I blew it - but it ended well... thankfully (longish)

[MXGratefulDiver]

We've all done it! Glad it turned out OK.

A few months ago, I was doing a rock entry wth mild surf at Old Marineland in Palos Verdes.

I made my way across the rocks very slowly. I got my fins on. I decided to go face first on my belly and pull my way across the shallow rocks that were left. Just as I put my face down to commit to the rest of the way, I tried to take a breath and discovered that, like in your story, the air was off.

My eyes must have gotten pretty big as I picked my head up because I just heard my fellow divers yelling, "Are you OK!" just before getting lightly smashed by a wave. Luckily, the training kicked in. I reached back and turned my air on while bouncing a bit on the rocks and then everything was fine. It's all about the air, for everything else there's plenty of time.

I always find it causes me concern when I see someone with their tank so low that they can't reach their valves. It's usually most obvious when the tank is banging off the backs of their knees.

Christian

Should've just used your snorkel ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Crawlin' back under my bridge now ...

 

[OE2X]

Taking a few breaths off each reg may not always work...

Here is my scenario from this past weekend as well:

Dive #2 after a lovely 75 minute average 54' first dive started off like all my dives do without a hitch. Whilst I was diving with with a relatively inexperienced buddy who has not been DIRF'd he has dove with enough of us that many of his skills are solid. We do the head to toe buddy check including bubble check once in the water. I have breathed off both regs and inflated my wing. We drop down the line facing each other to the bottom at about 40' . Flash the o.k. with our HID's and proceed down towards our max of 105'. At 65' my primary is beginning to breath hard. I look at my SPG and and it's fluctuating wildly. My buddy is only about 4' away and looking at me wondering why I'm checking my SPG 3 minutes into the dive. My reg is still breathing albeit hard. I would have done a valve check if my shoulders would have allowed it (single 130 is harder than doubles). Instead I point to my valve and ask my buddy to open it up. He does so and thus ends my problem. I spend the rest of dive checking my SPG with more frequency than my last six dives combined. Dive ends in another 75 minute average 48' dive and all was well.

The only thing I'm sure of is that I only partially turned on my valve. Jason later told me that he felt like he had to spin it all the way open for me. Since I don't allow anyone to touch my valve it's my own fault. There was little concern when this happened as I could have easily done and OOA with my buddy and proceeded to the surface or I could have swum up 10' and would have gotten full breaths. As it was I was diving with an excellent buddy who is a member on this board.

Grateful Diver - you should be proud of your student JasonH20

 

[Warren_L]

I hope the take aways are this (they were for me....)

* I wasn't rushed. I wasn't dressing quickly or anything, or slapping a rig together. I was a bit out of the groove, as I don't usually build a reg before I go in, but everything else was normal. It happened because I spaced.

* I was confident I could swim the dead weight to the surface and fix my issue from my modest depth, so there wasn't widespread panic... just genuine concern

* Had I done a valve drill within the first few dives with this tighter fitting suit, I probably would have had the confidence to reach back on the descent and fixed it. I blew off the drill, so took the alternative route and bolted

* I need to keep drawing a breath or two off the reg before the descent (preferably before the entry!) top of mind. That would have revealed the gas off and I could have avoided the situation.

---
Ken

Ken, first off, glad you're ok! Otherwise we wouldn't be able to dive our D70 rigs together. :11ztongue

Definitely some key points there. I make it a habit of breathing off both my alternate and primary even before I get in the water. I also try to make sure that I can inflate my wing before getting in. I make sure to do this just before I get in so that if a DM did inadvertently mess with my valves the wrong way, there's a good chance I'll catch it. But it is definitely a must to be able to reach your valves.

 

[headhunter]

Should've just used your snorkel ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Crawlin' back under my bridge now ...

Actually, that's what I used to use a snorkel for before I stopped using it. :11:

It was also good for looking under the bridge without wasting the gas in my tank to see if there was anyone under there!

Your comment prompted me to look for one of my first threads on ScubaBoard. At that time, I still thought that a snorkel was an essential piece of equipment. I never realized how comfortable it would be to swim out on my back. However, I do have a roll up snorkel in my pocket for the Laguna Beach snorkel police. I've never actually used it to breathe though.

Christian

 

[Otter]

Taking a few breaths off each reg may not always work...

Here is my scenario from this past weekend as well:

Dive #2 after a lovely 75 minute average 54' first dive started off like all my dives do without a hitch. Whilst I was diving with with a relatively inexperienced buddy who has not been DIRF'd he has dove with enough of us that many of his skills are solid. We do the head to toe buddy check including bubble check once in the water. I have breathed off both regs and inflated my wing. We drop down the line facing each other to the bottom at about 40' . Flash the o.k. with our HID's and proceed down towards our max of 105'. At 65' my primary is beginning to breath hard. I look at my SPG and and it's fluctuating wildly. My buddy is only about 4' away and looking at me wondering why I'm checking my SPG 3 minutes into the dive. My reg is still breathing albeit hard. I would have done a valve check if my shoulders would have allowed it (single 130 is harder than doubles). Instead I point to my valve and ask my buddy to open it up. He does so and thus ends my problem. I spend the rest of dive checking my SPG with more frequency than my last six dives combined. Dive ends in another 75 minute average 48' dive and all was well.

The only thing I'm sure of is that I only partially turned on my valve. Jason later told me that he felt like he had to spin it all the way open for me. Since I don't allow anyone to touch my valve it's my own fault. There was little concern when this happened as I could have easily done and OOA with my buddy and proceeded to the surface or I could have swum up 10' and would have gotten full breaths. As it was I was diving with an excellent buddy who is a member on this board.

Grateful Diver - you should be proud of your student JasonH20

No offense intended, but thats why I teach my O/W students to LOOK at their SPG as they take a breath off of the regs. IF the pressure/needle drops and stays down, then the valve is off (but was pressurized), if it drops and then returns to the original position, the valve is not all the way on. I experienced that later underwater on an air integrated Cobra in Palau a couple of years ago. The pressure reading started looking like a slot machine. I had no difficult breathing and had signaled the DM that I had flooded my computer (assumed the electronics had failed) -- he stayed close and we were on reef hooks. As I 'flew' there and watched the pressure drop and then return to the same point that I realized I was seeing digital version of what I taught on analog guages...doh! I signaled the DM who completely opened my valve and all was well.

Ken, I am glad you are safe and sound....I do have a question....With team principles being such a key part of DIR, wouldn't it have been DIR to call the dive vs. dive with a non-DIR insta-buddy?

 

[Mo2vation]

Ken, I am glad you are safe and sound....I do have a question....With team principles being such a key part of DIR, wouldn't it have been DIR to call the dive vs. dive with a non-DIR insta-buddy?

I just never dive with hunters... until now. Never again.

I wanted to get on another dive on the new suit, I was feeling great (the water was 61 - I mean, c'mon... what's with all the weenies bailing on dive 4? Even the dry weenies) it was gonna be a shallow one, I thought I'd hang with a group of slow, stealthy hunters.

I've never seen speargunning before - seen people (even these guys on dive 1 of the day) schlep carcases (carci?) back to the boat, but never seen a stalk, shoot, kill before. Thought it'd be kinda neat. What a mistake.

Not diving with S*****s is about not diving with unsafe divers - not about sequestering yourself to only DIR peoples. I would consider these guys a little excitable, but I wouldn't consider them unsafe. They were experienced, they were fit, they had a traditional BC/Octo rig (not some wack vintage stuff or spare death back up thing, or manually inflated semi-dry whatever...)

They were a lose team, not quite SOB, they stayed in touch throughout the dive and bachelor #1 came back for me. They were just a little high strung underwater. Which was funny, as on top they were the mellowest, laid back guys. If they were unsafe, I would have bailed for sure and headed for some shuffleboard on the Lido Deck.

Anyway - I break my rules, I pay the price.

---
Ken

 

[Otter]

I...snip....Anyway - I break my rules, I pay the price.

---
Ken

Thankfully, it wasn't the final payment! Glad all is well.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Perhaps not DIR since nobody has recommended it, but my simple solution is to look at the SPG while doing a fast hard inhale, the last thing before hitting the water. Movement on the gauge is an indication of a problem such as partially turned on valve or inlet filter blocked. A fully turned off valve would show up like a sore thumb.

A fully off valve will show up but a valve can be mostly off and breath fine at the surface with no needle bounce. Of course it may stop breathing so fine once you get a little depth. The best practice is to phisically reach back and check that the valve is full on...and that the reg is breathing without problems. By doing this you're not only checking that your equipment is in order but you're also making sure that there is nothing preventing you from reaching your valves.

A reg that's full of holes (messed up diaphragm, cracked housing or something) can breath ok at the surface too so it's also a good idea to do a negative pressure check before a dive. With the HP port pluged, as with the first stage connected to a valve that is off, just suck on the reg. You shouldn't get anything. If you do it means there is a leak someplace that may cause you to get water with or even instead of air once you're in the water.

 

[Charlie99]

A fully off valve will show up but a valve can be mostly off and breath fine at the surface with no needle bounce. Of course it may stop breathing so fine once you get a little depth. The best practice is to phisically reach back and check that the valve is full on...and that the reg is breathing without problems.

The best practice is to both check the valve, and look at the SPG while doing a test breath. It's always a good thing to verify starting pressure before beginning a dive. I combine that check with a dynamic test.

Here's a little story about how this check DID catch a potential problem for me:

A few months ago, this "look at SPG" did work for me. The tank on a charter boat had a valve that had a sticky spot that felt like it was fully open and hitting the backseat. This false stop was about 3/4 turn from full off. Reconstructing what happened is that my initial test of the gear was to simply crack the valve, pressurize the rig slowly, then shut it off during the transit to check for leaks. During the site briefing a crewmember opened the valve about 3/4 turn, felt it hit the what he thought was the backseat, closed it back a fractional turn, and left it. As I donned my gear, I physically reached back and checked that the valve was full on. Just like the crewmember, I felt what seemed to be the stop of a fully open valve. Only when I did my final check on SPG with a hard, fast inhale did the problem become evident.

I think you underestimate the sensitivity of this test, Mike. At 100', the airflow is going to be 4 times greater than on the surface, but that's why the check should be a rapid inhale, or a purge.

 

[OE2X]

Actually breathing off my primary and checking my SPG is SOP and was not overlooked on this dive. No needle fluctuation was seen.

The fact still remains that I cannot, because of shoulder surgery, do a valve drill on a single tank.