Free-flowing inflator

[Rolobingo]

Hi everyone

My diving has, and for the near future will be conducted at recreational depths and limits. However, I would like to progress into more advanced disciplines and I like to conduct my diving with a tech mindset.

I usually dive dry, hybrid jacket/ wing bc, steel single back and slung al40 pony.

Having read many books and accident reports as well as forums, I have never heard of a diver ascending prematurely due to a stuck inflator valve. In open water training we practiced disconnecting lp line to bc, I practiced many times disconnecting lp line to suit when learning to dive dry.

I'm not confident that if struck with a free flowing suit or bc inflator, I would recognize the situation quickly enough to recover. Especially my bc, it won't automatically vent like my suit, and the coupling is harder to access/operate.

Has anyone experienced or witnessed a situation like this? If so, what was the outcome? How do you prepare for and anticipate dealing with something like this?
How likely is this situation to actually occur? Any thoughts or comments on this would be appreciated.

Thanks for looking!
R

 

[Jack Hammer]

Ive had it happen quite a few times. Its pretty easy to deal with if you have solid bouyancy skills. With a small leak what you'll notice is you seem to keep venting your wing or suit more than necessary. I've just unplugged the hose and orally inflated the wing or plugged it back in as needed for the suit. With a major leak you'll hear or feel it and hopefully unplug the hose quickly.

One of my buddies took a ride to the surface in 39*f water from 150' when his wing inflator free flowed and the hose foze on in a block of ice. He vented the entire way up to maintain control and was fine afterwards. I finished a 3 hour cave dive while orally inflating my wing after it free flowed, not a big deal. I bad my drysuit inflator free flow on a cave dive and just disconnected it then reconnected briefly when I needed suit gas, that was an irritant but not horrendous.

Basically if you have solid basic skills and situational awareness these can be manageable most times.

 

[kensuf]

Garrett Weinberg died from explosive DCS due to a stuck drysuit inflator.

 

[rhuntley]

Been there, done that, not fun. Had my inflator stuck open at the bottom of the line near a wreck, hit a diver above me while flying up; took a second but I wrapped my leg around the line to stop myself while disconnecting it with my hands.

 

[Freewillow]

Happened to my daughter with a rental BCD. Took a ride from 60 feet to the surface in no time. Luckily, it was at the beginning of the dive and she quickly expelled her air while ascending. To have a stuck valve in your BCD inflator is very dangerous if you are not prepared to such an incident.

I had last year an inflator where the valve was taking half a second to close. I changed it immediatelly. Not worth taking the risk for a valve that cost less than a $.

In order to make sure that this does not happen, I do 3 things:

1.Change my valve every two years. 0.5 $!
2. Before every single dive, I push the inflator 3 / 4 times in very small and rapid bursts in order to check its function.
3. When I am under deco obligation or pretty deep, I am holding the connexion to the LP house when I press on the inflator. Just in order to be able to disconnect it immediatelly if the valve get stucK;


Hope that it helps

 

[PfcAJ]

Happened to a friend of mine. "Something" was inflating and by the time he realized it was the bc he was Polaris missile-ing.

 

[Kevrumbo]

On backmount or sidemount doubles, another option besides disconnecting the hose would be to shut down that tank valve feeding the Freeflow (it's an contingency drill that's practiced in most Tech & Overhead Wreck/Cave Courses). If necessary, switch to a breathable regulator and then quickly dump the excess gas in your Wing or Drysuit --easier said than done if on a runaway ascent in open water, or stuck to the ceiling inside an Overhead, or in a Drysuit rocketing feet first toward the surface & bypassing all your Deco Stops. On single tank in open water however, shutting down the tank valve would obviously complicate the situation (you can Feather/Modulate the tank valve to take breaths, but it would be difficult to problem solve & correct the runaway ascent at the same time).

In in either case, having a cool-headed competently trained Dive Buddy reacting quickly will improve the odds of buoyancy recovery & control at depth (and especially vital if you have a mandatory decompression profile to perform as well).

 

[gfaith]

IMHO this is the least practiced skill that REC divers should be checking. So far I have never experienced the stuck open inflator, but I did have one on a rental once that just stopped adding air to the BC. Thus I now practice disconnecting and using oral inflation on some entire shallow dives. Oh yeah, I also added QD hose hats to all our inflators to help with the disconnect.

https://www.deepseasupply.com/index.php?product=45

 

[shoredivr]

An experienced tech diver died when inflator hose free flowed causing runaway ascent in an under the ice dive in the St Lawrence River. A chain of events led to the inflator hose mechanism becoming encased in a ball of ice, and the diver colliding with the undersurface of the ice.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ontario/470017-looking-ice-dive-course-2.html

 

[Rolobingo]

Thanks to all for sharing your knowledge and experience.

It seems the potential for disaster here is as real as I imagined. Even recreational diving NDL's are based on safe ascent rates. An uncontrolled ascent from 100 fsw near a NDL could result in getting bent, and obviously the threat of embolism is always there.

I'm surprised this threat and the management of the risks aren't discussed more, even in open water courses. Then again, I have yet to take a deep cert course. I did a deep dive, 100fsw, in my advanced course, the importance of slowly ascending was stressed by my instructor, but this topic wasn't even mentioned.

I must admit, and you can read my previous thread on the topic, that when I bought my drysuit I took no course; I read the owners manual, watched the PADI DVD, and took it diving. I did practice over the course of a few dives disconnecting the lp hose, recovering from unusual attitudes, and venting from the neck and wrist seals.

I will continue to perfect my gear and mindset with this potential problem in mind.

On a different note; I'm moving to San Diego, can anyone recommend a good instructor out there?
I would like to to do a deep course, a course in perfect buoyancy control and when I'm ready Advanced Nitrox and DECO procedures.

Thanks again for looking and posting.

R