My first underwater emergency

[Ber Rabbit]

Ber, thinking about playing with freeflows makes me nervous -- the only other time I've had one was bleeding a tank to do a weight check, and it probably froze. With our water in the mid 40's, I'd be worried about doing that again. Maybe I should play with this in the tropics. Desensitizing to the bubbles might not be a bad thing.

That's why you do it after your safety stop. Come back from a dive with a little extra air, complete your stop then at safety stop depth mess around with the free flow. You have no obligation to stay down if things aren't working well and really you're at swimming pool depth (our pool is 14 feet deep).
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[LSDeep]

Just had my first free flow too. At 45' my buddy and I were cleaning some debris around a boat. My first thought was Anger..."get this S600 fixed NOW". Went to my Xstream 2nd and began sticking my thumb & fingers inside the holes to stop it. Looked at my computer after a few seconds and saw the dreaded hour glass stop signal. I drifted up to 30' too fast. Caught myself at 20' and calmed down and made a 1-min. safety stop at 15' (we were only at depth for 3 minutes so it was a recommeded at best). My buddy was occupied and things happened in split seconds. What made me even more angry was I never thought to shut the dumb thing down on my H-valve even though I had recently practiced it! The blast in the mouth was a task overload for me, but the bubble wooshing when it wasnt in my mouth was worse. Back to practicing the shut-down. Its difficult to decide to handle things yourself right away or to just go right to your buddy. I'm sure he could have shut my valve down, but my brain was racing. Diving cold is tough and ads to task loading for sure. Glad to have the experience in a relatively shallow, safe quarry.

having a h valve or sth similar is great, ocasional skill practice will make sure you will use it also .

 

[FFMDiver]

That's why you do it after your safety stop. Come back from a dive with a little extra air, complete your stop then at safety stop depth mess around with the free flow. You have no obligation to stay down if things aren't working well and really you're at swimming pool depth (our pool is 14 feet deep).
Ber :lilbunny:

Wow, great advice here.

 

[Diver0001]

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.

...snip interesting story...

Just a question. Why did you use the word "emergency" to describe this?

You could have said problem, issue, situation, incident, circumstance, event, hazard, "adventure" (perhaps), unexpected experience, moment, shock, escalation or probably a dozen other words, but you used the word "emergency".

Curious.

R..

 

[Cacia]

yea, Rob, very perceptive...I had the same thought. I would be inclined to have called it a ...mishap. Not to minimize the importance of the lesson, of course.

Lynne, you are having an impact on me. I find myself getting a little paranoid dinking around at 100 ft out of site from my buddy now....KNOWLEDGE is ruining ALL my fun!

No kidding, swimming around sharing a long hose with my regular buddy, swimming or drifting in tandem, in unison, makes my comfort level go up regarding how we would function together, if we had to quickly accomplish a save in a "situation".

(glad you gained a new notch) next time, you will be like, 'here we go again". I still have never had that happen.
I wonder if something is stuck in there....

 

[Diver0001]

re: post 8. Yes you can. You just don't believe it yet......perhaps this is related to my previous question.

R..

 

[TSandM]

Well, I think of an emergency as something that goes wrong that needs urgent, appropriate action, and if mishandled, can have serious negative consequences. (I make my living handling them.) This was a minor emergency by virtue of where we were and who was there, but the same malfunction could have been a bigger emergency in other circumstances.

At any rate, it was the first significant "bad thing" that's happened to me while diving.

As far as the valve thing goes, earlier in the dive, I had spent several minutes attempting to accomplish a valve drill. That included eventually unbuckling the harness and trying to shove the tank up so I could reach it, as well as adding air to my drysuit to increase my mobility, and having my buddy guide my hand to the valve in case I just had the wrong idea about where it was. I got my fingertips on the valve, but no grip. We spent some time afterward talking about what I can change to try to make it go better. Steve says I've got plenty of range of motion in the shoulder itself.

 

[OE2X]

yea, Rob, very perceptive...I had the same thought. I would be inclined to have called it a ...mishap. Not to minimize the importance of the lesson, of course.

She is having an impact on me. I find myself getting a little paranoid dinking around at 100 ft out of site from my buddy now....KNOWLEDGE is ruining ALL my fun!

Hmmm what's next actually diving with a buddy and doing S-drills? Maybe fundies?

Ring, ring, ring... "Hey OE2X it's the Devil. It just got glacial down here. What's going up there? Did Catherine go over to the dark side?"

 

[TSandM]

Besides, "My first underwater contretemps" just wasn't going to read as well

 

[Cacia]

But.....my ignorant bliss has such a grip on my soul


Lynne, that would have sent me scurrying off for the dictionary though. No verdict on the reg yet? I am waiting with interest on that. (read: how does this impact me) Your post are always so...relevant!