Multiple deaths diving off NC coast May 10, 2020?

[Angelo Farina]

The reg fills of water when removed from the mouth, not when reversed. When you place it back in your mouth, it must be evacuated. This can be accomplished in two ways:
1) expiring
2) pressing the purge button
In both cases the water is completely evacuated only if the exhaust valve was low. If the reg is upside down, air goes up through water, without pushing it out completely.
During the following inhalation, you will breath some water...
In the case of this sad accident it appears to me that the situation was not so bad if the lady did not inspire water due to the reg being upside down. I have not enough info for evaluating how this could have been avoided, I just made an educated guess about the fact that this happened as a consequence of donating the primary without an hose of proper length and properly routed...
And this based on my personal experience when I had to breath from my wife's primary, which was routed on her right shoulder with a short hose.
As the two divers were experienced and skilled, it makes sens to blame their equipment at least as a concause of the sad end.
It looks unfair to me assigning to their lack of care monitoring their SPG as the only cause.
I also got myself missing to check my SPG in some circumstances, but thanks of always employing proper equipment with enough redundancy I never suffered bad consequences for my errors.
I know very well that equipment should never be a substitute for proper training and for safe planning and execution. Nevertheless, unforeseen events happen, despite training and planning: having some redundant gas resource can make all the difference between life and death.
So from this accident I learn both about dive planning and execution, but also on proper choice and configuration of equipment.

 

[Lostdiver71]

The real problem here is complacency, that is why we see most fatalities with very experienced divers! If you do something long enough it becomes routine and most people think that it will always be the same until it isn't, that is when people get hurt or killed. Always keep in mind that just because you have done the same dive dozens or even hundreds of times that today could be the day that something goes wrong and be prepared.

 

[scubadada]

The real problem here is complacency, that is why we see most fatalities with very experienced divers! If you do something long enough it becomes routine and most people think that it will always be the same until it isn't, that is when people get hurt or killed. Always keep in mind that just because you have done the same dive dozens or even hundreds of times that today could be the day that something goes wrong and be prepared.

Nearly 2000 dives, I continue to check my gas and NDL on a routine basis. When events like this happen, I always wonder how anyone could ever accidentally run out of gas. My answer is that they are not me.

 

[johndiver999]

Nearly 2000 dives, I continue to check my gas and NDL on a routine basis. When events like this happen, I always wonder how anyone could ever accidentally run out of gas. My answer is that they are not me.

I view things differently. I have spaced out and driven right through stop signs, red lights and about 7 years ago, pulled out into oncoming traffic without seeing an oncoming car. (I've not been in a car accident for over 20 years, but I will the first to admit that I have screwed up).

If your gear is working perfectly and you simply fail to watch your air, there is no valid excuse. On the other hand, humans are imperfect, they can be careless, distracted, inattentive and complacent. I know I have exhibited all those attributes when driving and diving.

So I just carry a pony bottle and try to watch my air. Spearfishing is super "distracting" and can be very exciting and can cause wild swings in air consumption. It is far different than sight seeing.

Rather than wondering how people can run out of air, I wonder how several of my buddies can dive solo in over 100 feet and refuse to carry any redundancy.

 

[scubadada]

I view things differently. I have spaced out and driven right through stop signs, red lights and about 7 years ago, pulled out into oncoming traffic without seeing an oncoming car. (I've not been in a car accident for over 20 years, but I will the first to admit that I have screwed up).

If your gear is working perfectly and you simply fail to watch your air, there is no valid excuse. On the other hand, humans are imperfect, they can be careless, distracted, inattentive and complacent. I know I have exhibited all those attributes when driving and diving.

So I just carry a pony bottle and try to watch my air. Spearfishing is super "distracting" and can be very exciting and can cause wild swings in air consumption. It is far different than sight seeing.

Rather than wondering how people can run out of air, I wonder how several of my buddies can dive solo in over 100 feet and refuse to carry any redundancy.

You can rationalize any behavior, I can't think of any good reason not to check your gas and NDL. If you haven't checked it in a little while, you know what it was when you last checked, and know how much time you had left.

 

[Dan]

It can be a problem only if the hose is very short, so that there is not hose length enough for making the hose to come from the right side of the second stage.
I experienced this at beginning of my carrier, when I had to get air from my wife's primary (and only) reg, equipped with a short hose: placing it my my mouth correctly oriented, while facing each other and swimming up, was truly difficult...
After that accident (or near miss) we both purchased a complete second reg, and started mounting it on the left post of our tanks. The hose was still short (the standard one Scubapro was supplying at the time, it was 1979).
But thanks to the rotating turret of the MK5, mounted with turret up, it was possible to use the secondary reg either as an alternate air source for the owner, or as an emergency reg for the buddy, routing the hose on the left shoulder to share air, if required .
At the time, my BCD was the Fenzee collar you see on my avatar, so the left shoulder had no hose from the BCD.
When we started working as dive masters and instructors in resorts, in 1985, we were given a complete Cressi regulator (and we were mandated to use it, at least the second stage, for contractual reasons). Of course we did consider it inferior to our SP 109+MK5, so we added this yellow Cressi 2nd stage, with his long-than-normal yellow hose, to our standard configuration of two MK5 and two 109.
As these were always packed-group dives, with one of us leading the group (of 6 divers max, arranged in pairs) and the other closing the group, during the briefing we did always explain that in case of an OOA situation the best choice was to search for one of us, and not to ask air to the buddy. And that the reg to reach was the yellow Cressi, with the long yellow hose, on our left shoulder.
In 5 years of activity I had at least 3 or 4 cases of OOA divers, always giving them this 3rd dedicated reg without any problems.
My wife had many more cases, perhaps 12, and again everything always worked flawlessy. So I think that, for a DM, this is the correct way. It must also be said that we were using tanks with 150% the capacity of the tanks given to customers, so we were quite confident to always have enough air to share. This was particularly true for my wife, as she breaths very little air. And this was the reason for which in most cases she was the one donating air...

Back OT: from the description of the video, it seems to me that the moment when things went really off rail was when the lady got the primary reg of the husband reversed, and she started coughing and vomiting.
Perhaps, if the reg was not upside down, she had managed to get a couple of full breaths, calming down, and the couple could ascend with a CESA thanks to the little air remaining. Probably this had resulted in some sort of DCS, but always better than drowning...
So, again, employing equipment better configured, the accident could have been not deadly for both.
This means either a primary reg properly set up for being donated (with a hose of proper length and properly routed), with a necklaced AAS for the donor, or an additional separate reg on the second post, with long hose and routed on the left shoulder, as I and my wife used to employ when diving with customers (or, later, with our sons).

Thanks for posting the left shoulder routing of the yellow hose idea. In preparation to my upcoming dive next weekend, today I rerouted my yellow hose from the right LP port of my Scubapro MK25 to the left LP port next to the power inflator hose port.

The 40”-long yellow hose is routed under my left shoulder with the Octo quick-realease clip attached to the left chess D-ring. So it won’t interfere with the the power inflator when I need to raise the power inflator hose above my left shoulder.

I plan to practice the procedure of handing over the Octo to my dive buddy at the beginning of the checkout dive. When we are facing each other in the blue water, I plan to rip the Octo off my left chess D-ring with my left hand and hand it to him. I think the yellow hose would make a half-circle loop from my 1-st stage regulator to his mouth, not the S-curve that some of the poster mentioned. Then we’ll reverse the role with him handing his Octo to me.

That’s the theory. We’ll see how the real practice turns out.

 

[johndiver999]

I agree, there is no good reason.

If your gear is working perfectly and you simply fail to watch your air, there is no valid excuse.

 

[Jcp2]

Nearly 2000 dives, I continue to check my gas and NDL on a routine basis. When events like this happen, I always wonder how anyone could ever accidentally run out of gas. My answer is that they are not me.

Regular people run out of gas regularly in their cars, despite having a working gas gauge, a bright yellow low gas light, and in newer cars, estimated remaining range. My old boss ran out of gas three times in one day, yet was able to build a business that he sold for millions of dollars. I never ran out of gas ever, but I didn’t see a penny of the sale price. He’s retired happily. I’m working for a different company towards retirement. Who’s smarter?

 

[scubadada]

Regular people run out of gas regularly in their cars, despite having a working gas gauge, a bright yellow low gas light, and in newer cars, estimated remaining range. My old boss ran out of gas three times in one day, yet was able to build a business that he sold for millions of dollars. I never ran out of gas ever, but I didn’t see a penny of the sale price. He’s retired happily. I’m working for a different company towards retirement. Who’s smarter?

Running out of gas underwater has different ramifications

 

[stuartv]

it is common along the NC coast to see AL80s used for such dives.

Where do you see that happening? I have primarily dived with Olympus (Morehead City) and Discovery (Beaufort) and it seems like everyone that I see with rental tanks has steel 100s (or larger).

Depending on tank size and gas consumption...you’ve got a good chance of having to head to the surface before you hit your NDL. Ex. I never hit my NDL while diving there at ~105’. I had to surface each dive based on gas consumption.

What size tank?

I'm not exactly great on gas consumption and have always used a dive computer with a very liberal algorithm. When I have dived there, in that depth range (100 - 115'), I have always stayed down right up to my NDL and then surfaced (with a proper safety stop) with at least 500 psi in a HP100.

Do you normally stay much shallower than the bottom? Use a small tank? I don't understand how any reasonably experienced diver (implying somewhat halfway decent SAC rate) can run out gas before NDL - if you're using a 100 or larger. I guess if you're swimming moderately hard and a lot - as I guess you might when spearfishing.