Instructor bent after running out of air at 40m

[dmaziuk]

I am not assuming anything, I am questioning the odds. The bottom line is you have to get enough gas in your system to get bent, and that takes time and pressure. M-values programmed in current no-stop models make it highly unlikely that one will get there if one stays within limits, you know that perfectly well. Yes, the risk goes up if you blow your ascent rate, and I'm personally concerned about that because I doubt I could swim that slow if I ever was in CESA situation.

E.g. I once talked to a spine surgeon who said, among other things, that he's seen MRI scans where there's so little room around the spinal cord he couldn't believe that person is not in pain all the time. Apparently that's well within normal variance for the species. I could imagine that in someone like that a tiniest bubble in spinal fluid could cause far more damage than in an average person.

But you have to have all of those things come together in this one guy. That's why the odds feel wrong.

PS. If, OTOH, they went on an inadequately planned and poorly executed deco dive for which they were neither trained nor qualified, that just means it did not happen as described, case closed.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

So all your dives go perfectly to plan and you plan every dive? You never find unexpected circumstances that increase consumption? You never get narced and fail to check your gas? You never get distracted by looking after a buddy? Immune to task obsession?

While not all of my dives are alike I have never been so narced that I failed to check my gas. Running out of air is the top of my list of things that should never happen.

 

[Steve_C]

Post 133 makes a lot of sense. Bring some deco bottles. Then when time to use them they cannot find them. Time spent stressfully looking for deco bottles. They are now in very deep do do. In deco and running out of air.

 

[A.S.H.]

This ms

Post 133 makes a lot of sense. Bring some deco bottles. Then when time to use them they cannot find them. Time spent stressfully looking for deco bottles. They are now in very deep do do. In deco and running out of air.

Well this makes much more sense, maybe, still shouldn't have been so disorganized to point if panic of not locating the deco bottles that they placed.

Had anyone else that has experience in this have had this happen? I'm curious.

 

[CT-Rich]

The problem with this accident is it takes a special kind of stupid to get that bent and run out of gas. They could have done it at 40 m, but it takes some serious zero to hero stupidity to go to that depth and hang out and accumulate the bottom time required and also run out of gas.

Reading the facebook posts, my *guess* is that they were making progressively deeper bounce dives. They may have posted about it on social media and the bosses foundout and told them to knock it off.

The best way to get in trouble diving is to have gotten away with it before. An additional 10 meters on a bounce dive will burn through a lot of air. On this day Darwin held the pooch down while Murphy applied the lube.

 

[CT-Rich]

This ms

Well this makes much more sense, maybe, still shouldn't have been so disorganized to point if panic of not locating the deco bottles that they placed.

Had anyone else that has experience in this have had this happen? I'm curious.

The Rouses died because the the younger Rouse was temporarily trapped in the U-who. When he got free, he raced to the wrong part of the wreck looking for his deco bottles. When he couldn’t find them, he made a panicked ascent with a big obligation. That comes from my recollection of reading Shadow Divers.

 

[A.S.H.]

The problem with this accident is it takes a special kind of stupid to get that bent and run out of gas. They could have done it at 40 m, but it takes some serious zero to hero stupidity to go to that depth and hang out and accumulate the bottom time required and also run out of gas.

Reading the facebook posts, my *guess* is that they were making progressively deeper bounce dives. They may have posted about it on social media and the bosses foundout and told them to knock it off.

The best way to get in trouble diving is to have gotten away with it before. An additional 10 meters on a bounce dive will burn through a lot of air. On this day Darwin held the pooch down while Murphy applied the lube.

Ok, I understand a little better now. Still the problem with people who nothing about SCUBA, applies INSRUCTOR and EXPIRANCED to all of scuba no matter the individual specified discipline you are proficient at, I.E. Cave, Wreck, Exended Range and so forth.

I have said before, you need proper training and confidance in said discipline no matter the X number of dives you have or X Title you may have.

I don't do dives I have no business doing, i live by that rule, untill have the training and confidence to do the dives safety as possible.
Most of my friends say I'm way to conservative in my way of thinking. I like to stay above ground these days.

 

[soggybadger]

Yeah, if it's public. Though you might have posted it in a scuba group...

No strictly private my fb. Too much bird if it was public.

 

[soggybadger]

I personally don’t think you should go past 30m on a single tank especially Ireland / UK cold water diving with no vis

I wouldn't go below 20m without redundancy in the UK but I'm a pussy.

 

[Deco David]

So, I read the story on the BBC. My first reaction was how could that possibly have happened with four experienced (but young) divers. My second was that they must have been a bit narced. They were at 132 feet. Now, I think of myself as a careful diver, but twice I've lost track of my air photographing nudibranchs (the BBC article says that what they were going to see). Once I went back after I got my camera working and didn't realize how much deeper the nudi was than I had been when I checked my air before going back to the nudi. The other time, I just lost track of time and air photographing. So, I can understand how it could happen.

I know just what you mean about losing track, it's the same when I'm driving on a motorway and trying to update my Facebook status whilst drunk and wearing a blindfold - just can't keep an eye on two things at once!