My first "incident" as a diver

[The Chairman]

The proponents of that will pontificate about some mythical issue with valves getting jammed on which I've never seen and never read as actually happening anywhere.

I hate to ruin your carefully crafted stereotype, but that's not why I am a proponent of turning the handle back a bit.

It just makes it easier to see if it's on or not.

If the only time a valve is "tight" is when it's closed, then a simple wiggle of a valve should tell you immediately if it's on or off. Working at a Cryogenic Chemistry lab during my University days, I was taught this methodology. I do remember the one valve that had been tightened in the on position and the post-doc who ruined that valve trying to open it.

Tank valves take a lot of abuse. People often over tighten them both ways and it wears on the brass. While it doesn't need to be a full quarter turn back, keeping it a little loose makes sense to me.

Let's face it, having it loose would NOT have prevented the tank valve being turned off. That's a non sequitur. However, hard to turn tank valves are an accident waiting to happen, and can cause confusion among people not thinking about the possibility.

 

[DandyDon]

Yeah, I actually go for full-open and back just a touch, but not a 1/4. That works for me, and my home bud. Too much to ask of an inst-bud. But then I don't dive without a pony anyway if I can help it.

To the OP, after nearly 10 years I still screw up on the valve thing myself. Don't feel bad; just be better than me.

 

[lamont]

If the only time a valve is "tight" is when it's closed, then a simple wiggle of a valve should tell you immediately if it's on or off.

Which I believe is precisely what failed when I had my air turned off. I had my air open but all the way open. Someone did the wiggle and it registered 'closed' in their mind, so they turned the valve the wrong way, back to actual closed and then opened it up 1/4. That made sense to them since they'd taken a valve from a hard stop to a 'wiggleable' stop so of course that must be open.

The solution there is just to learn which way valves open and close in the first place. And in the second place, you can replace the 'wiggle' with simply breathing off the reg and/or inflating the wing -- where there's possibility of right/left confusion, either its delivering gas or it isn't.

And of course I don't recommend jamming valves open like a gorilla, and you only need to back it off the tiniest fraction of a rotation, say 1/32nd rather than 1/4, to get it just off of being hard onto the stop.

 

[cindycycle]

Some of the most mentioned suggestions included a focus on the pre-dive equipment check and taking a refresher course. I appreciate every comment, whether I clicked on the Thanks button or not, because you spent some of your personal time to respond to my post.

 

[The Chairman]

Which I believe is precisely what failed when I had my air turned off.

Which is why I rebuild my valve with every VI and leave it loose when I turn it on.

On my last incident, the guy just got confused with the handle on the other side of the valve. He got his righty tighty, lefty loosey all confuselled.

I prefer that people leave tech equipment ALONE.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Cindy, netdock is correct you can learn from here far more, as you have the conveince of your time. also as you read and post you will have many opions from divers.

Practice reaching back and turning your air on and off, eventualy your arm gets stretched enough it gets easier. And others have given you ways to check before submerging.

I have done this myself before, it does happen, you just need to prepare or it and remember your gear check before you desend.

Now I dive different configurations, so once in awhile I can not descend, and pull up on the boat and look in and there is my weight belt. Buy the time my camera, speargun, stringer are clipped on I forget, things once in awhile. The absolute worst is in a drysuit, roll over in to water and you can not go anywhere, most the time I have surface current and hold on anchor line and have no air in BC, so to drop down, but even in very little current in a drysuit with no fins is a chore to swim to the boat a couple meters away. I have went to the bottom and walked to the anchor line and ascended to get my fins. There always standing up so I just need to reach over and grab them.

Happy Diving

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Which I believe is precisely what failed when I had my air turned off. I had my air open but all the way open. Someone did the wiggle and it registered 'closed' in their mind, so they turned the valve the wrong way, back to actual closed and then opened it up 1/4. That made sense to them since they'd taken a valve from a hard stop to a 'wiggleable' stop so of course that must be open.

The solution there is just to learn which way valves open and close in the first place. And in the second place, you can replace the 'wiggle' with simply breathing off the reg and/or inflating the wing -- where there's possibility of right/left confusion, either its delivering gas or it isn't.

And of course I don't recommend jamming valves open like a gorilla, and you only need to back it off the tiniest fraction of a rotation, say 1/32nd rather than 1/4, to get it just off of being hard onto the stop.

The "Stop" is crushing the crap out of a little o-ring. I think they last a lot longer if you don't crank the tank valve open hard. I also try to be gentle on opening and then back off from the completely open position.

I myself have seen a number of screw ups with valves. This is the policy that I have tried to implement and i think it may have the best safety potential...

although my buddies don't like it, I still turn and check their valves. However, what I am doing is confirming that they are open. When finished, I ALWAYS return the valve to the exact same position where THEY HAD IT.

If I think they screwed up, then I say" Hey I just checked your valve, I think you had it only cracked open YOU need to take the rig off and check it yourself" (or they can reach back and check).

I think this is best, because I know that if I do this procedure, I will never be responsible for turning a guys air off. If he enters with it 1/4 turn on, it was his fault, he touched it last. If he doesm't listen to me, well he is no worse off than without my check.

 

[The Chairman]

If I think they screwed up, then I say" Hey I just checked your valve, I think you had it only cracked open YOU need to take the rig off and check it yourself" (or they can reach back and check).

YEAH! When you THINK someone makes a mistake, don't worry about embarrassing them: TELL THEM. Communicate and people will learn.

 

[Ayisha]

Which I believe is precisely what failed when I had my air turned off. I had my air open but all the way open. Someone did the wiggle and it registered 'closed' in their mind, so they turned the valve the wrong way, back to actual closed and then opened it up 1/4. That made sense to them since they'd taken a valve from a hard stop to a 'wiggleable' stop so of course that must be open.

That happened to me too a few years ago by DM's when I was keeping my valve fully open. Once while my rig was on me and once when I wasn't around it after putting it together. I caught it both times before I splashed by checking it physically and breathing on the reg while checking the pressure, as I learned on SB. I took a lot of flack for keeping it fully open, had to keep explaining myself, and was not impressed with people turning off my valve, so I just went back to turning it back slightly. BTW, I think the description of just keeping it loose rather than an actual quarter turn back is a more accurate description of what most of us "proponents" do. I'm thinking 1/16th of a turn...

 

[chrpai]

This happened to me once many years ago.. I think it was on my first nitrox checkout dive. I was probably at about 15-20' when I noticed my needle going back and forth. I had never seen this before so it didn't register the severity to me. I signaled to my instructor buddy that something was wrong with my gauge and he took care of it for me.

I never let that happen again.