread--the diver was supposedly so severely overweighted that she could not swim it up.

Also remember that we really don't know what happened, so we are speaking hypothetically.
I was only addressing the statement that the post I was referencing was saying he had never seen any posts about non-ditchable weight. I don’t want it misconstrued to say it had anything to do with the accident. I only pulled up some quotes from post that mentioned non ditchable weights from a quick search of SB.
 
Just catching up here, to be clear they weight you heavy to stick on the bottom because you are rooting around for fossils and sharks teeth in the sand. I was about 4lbs heavy but could easily swim it to the surface with an uninflated BC and in point of fact did. While ultimately her gas was her responsibility, she trusted the crew to check her gas but no one of the boat after her fins hit the water checked that she was okay after entry and they almost lost her.

There are only a couple of charter groups in Venice and its not a large community so everyone knows what is going on down there, especially when you have to make a call over VHF that you are headed for the dock and need an ambulance. A little harder to hide the situation.
 
every diver must check their own air supply before diving with their dive buddy. In Maldives I went to start a dive, I had a tank with the tank valve on the opposite sides to other divers and a boat crew had closed my open valve by mistake. I caught that mistake by checking my air before exiting the boat. Also a diver should be able to turn on a tank valve even by removing the BCD when in the water.
My main tanks were originally a twin set. It doesn’t always register with me the correct direction to turn the valve to open them, since they are mirror images. That has made me very particular on checking my air myself in all cases. I could see someone on a boat closing on off thinking he was doing me a favor….

Unless it is a negative entry, I always am breathing off my reg (I can switch to the snorkel later) and I am positively buoyant on entry. I know people that splashed with their valves closed and were negative. Fortunately, it was off a dock and they were only in 10 feet. They considered themselves lucky.
 
It seems worth mentioning here that a DM I know fairly well jumped into the water with the valve closed on a single tank. On the way down, the DM reached back and turned on the valve. As no training I know of taught this for DM at the time I was impressed by the calm, correct action under pressure.

Other actions were possible, too--how long does it take to release and shrug off a BC if you can't reach the valve, for instance? Or ditch weight?

I think the message to take away from that experience is that keeping calm and *thinking* when things go pear-shaped is something that can save your life, or someone else's.
 
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