"If Only..." By The Human Diver

[rjack321]

I am not sure if this was a first CCR course or not. If a first course it is one of the things the student is learning, having said that I have made a similar mistake on a refresher when I ought to have know better.

It was a normoxic trimix course that he died on.

Watching the documentary, it sounds like Brian was waiting on the tow line, with the instructor right there..
Instructor was getting ready to splash

1) so was he not at the surface, waiting on the tagline? If so, is it not possible to take the mouthpiece out of your mouth and breathe air?
He could have but there is no reason to do so on CCR. You would normally be breathing the loop while waiting on the surface immediately after doing your pre-splash checks, prebreathe, then jump. There is no reason to be removing the loop

2) was there no air in his wings?

3) WHY do instructors let students into the water with cameras? I have seen this *multiple* times. Shouldn't PADI/SSI tell their instructors to not allow cameras?
Some instructors are terrible and its very hard for a student to know what is or isnt safe practices when they haven't been exposed to a variety of instructors.

4) Do tec divers not do buddy checks or was it just missed?

See #3 above

 

[Saniflush]

Recreational diver / CCR-ignorant diver here...


3) WHY do instructors let students into the water with cameras? I have seen this *multiple* times. Shouldn't PADI/SSI tell their instructors to not allow cameras?

I understand your question and agree that maybe it should be addressed more directly but I have personally taken this and some other things to be covered in this statement by PADI in regards to Risk Mitigation...

Risk Mitigation, Professional Judgment and Responsibility

Conduct risk assessments for your student divers by evaluating
diver, environmental, equipment, physical and psychological
variables (as described in PADI’s Guide to Teaching) during PADI
courses and programs. Always err on the side of caution and
conservatism when making decisions and applying judgment in
your PADI programs.
Train divers to minimize stress and anxiety and to avoid panic in
the water. Recognize outward signs of diver anxiety and panic
and stay focused so nothing distracts you from intervening with
a person who is stressed and anxious.
Be vigilant and diligent in your duties. See Member Code of
Practice in the Commitment to Excellence section.

In addition, when I am instructing I will not carry a camera with me, even if it is just a point and shoot. If I have a DM with me then the DM can carry one and take photos that students may have after the dive but not the active students or myself.

 

[Bob DBF]

Breathe from the reg, watching the SPG. The only way to confirm that your valve is open.

This confirms the valve is not shut, if done properly, not that the valve is fully open.

 

[Dusty123]

If he was hanging out on a tag line could have rolled it off and not known it. You dont need a fully open valve on a rebreather and many just partially open so its faster to shutdown if something goes boom.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

Not the same with rebreathers. On open circuit, valve is not on or not fully on and you take a breath or two the needle drops due to the pressure drop. With a rebreather, mine if mainly full manuel, it does not matter how many breaths you take because the decrease in pressure only take place when you hit the add O2 button. I watch my PPO2. Chances are that if he was in the water, even at the surface, breathing from the loop he was blowing down his O2 and was already getting hypoxic. Going deeper would have increased his PPO2, unless there was no O2 left in the loop.
Love my Divesoft, goes into dive mode when you splash.

 

[rjack321]

If he was hanging out on a tag line could have rolled it off and not known it. You dont need a fully open valve on a rebreather and many just partially open so its faster to shutdown if something goes boom.

The unit was still in surface mode so seems unlikely that he turned his O2 on at all

 

[RainPilot]

@rjack321 did a great job addressing these, some additional observations:

If so, is it not possible to take the mouthpiece out of your mouth and breathe air?

On CCR you are encouraged to stay on the loop wherever possible on the surface, especially post dive as it helps with deco (basically breathing 70 percent Oxygen on mine, I will stay on the loop until I can't take the odd looks on the boat anymore after a tech dive. My profile pic, in fact, is about 30 min after surfacing from a 60m dive)

was there no air in his wings?

CCR's require discipline in a lot of ways, one of them is closing the loop before removing it from your mouth. Passing out makes that impossible, so in LOC (loss of consciousness) events on CCR, they are very often accompanied by a flooded loop and a suddenly VERY heavy unit. I have seen several divers using wings too small to support them and a flooded CCR, add in all the deco tanks and chronic overweighting of tech divers at the start of a dive and things can get really difficult really fast.

WHY do instructors let students into the water with cameras?

Balancing "nice guy" vs instructor, "fun dive" vs "training dive", especially in a place where you are likely to see very cool stuff on the training dive and it starts getting easier to normalise the deviance of taking cameras on OW training dives. I only started taking a camera with me on CCR dives after I hit 100 hours, I did not feel comfortable with the added task loading before then. Others feel differently. I will only take a camera with on a training dive if it is on a mask mount and I start before I splash and turn off when I am back on the boat.

Do tec divers not do buddy checks or was it just missed?

Tech training is very big on pre-dive checks of the team, and generally tech divers are less likely to skip checks, but everyone is different and it only takes one bad day.

Most of these rules are written in blood, not ink, sadly it sometimes takes a bit of blood to touch up the writing so everyone can see it clearly again. I hate that it works this way but it is what it is.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

I have not been "on the loop," as much as others on here have but...as far as a buddy check goes, it seldom happens unless there is a kit up issue. All of my group seems to go into their own "bubble" when going over their / our predive checklist. Very little to none distractions happen, to including talking, during this time. If you get distracted, you might miss a step and we all know what that can result in.
After walking into the water (thank God not a splash) with my tanks turned off, I added another step. When the tanks are off, computers are off! So before I enter the water, walking or splashing, I check my computers and if they are off then so are the tanks.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

I have not been "on the loop," as much as others on here have but...as far as a buddy check goes, it seldom happens unless there is a kit up issue. All of my group seems to go into their own "bubble" when going over their / our predive checklist. Very little to none distractions happen, to including talking, during this time. If you get distracted, you might miss a step and we all know what that can result in.

I think this is a key point. We tend to get focused on our checks and the "no talking to a CCR diver going through checks" is something we all, or most of us, take to heart. It becomes natural to do your checks and splash, often without doing a buddy check.

Why do we do this on CCR and not when doing OC tech dives? I never really thought about this before but will definitely be giving it some thought now.

 

[lermontov]

I think this is a key point. We tend to get focused on our checks and the "no talking to a CCR diver going through checks" is something we all, or most of us, take to heart. It becomes natural to do your checks and splash, often without doing a buddy check.

Why do we do this on CCR and not when doing OC tech dives? I never really thought about this before but will definitely be giving it some thought now.

maybe OC is a pretty standard set up where's various CCR brands have their own idiosyncrasies