Murphy's Law: Skills, Practice & Real Issues

[offgasser]

TO: New and Recently Certified "Technical Divers"

"Murphy's Law": Mr. Murphy seems to be following me since I took up this discipline called Technical/Decompression Diving.

I am an Open Water SCUBA Instructor with over 1,100 dives and am now, again a "NEWBIE" in regards to this discipline. It has humbled me greatly and made me a better diver since obtaining my certification*.

The values of "continue learning", "keep diving", "have fun" which (basically) come from the major organizations which certify new divers have a new and SERIOUS meaning for me now. It seemed like BS when I certified, since "I knew everything" about diving because of my "C-Card" and I felt like it meant "keep buying/spending money". As an instructor, I felt like it meant "keep selling". As a technical diver, I now feel like it means "SAVE your life": continuous/continual diving makes for a better diver and TEAM members for others you are with.

* Certification: I thought I would be "ready" for continuing to my next level which would be Trimix after (only) 20 technical dives, the requirement ✝. For me, this would be analagous to doing Peak Performance Buoyancy after Open Water certification. Afterall, I am an instructor and have hundreds of dives. "Yeah", I said to myself, let's hit the Andrea Doria after Trimix training...and then the Blue Hole in Belize to below 200'.....afterall, I'll be "certified".

✝ Requirement: I am (was) fortunate in that my instructor raised his standards from the certification agency he is aligned with to a much higher number (logued dives) than required by the agency if I was to continue with him. (I assume) his reasoning was simple: experience equals a better diver. I was turned off by this at first, because I wanted to progress at a quicker pace, however, it may have been for the best. See below.

Mr. Murphy and Me:
Although I am "certified" as a "Technical Diver", I am not sure that the following is what you should/would expect within your first 70 technical dives, but it has ALL happened to me:

1) Back Gas Cylinder Neck O-Ring Failure (Catastrophic)
2) Free Flow on 02 Regulator Second Stage - manageable to breathe
3) Complete Free Flow on 50% mix deco - unmanageable to breathe
3) Carotid Artery Reflex Syndrome - tight hood?
4) Back Up Mask Problems - fold up mask causes disorientation
5) Free Flow on Left Cylinder @ 170' during deep portion of dive
6) Back Up Computer Failure #1 - unknown problem
7) Leaking Back up First Stage at connection
8) Back Up Computer Failure #2 - bad repair from #2 - flood LCD - no read
9) Slate bungee break - hard to read slate, flapping around, - bail to computer
10) Open Water ascent - Unplanned, unable to find structure, shoot lift bag for deco
11) Primary Inflator fails - will NOT inflate BCD
See Apeks Post under General
See Redundant Inflator under Equipment Configurations

I do NOT consider myself "normal" in the fact I experienced all of the above issues in my first 69 technical dives, however, I want to let you know that ALL of this has happened to me so far. I figured rationally that it has do to with depth, but irrationally I think that Mr. Murphy is following me around.

I only post this to Newbies, like myself, to remember your training which hopefully reminded you to Expect the Unexpected (or similar).

 

[Cave Diver]

Mr. Murphy and Me:
Although I am "certified" as a "Technical Diver", I am not sure that the following is what you should/would expect within your first 70 technical dives, but it has ALL happened to me:

1) Back Gas Cylinder Neck O-Ring Failure (Catastrophic)
2) Free Flow on 02 Regulator Second Stage - manageable to breathe
3) Complete Free Flow on 50% mix deco - unmanageable to breathe
3) Carotid Artery Reflex Syndrome - tight hood?
4) Back Up Mask Problems - fold up mask causes disorientation
5) Free Flow on Left Cylinder @ 170' during deep portion of dive
6) Back Up Computer Failure #1 - unknown problem
7) Leaking Back up First Stage at connection
8) Back Up Computer Failure #2 - bad repair from #2 - flood LCD - no read
9) Slate bungee break - hard to read slate, flapping around, - bail to computer
10) Open Water ascent - Unplanned, unable to find structure, shoot lift bag for deco
11) Primary Inflator fails - will NOT inflate BCD
See Apeks Post under General
See Redundant Inflator under Equipment Configurations

I do NOT consider myself "normal" in the fact I experienced all of the above issues in my first 69 technical dives, however, I want to let you know that ALL of this has happened to me so far.

Yikes! That's quite the list!

I actually had a similar thread in the works for here. Let me restructure my thoughts on it and I'll be back to post.

 

[Dive-aholic]

10 of your 12 issues are equipment related. Seems like better equipment maintenance would resolve most, if not all, of your issues.

 

[TSandM]

Wow! I don't have anywhere near as many deep dives, but I have about 100 cave dives now. So far, the list is several primary light failures (most before I upgraded to a longer lived battery), a slow leak from a burst disc, and two kicked-off fins (both related to issues that could be, and were addressed and resolved).

 

[Cave Diver]

Since you put this up for review I'd like to discuss your list, starting with the gas issues.

Mr. Murphy and Me:
Although I am "certified" as a "Technical Diver", I am not sure that the following is what you should/would expect within your first 70 technical dives, but it has ALL happened to me:

1) Back Gas Cylinder Neck O-Ring Failure (Catastrophic)

What were the circumstances surrounding this? Was this shortly after a Visual? 6 months and 100 dives since the last visual? Singles? Doubles? How did you deal with this situation?

2) Free Flow on 02 Regulator Second Stage - manageable to breathe
3) Complete Free Flow on 50% mix deco - unmanageable to breathe

Did this occur during the dive or during deco while attempting to use them? Do you keep your deco bottles on or off during the dive? How did you deal with this situation?

5) Free Flow on Left Cylinder @ 170' during deep portion of dive
7) Leaking Back up First Stage at connection

It appears you've had an abnormal amount of gas related issues. Were you able to determine the causes of these or find some commonality among them? i.e. have they all occurred on the same reg, same brand, or something else that ties them together?

I do NOT consider myself "normal" in the fact I experienced all of the above issues in my first 69 technical dives, however, I want to let you know that ALL of this has happened to me so far. I figured rationally that it has do to with depth, but irrationally I think that Mr. Murphy is following me around.

What part do you feel depth is playing in these issues?

 

[rjack321]

It appears you've had an abnormal amount of gas related issues. Were you able to determine the causes of these or find some commonality among them? i.e. have they all occurred on the same reg, same brand, or something else that ties them together?

Agree, there seem to be alot of regulator related issues.

Personally:
I have seen lp hose orings extrude making the deco reg unusable, and the IP shoot skyhigh on a deco reg requiring feathering. Both happened to my buddies not me.

I have seen slow leaking burst disks, and valve stem leaks in others as well.

My own gas leakage issues have both been power inflators (suit and wing slowly inflating).

I've had gauges or gauge batteries fail.

Light failures round out what I can recall of my list. None of these were drama filled events honestly.

 

[Cave Diver]

Agree, there seem to be alot of regulator related issues.

Personally:
I have seen lp hose orings extrude making the deco reg unusable, and the IP shoot skyhigh on a deco reg requiring feathering. Both happened to my buddies not me.

I have seen slow leaking burst disks, and valve stem leaks in others as well.

My own gas leakage issues have both been power inflators (suit and wing slowly inflating).

I've had gauges or gauge batteries fail.

Light failures round out what I can recall of my list. None of these were drama filled events honestly.

My main failures have been light issues. A bit of inconvenience, but no drama there either. A bad battery pack during my cave class ended almost every dive in lights out exit.

A brand new DiveRite can light flooded on the first dive ever with it - no explanation. DiveRite fixed it under warranty.

I failed to loosen the set screw on the reflector on an 18w enough, and accidentally loosened the slug from the ballast trying to adjust it. I flooded the bulb and did another lights out exit.

Had the o-ring extrude on 18w can light, causing a flooded battery compartment. Another lights out exit. The lid also ended up with a microscopic crack that led to small (half teaspoon) water intrusion on subsequent dives. Best guess is that battery pack vented gas or had a small explosion that caused the o-ring to extrude and cracked the lid, but no definitive answer was ever found.

I also had the ziptie on a deco reg mouthpiece break while hanging on the line in a ripping current. Almost sucked in a lungful of water after the mouthpiece came off the reg. Finished the dive with the plastic barrel the mouthpiece attaches to gripped in my teeth.

I also had a DiveRite reel come apart under water, but that's about the extent of failures I've had while diving.

 

[LiteHedded]

I've had a few scooter failures that required either towing or switching to a tow scooter for an exit.

one time a reed switch was improperly tuned and wouldn't turn on. one time the prop sucked up line and once my clutch didn't slip and I hadn't put loc-tite on the screw so the prop just spun off.

user error each time. although only one was my fault

a reg tuned by someone who didn't know what they were doing wouldn't breathe at all at 70' deco but worked fine on the surface for some reason. we popped it off with a wrench and swapped it with a working stage reg.

a few weeks ago I did a triple stage dive in a 200' deep cave. I ended up leaving a stage bottle on the ceiling until AJ was kind enough to retrieve it for me this weekend that was a little hairy as you can imagine it kind of limits the people you can ask to go get it for you. lol does that count as a failure?

I can't think of anything else off hand but there's more. It all just blends together into a big blur of CF after a while


oh once I went to inflate my drysuit and when I pushed the button the inflator exploded and I was left with a one inch hole on my chest and a busted inflator dangling from the hose. glad that happened before the dive

 

[Doppler]

But here are two observations you may want to give some thought to.


PRE-DIVE CHECKLIST.

PRE-DIVE EQUIPMENT CHECK AND TEST.

 

[LiteHedded]

agreed. but when you start putting a ton of gear in the water gear issues are going to crop up.
checking team members' reed switches with an ammeter isn't something I typically do before diving, for instance.

and my reg issue didn't present itself when we breathed it on the surface (but in the water).