Instructor bent after running out of air at 40m

[Wookie]

You got something against us Bronies?

 

[hroark2112]

No, just thinking of the poor ponies!!!

I mean...you’re about the last thing I’d want to wake up next to!

 

[gcarter]

Enjoy shedding this story ...

The scuba dive that crushed my spine

It had been meticulously planned - a deep dive for four experienced scuba diving instructors. But halfway through the session, two oxygen tanks ran out, setting off a catastrophic chain of events.

So meticulously planned that not one but two out of gas ... then all four.

Seriously?

They now know that what happened was "a disparity between what was planned in terms of breathing rates and what actually happened on the dive".

It was unpredictable.​

 

[CT-Rich]

They as a group planned poorly. Once one of them got into trouble they all were dragged down. That is one of disadvantages of diving teams is that mistakes can radiate outward and cause more casualties. If the two who were bent had gone OOG without their friends, neither might have not made it back. They just did not plan well. A dive like that requires more reserve air than a similar plan at 20 meters. Ponies would have provided more gas reserves incase of an emergency ascent. Or they could have shortened the planned bottom time to allow for a much larger safety margin.

Poor planning and poor situational awareness combined to create the two near tragedies. If they planned poorly and were situationally aware they would have avoided trouble. If they planned well and not been as aware as they should have been, they could have gotten away with it.

Most accidents are the result of two errors conspiring to work together....

 

[KeithG]

They as a group planned poorly. Once one of them got into trouble they all were dragged down. That is one of disadvantages of diving teams is that mistakes can radiate outward and cause more casualties. If the two who were bent had gone OOG without their friends, neither might have not made it back. They just did not plan well. A dive like that requires more reserve air than a similar plan at 20 meters. Ponies would have provided more gas reserves incase of an emergency ascent. Or they could have shortened the planned bottom time to allow for a much larger safety margin.

Poor planning and poor situational awareness combined to create the two near tragedies. If they planned poorly and were situationally aware they would have avoided trouble. If they planned well and not been as aware as they should have been, they could have gotten away with it.

Most accidents are the result of two errors conspiring to work together....

Do you still believe they only went to 40m?

 

[KenGordon]

I assume you're talking to me since I said, once the first diver went OOG and there wasn't enough gas for both to finish the dive that I would make a fast 60ft/ minute ascent and then finish off what gas is left at the safety stop. To answer your question, yes, I have done this in a similar situation on a NDL dive. We managed a 60ft/ minute ascent from 100 ft. while arms locked and then hung at 20ft. for extra time. Fortunately there was no true OOG rather an SPG failure, but none the less we treated it as an OOG situation. The goal was simple, get shallow to extend our gas. I'm not an instructor and nor was my buddy, but we both realized the urgent need to get off the bottom.

I'm not sure why a 60ft/ minute ascent rate is so shocking to you in an emergency. After all, that once was the standard and for some still is. I screwed up. I should have bet you money first.

Because I find even 10m/minutewithout sharing gas very very hard to achieve. So I don’t expect a pair where one is out of gas to manage even that. And personal experiance is that paranoia over fast ascents make most people slower than I am.

 

[RainPilot]

I mean...you’re about the last thing I’d want to wake up next to!

And probably would be...

 

[CT-Rich]

Do you still believe they only went to 40m?

Could they get bent at 40 m? Sure, we know nothing about what dives they did in the preceding 24 hrs. We have no knowledge of the gear they were using. They may have been sporting steel 100s or 120s. They could have dropped an extra 5-10 m. They might be stupid they, might be sloppy, they could have been totally narc’d. The article doesn’t say. It was not written about the dive, it was about his disability and dealing with it. I refuse to read too much into it. If he was bent, they looked at his computer(I assume) to find out what he did.

 

[CuzzA]

paranoia over fast ascents make most people slower than I am.

Unless you're out of gas. Maybe not in your experience, but I'll bet in most cases ascents are pretty quick when your buddy comes flailing in with his arm slashing damn near literally cutting his throat.

 

[Storker]

They may have been sporting steel 100s or 120s.

According to their own record, they used 12L tanks. That may not mean much, but IME the standard 12L in southern Europe is a 12x200, which carries about 9% more gas than an Al80 (which, IIRC, is 11L 209 bar). A 15x200, a 12x232 or a 10x300 is about 100 cu.ft, a 15x232 or a 12x300 is in the 120 cu.ft range