Equipment If you can't drop your weights and you are sinking

[wgw04024]

you can blow air manually into the victim's BC. Once the ascent is initiated, then expansion takes over and if you vent carefully, no need to press buttons.

This makes it sound so easy. lol

 

[johndiver999]

I don’t know anything about a rebreather.

 

[grantmac]

If a casualty is significantly overweighted, unconscious and out of gas you can cut them from their rig. Or realistically it's a recovery operation and you can come back with a lift bag.

 

[Centrals]

?? Perhaps you had a weird inflator or something, but I find it quite easy. Early on, I went for quite a while without a "power inflator" hose because the LDS wanted $100 to replace mine. To this day, I always add air orally before getting in the water.

You ought to try it with twin set and three deco tanks around 30m and still dropping.

Perhaps oral inflation at depth should be a teaching standard in AOW or Deep Speciality course.

 

[boulderjohn]

I’ve seen far more instances of divers accidentally losing ditchable weights than divers who needed to ditch but couldn’t.

That is likely because the situation in which a fatality caused by failure to ditch weight is so very rare.

Two, the comment about most dead divers being found with their weights intact is a red herring. You are wanting that to show that if they had simply dropped their weights, they would be alive. You absolutely cannot know that without an accident analysis of each individual incident. Throwing that out is a completely meaningless statement.

I did the accident analysis of which you speak.

A dozen or so years ago, I went through a couple years of DAN fatality reports to identify cases in which dropping lead would have made a difference. Unless otherwise stated, I assumed the weights in the cases had not been dropped. I found some cases in which divers were found deceased (no witness) with no clear indication of a cause of death, and I categorized them as cases where dropping weights might have helped. I found no clear case in which it clearly would have helped--not one.

A joint PADI/DAN study about that time found that the number one accident-related fatality (as opposed to say sudden cardiac death) involved a rapid, panicked ascent to the surface, likely holding the breath, often following an OOA incident. The cause of death would likely be an embolism. In that case, the problem was getting to the surface too quickly, and dropping weights would have made it worse. In those cases, proper CESA technique would have been the life saver.

 

[Centrals]

How to disengage the inflator hose if the power inflator is jammed should also been taught.

 

[Edward3c]

That is likely because the situation in which a fatality caused by failure to ditch weight is so very rare.

I did the accident analysis of which you speak.

A dozen or so years ago, I went through a couple years of DAN fatality reports to identify cases in which dropping lead would have made a difference. Unless otherwise stated, I assumed the weights in the cases had not been dropped. I found some cases in which divers were found deceased (no witness) with no clear indication of a cause of death, and I categorized them as cases where dropping weights might have helped. I found no clear case in which it clearly would have helped--not one.

A joint PADI/DAN study about that time found that the number one accident-related fatality (as opposed to say sudden cardiac death) involved a rapid, panicked ascent to the surface, likely holding the breath, often following an OOA incident. The cause of death would likely be an embolism. In that case, the problem was getting to the surface too quickly, and dropping weights would have made it worse. In those cases, proper CESA technique would have been the life saver.

BSAC did similar work on their incident reports and found cases where the casualty had surfaced, but subsequently went back down again. When found they still had their weights attached. BSAC training was modified, in the 2000s, to include the surface jettisoning of weights, on all divers grade courses. Thereby reminding Sports Divers, Dive Leaders, Advanced Divers and 1st Class what they were learned in Ocean Diver.

 

[Wibble]

How to disengage the inflator hose if the power inflator is jammed should also been taught.

This was taught to me during several technical diving classes. Often as a task loading exercise, but had to disconnect and reconnect the inflator hose plus manually puff gas into the BCD (which is hard as you're already in neutral buoyancy, so inflate then pretty much dump as soon as you take a breath a few seconds later).

I don’t know anything about a rebreather.

Appreciate that rebreathers are not as common as open circuit, but they are more common these days. It's quite possible that a rebreather diver may have to pass through the 'recreational zone' en-route to the surface.

As ever, the rule with rebreather divers is that if someone else needs their gas, they pay for the fill AND pay for the cylinder test. Think of it as a fine for running out of gas!

 

[boulderjohn]

BSAC did similar work on their incident reports and found cases where the casualty had surfaced, but subsequently went back down again. When found they still had their weights attached. BSAC training was modified, in the 2000s, to include the surface jettisoning of weights, on all divers grade courses. Thereby reminding Sports Divers, Dive Leaders, Advanced Divers and 1st Class what they were learned in Ocean Diver.

PADI made the same change, adding a surface weight drop to OW training about a dozen years ago. What bothers me about this is that they did not do anything to address an issue indicated by that information.

In a standard weight check done at the beginning of the dive, the diver should be able to float at eye level with no air in the BCD while holding a normal breath and without kicking. That is with a full tank. If an OOA diver reaches the surface and does not have the ability to stay there while kicking with an empty tank, then that diver must be significantly overweighted. Either that, or the diver died of an embolism during the ascent and was already dead before descending again.

The most common form of instruction for OW, teaching skills while kneeling, requires that divers be very much overweighted for the sake of stability. Intentionally overweighting OW students is a problem that needs to be addressed.

 

[Centrals]

This was taught to me during several technical diving classes. Often as a task loading exercise, but had to disconnect and reconnect the inflator hose plus manually puff gas into the BCD (which is hard as you're already in neutral buoyancy, so inflate then pretty much dump as soon as you take a breath a few seconds later).

But not on any recreational diving classes that I am aware of.