It was bound to happen some time -- something that really went wrong, and couldn't be solved underwater. I was incredibly lucky that it happened on a training dive.
I went down this afternoon with Steve White, my Fundies instructor, and DoubleDip, my practice partner. We were doing a training dive, and we had a long agenda of activities to include some drills, having Steve look at the mechanics of kicks, help with trim, and on and on. The dive started well with some good air-sharing drills, and DoubleDip did a lovely valve drill (would that I could). We kicked a while, did some hovering, and then I noticed that DoubleDip's backup light was on. Last dive, he had done things of that sort to test my situational awareness, so I thought he was at it again. I gave him the "hold" signal, and went to fix the problem. Unfortunately, I was having trouble getting the light to go off, and while I fussed with it, I suddenly noticed an emergency signal from Steve's light. I looked around, and here Steve is with his reg spat out, signalling "OUT OF AIR". After the requisite thirty second "duh" period, I deployed my primary and began the air share. We completed the drill with me, of course, on my secondary, and then Steve gave me my primary back. I dropped my secondary, and it began to freeflow. It does that sometimes if it's upside-down, so I picked it up and turned it over, and the freeflow continued. I banged it a couple of times against my hand, but nothing changed. I put it in my mouth and exhaled sharply against it, which will often stop the flow, but it didn't. I began to realize that I was losing gas very rapidly, and within a short time, would need something to breathe.
At that point, BOTH of my dive buddies had their long hoses deployed and their regulators available to me. DoubleDip had planned to try turning my valve off and back on, to see if we could get the regulator to behave, but Steve was in a position to see my SPG, and knew I was already below 500 psi from the freeflow, and there wasn't any point trying to get me back on my own air supply. So he waved DoubleDip off, and I went on his long hose, and we did an ascent. It wasn't very well controlled on my part -- turns out the sheer noise and visual impairment from the freeflow is quite distracting -- but it wasn't an uncontrolled bolt for the surface, either. We spent a little time at 20 feet and then went on up. My tank was absolutely, utterly empty before we got to the surface, and we started at about 35 feet.
Of interest, I subsequently tried to do a second dive with a different second stage on that hose, and it bubbled uncontrollably as well. It looked like an IP creep, but they put the first stage on the bench at the shop, and the IP was within tolerance. So it's unclear what the problem is, and the reg is being torn down and serviced tomorrow.
Lessons learned: 1) Equipment malfunctions happen, even if you take care of your stuff and get it serviced regularly.
2) As I intellectually knew, a freeflow empties a tank FAST.
3) It is immensely comforting, when your life support equipment goes south, to be in the company of people who have trained extensively and intensely to be instantly prepared to help in just such circumstances.
4) It is very useful, when such things happen, to have trained YOURSELF to be able to be reasonably calm and cooperative with your helpers as you try to negotiate the emergency.
I started a thread some time back about how many people practice skills on a regular basis. This was a beautiful object lesson in the utility of being instantly prepared to air-share in a circumstance where your buddy is NOT guilty of poor gas management, but the victim of an unpredictable -- and unfixable -- equipment malfunction.
And I have to say that, if you have to have an underwater emergency, doing so four feet from a GUE instructor is as good a place to do it as you can possibly choose!
I went down this afternoon with Steve White, my Fundies instructor, and DoubleDip, my practice partner. We were doing a training dive, and we had a long agenda of activities to include some drills, having Steve look at the mechanics of kicks, help with trim, and on and on. The dive started well with some good air-sharing drills, and DoubleDip did a lovely valve drill (would that I could). We kicked a while, did some hovering, and then I noticed that DoubleDip's backup light was on. Last dive, he had done things of that sort to test my situational awareness, so I thought he was at it again. I gave him the "hold" signal, and went to fix the problem. Unfortunately, I was having trouble getting the light to go off, and while I fussed with it, I suddenly noticed an emergency signal from Steve's light. I looked around, and here Steve is with his reg spat out, signalling "OUT OF AIR". After the requisite thirty second "duh" period, I deployed my primary and began the air share. We completed the drill with me, of course, on my secondary, and then Steve gave me my primary back. I dropped my secondary, and it began to freeflow. It does that sometimes if it's upside-down, so I picked it up and turned it over, and the freeflow continued. I banged it a couple of times against my hand, but nothing changed. I put it in my mouth and exhaled sharply against it, which will often stop the flow, but it didn't. I began to realize that I was losing gas very rapidly, and within a short time, would need something to breathe.
At that point, BOTH of my dive buddies had their long hoses deployed and their regulators available to me. DoubleDip had planned to try turning my valve off and back on, to see if we could get the regulator to behave, but Steve was in a position to see my SPG, and knew I was already below 500 psi from the freeflow, and there wasn't any point trying to get me back on my own air supply. So he waved DoubleDip off, and I went on his long hose, and we did an ascent. It wasn't very well controlled on my part -- turns out the sheer noise and visual impairment from the freeflow is quite distracting -- but it wasn't an uncontrolled bolt for the surface, either. We spent a little time at 20 feet and then went on up. My tank was absolutely, utterly empty before we got to the surface, and we started at about 35 feet.
Of interest, I subsequently tried to do a second dive with a different second stage on that hose, and it bubbled uncontrollably as well. It looked like an IP creep, but they put the first stage on the bench at the shop, and the IP was within tolerance. So it's unclear what the problem is, and the reg is being torn down and serviced tomorrow.
Lessons learned: 1) Equipment malfunctions happen, even if you take care of your stuff and get it serviced regularly.
2) As I intellectually knew, a freeflow empties a tank FAST.
3) It is immensely comforting, when your life support equipment goes south, to be in the company of people who have trained extensively and intensely to be instantly prepared to help in just such circumstances.
4) It is very useful, when such things happen, to have trained YOURSELF to be able to be reasonably calm and cooperative with your helpers as you try to negotiate the emergency.
I started a thread some time back about how many people practice skills on a regular basis. This was a beautiful object lesson in the utility of being instantly prepared to air-share in a circumstance where your buddy is NOT guilty of poor gas management, but the victim of an unpredictable -- and unfixable -- equipment malfunction.
And I have to say that, if you have to have an underwater emergency, doing so four feet from a GUE instructor is as good a place to do it as you can possibly choose!
