How would you handle a free flowing reg?

[Garrobo]

Fold the hose on the leaky reg, put the tie-wrap which you carry at all times in your BC pocket around it and use your octo. All the other information you demand is top secret. Sorry.

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Any other folks have some thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with the above posts?

 

[irishsquid]

Years certified: 3
Certifications held: OW, AOW, mult specialties, DIRF, NAUI Helitrox, GUE Cave 1, TDI Cavern/Intro
Agency: PADI, NAUI, GUE, TDI
Number of dives: approx 700
And if you are an instruc or DM how long have you been one: Not either.

I completely agree with NW Grateful diver.

Makes sense to me.

 

[Web Monkey]

I have been chatting with someone about how to handle a free flowing reg.

Please state the following before your answer:
Years certified: 7
Certifications held: DiveCon
Agency: SSI
Number of dives: ~350

Situation 1: A buddy team of 2 divers begin a dive. A minute or so into the dive one diver has a free flow. After several attempts to stop it, the reg continues to free flow. Divers are about 15' deep. It is a one tank dive and each diver only has one tank. It will be the only dive of the day. How should each member of the buddy team respond to this situation? Please outline a step by step response for each member

The answers assume this is cold water:

Answer:

• Thumb the dive.
• Both divers ascend together.
• Inflate BCs & turn off tank on freeflowing reg.
• Go find a nice warm place and order a cheeseburger, some fries and a beer.
• Decide to come back when it's warmer.

Why?: The equipment isn't going to get any better and the water isn't going to get any warmer no matter how much anybody screws around with the knobs. If it freeflowed once, it will do it again. Underwater troubleshooting is irrelevant and an added risk on a 15' no-deco dive.

Situation 2: A buddy team of two divers are on a dive and 30 minutes into the dive at 55' one diver begins to have a free flow and after several attemps it will not stop. Both divers have 800 psi. It is a one tank dive and each diver only has one tank. It will be the only dive of the day. How should each member of the buddy team respond to this situation? Please outline a step by step response for each member.

• Thumb the dive.
• Share air with buddy to the surface
• Ignore safety stop if LOA
• Inflate BCs & turn off tank on freeflowing reg.
• Go find a nice warm place and order a cheeseburger, some fries and a beer.
• Slap buddy and yourself around for not maintaining a sufficient reserve
• Decide to come back when it's warmer.

Why?: Same as above with this addition:

The 15' stop is a safety stop. It's optional. If there's any chance that something bad might happen (lose buoyancy, panic, drown, whatever) you can ignore it.

If you don't feel comfortable ignoring the safety stop because of time or depth, then it's not optional and you should have planned for the OOA/freeflow by using a pony bottle or doubles or not diving.

What skills should one have or practice that would help a diver to be able to follow the outline you have listed above?

• Dive planning
• Actually following the dive plan
• Air sharing
• Oral inflation
• Controlled ascents
• Listening to the little voice in your head that's trying to keep you alive

About the only other thing I'd like to add is that there's a tremendous about of pressure to "complete the dive", however that adds significant additional risk when it pushes you to dive in conditions that you're not trained or equipped for. There's absolutely no shame in getting out to the dive site, looking at it and saying "I'm not going in."

Terry

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Our situation happened in warm water. You are correct that the cold water changes things up as to how regs perform.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

If this happened in warm water then the chances of it being a free-flow due to freezing is virtually nil (unless someone induced the freeze by holding the purge button for several seconds).

In this case, chances are quite high that the problem is a first-stage issue, in which case it cannot be "fixed" underwater. However, I maintain that sharing air and shutting down the free-flowing cylinder is the safest course of action. It eliminates a major source of confusion during the ascent, and allows both divers to concentrate on maintaining an appropriate ascent rate and safety stop. And it doesn't require you to do anything you shouldn't have learned how to do in your OW class.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Peter Guy]

OK, I'll play:

Years certified: 40?
Certifications held: a number -- Full Cave, DM
Agency: WSU, NAUI, PADI, TDI, GUE
Number of dives:>500
And if you are an instruc or DM how long have you been one: DM one year

#1 -- You're in 15 feet of water and it free flows -- go to the surface, inflate your BC and shut off your tank. Why would you even begin to play around with a free flowing reg at 15 feet at the beginning of the dive? Just go up and deal with it. Maybe your dive is over, maybe not (given that it is a warm water dive, probably over unless you can switch out regs).

#2 -- Go on buddy's gas (he has plenty to get both of you to the surface from 55 feet) -- have him shut off your tank (gets rid of bubbles) -- go to the surface/go to shore in a pretty normal ascent (depending on conditions). Your dive is over.

 

[Puffer Fish]

I have been chatting with someone about how to handle a free flowing reg.

Please state the following before your answer:
Years certified:38 if I did the math correctly
Certifications held: Instructor (and several lesser)
Agency: NAUI (ok, I have several PADI cards)
Number of dives: Something over 2,000
And if you are an instruc or DM how long have you been one: Man, I so hate math tests... ah..34

Situation 1: A buddy team of 2 divers begin a dive. A minute or so into the dive one diver has a free flow. After several attempts to stop it, the reg continues to free flow. Divers are about 15' deep. It is a one tank dive and each diver only has one tank. It will be the only dive of the day. How should each member of the buddy team respond to this situation? Please outline a step by step response for each member

Situation 2: A buddy team of two divers are on a dive and 30 minutes into the dive at 55' one diver begins to have a free flow and after several attemps it will not stop. Both divers have 800 psi. It is a one tank dive and each diver only has one tank. It will be the only dive of the day. How should each member of the buddy team respond to this situation? Please outline a step by step response for each member.


Next:
What skills should one have or practice that would help a diver to be able to follow the outline you have listed above?

First off, you don't have a lot of time with a free flow before the tank is empty..so the actions need to be seamless.

Situation 1: I should not say this, but crimping the hose is usually my first pass.. then turn off the tank...but the two cannot be more than a few seconds apart...If the water is cold.. then go right to the tank off...get air from other diver.. surface and turn unit on.. if the tank lost too much air, or the reg still freeflows.. the day is over. Other diver just donates reg to breath.

Situation 2: Same initial action.. but would turn the tank back on to see if the freeflow stopped, and if the tank still had air, would go back to it. Again, it would depend on how cold the water was and if one suspected a freeze..

Well you should be able to turn your tank off and on quickly... and you need to be able to donate (not the toughest skill)...you may also need to be comfortable breathing from a freeflowing reg...

 

[DiverDurf]

I'm a noob too, but my training (PADI) tells me to either CESA or use the buddy's octo and surface to deal with the problem. I CAN tell you this though, if we've only made it to a dinky 15' I'm just going to surface on my own, CESA, etc. 15' is absolutely nothing to me and doesn't require the safety stop, so why not surface and use what air you still have left to inflate your BC while you can? I'm not going to panic/worry about it at that depth, and I doubt very seriously that I'm even going to be thinking about my buddy's octo. I've been trained, I know to signal my buddy that I'm surfacing, and I'm confident my buddy is going to be thinking, "Whoa- that's a problem and we need to surface and fix it." I will say that I'm in line with others in that if the reg free flows that bad my dive is most likely over for the day unless I've got a backup reg to switch out (who does anyway?). Now, at 55' it's a different story and I'm going for my buddy's octo first to see if we can deal with it right then and there, and if not we surface together sharing air and the ditto on the rest.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm a noob too, but my training (PADI) tells me to either CESA or use the buddy's octo and surface to deal with the problem. I CAN tell you this though, if we've only made it to a dinky 15' I'm just going to surface on my own, CESA, etc. 15' is absolutely nothing to me and doesn't require the safety stop, so why not surface and use what air you still have left to inflate your BC while you can? I'm not going to panic/worry about it at that depth, and I doubt very seriously that I'm even going to be thinking about my buddy's octo. I've been trained, I know to signal my buddy that I'm surfacing, and I'm confident my buddy is going to be thinking, "Whoa- that's a problem and we need to surface and fix it." I will say that I'm in line with others in that if the reg free flows that bad my dive is most likely over for the day unless I've got a backup reg to switch out (who does anyway?). Now, at 55' it's a different story and I'm going for my buddy's octo first to see if we can deal with it right then and there, and if not we surface together sharing air and the ditto on the rest.

Why CESA? You can still breathe off a free-flowing reg. You don't even need to take it out of your mouth. It's incredibly distracting though.

CESA is meant as a last option ... not a first one.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)