My first underwater emergency

[Cacia]

could you please get some shots at the Rhone?...I am so envious. I think it is the most beautiful wreck I have ever seen. And if you need any camera stuff, Royal Caribbean in St. Thomas has excellent prices! You should visit Mauricio Handler's gallery. Can I plan the whole trip, would you guys mind?

 

[ScubaTwo]

My husband and regular dive buddy was often very inattentive. I asked him if he even knew were the washing machine was in the event of my demise. Things improved immediately

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Doc, I love you, but wouldn't having my buddy five or six feet away from me, and reasonably attentive, forestall the need for a 60 fpm ascent while trying to stay calm and focused on top of an obnoxiously noisy and distracting freeflowing regulator? Is six feet not enough room to have fun? (I'm trying not to be acrimonious -- I reserve that for my spouse.)

Everything you say is exactly so! (And if it weren't I would find something else to notice... )

I only referred to the absence of a buddy as perhaps not quite as risky as it might seem, given that you can still breath. (Who was it that said 'so long as you can still breath, all other issues underwater are merely an annoyance'??)

But as Snowbear reminds us, comfort zones are individual matters indeed!

[What was that last part about the future canonization of Peter? Were you thinking "St Peter the Calm"? (Or "St Peter the Impossible"?) ]

Doc knows better than this, he is withdrawing expeditiously!

I hope you both have a thoroughly wonderful vacation, and return with many tales!

Bon Voyage...

 

[DiverLaura]

Doc is right... In the old days, we'd teach students to breath out of the free flowing reg. We'd have them practice it... Sometimes just on bottom, sometimes as part of their practice "free swimming ascent" sometimes just to show them how long they have if the start with a 1/2 full tank.

sidenote, it is great to have wonderful buddies, to practice OOG drills, etc... But, would the freeflow have happened if you had not been doing the drill? One never knows. This is why I prefer my dive buddy to be withing kicking distance To have them 30' away is basically like diving solo in my book.

glad alls well that ends well

-L

Lynne, god forbid my comments should follow a long and somewhat acrimonious marital discussion, but just remember that unless you have overhead going, tangible or deco obligation, a free-flowing regulator can still be breathed for quite awhile as you ascend. Its uncomfortable and scary and a PITA, no doubt, but at a rate of 60 feet per minute which (uh, well within my lifetime) was long considered perfectly acceptable means that from 120' you're on the surface in two minutes. A free-flowing reg should allow you to swim upwards for at least two minutes while you're still breathing off it, so it might not (depending on other factors) require that you assume horrendous unnecessary risk.

And now I will flee the thread, lest I be hit in the head with a thrown object or otherwise subjected to acrimonious discourse!! LOL

 

[DiverBuoy]

It was bound to happen some time -- something that really went wrong
...
Lessons learned: 1) Equipment malfunctions happen, even if you take care of your stuff and get it serviced regularly.
...

But I'm not that seasoned.

I've been diving less than a year, and this was the first real major problem I've run into. But that's the lesson -- recognize when the acute emergency is past, and then go back to business as usual.

You mentioned you take care of your stuff and get it serviced regularly ... but also indicated you've been diving less than a year. Not that it was your case but most regulator mfg's recommend an annual service OR a certain number of dives. There are exceptions like Atomic which offers 2x that period and dives.

Depending on the amount of exposure to corrosive influences like salt water and quality of regular post dive gear rinsings performed it's possible that a servicing is warranted based on the number of dives and or less than adequate maintenance before even reaching the first annual servicing. I can't tell of course from your statements if you had a full replacement of wearable parts and a vinegar bath for your regs components prior to the required annual maintenance or if you managed the cleanings properly I also cannot say. But if you were diving less than a year but as a very active diver it may even be possible you needed a full servicing at 6 months or in some rare cases sooner ... and definitely if the post-dive care was even accidentally mismanaged in anyway, such as submerging the first stage in a rinsing bucket/bin without the cap over it, or high pressure garden hose firing water up into places it's not supposed to go. In general terms a very common problem is folks who submerge their regulators both stages in a tub or bath to clean them not realizing that without proper management things can go wrong with this simple operation. I personally recommend attaching your regulator to your tank turning on the air and then blast the garden hose with meticulous care to cover everything ... along with mfg recommended servicing you can get years of operation out of a regulator maintained in this fashion.

I'm very pleased you were surrounded by competent buddies and things turned out so well.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

TSandM, can you touch the area where your tank valve would be when you are not wearing your drysuit? I can reach my valve in a wetsuit but can't reach it in my drysuit, I just found out my drysuit is made for people up to 5'5" and I'm almost 5'7". When I try to reach back there is not enough slack in the suit under my arm to get my hand where it needs to be. Just got a drysuit that's a little taller so hopefully that will solve the problem. Unfortunately some drysuit manufacturers assume that just because you're thin you're short.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[piikki]

Whoa Lynne, exhilarating isn’t it? It's like someone tampering with your dive! Hope you are pumped up and getting all the best out of your experience. It’s kind of great when it happens this way, still it makes your brain go on overgear for a while, doesn’t it?

Couple of questions I’d like to make – only because I know your training and I know I can go hard on you I read your description, and the first word I got stuck on was ‘sometimes’. You said that your secondary free flows “sometimes if it's upside-down.” Now, I realize that this probably is something fairly common with some regs but for me ‘sometimes’ is too often. I dive in cold water and if either of my regs freeflows, I don’t like it, and I have them checked out before I dive again. Maybe I am weird but that’s the pre-dive -part for me

Then the ‘post’ part. You actually already addressed some of this later on the thread but I’d like to learn more. I was wondering about the valve shutting too, and then you find out you’d missed it being shut. Well, alright, it was your first incident, and you were a bit off rail during the ascent. However, I am surprised to hear this was not covered in your post-dive debrief. So, this goes out as a curious wannabe question, what did you cover in the post-dive discussion re: this incident?

One more curiousness satisfying question:

just remember that unless you have overhead going, tangible or deco obligation, a free-flowing regulator can still be breathed for quite awhile as you ascend. Its uncomfortable and scary and a PITA, no doubt, but at a rate of 60 feet per minute which (uh, well within my lifetime) was long considered perfectly acceptable means that from 120' you're on the surface in two minutes. A free-flowing reg should allow you to swim upwards for at least two minutes while you're still breathing off it, so it might not (depending on other factors) require that you assume horrendous unnecessary risk.

Ok, I just have to ask… since I am a doubter… but wouldn’t a free-flowing second stage push air out way quicker than, say, burst O-ring on reg hose? The latter happened to me, and while I realize my turn pressure at 120f would be slightly different, I can tell that 1700PSI from Al80 at 18feet depth came out in <60 seconds. Fast fast fast. So, I was left with a lingering doubt about these free flows giving me that much time for an escape from real depth. I’d certainly try to preserve some if by some freak accident my buddy had abandoned me. What were your numbers by the way Lynne?

 

[TSandM]

Ber, yes, I can touch the middle of my back at T2 when out of my gear. Further, I did a valve drill with only a little grunting when in Maui, in a 3 mil suit. Steve checked my drysuit in Fundies, and loose, it has enough room in it to reach the valve. It's a combination of undergarment, suit, and harness that makes it so difficult underwater. I will get this done, though.

Piikki, my understanding of why the reg freeflows upside down has to do with the pressure gradients when the inlet and outflow valves are reversed in position. There's enough gradient to open the inlet valve. It's pretty common, at least that I've seen. I am thinking, though, after this incident, to have the shop detune that reg even further to help prevent this.

What we discussed in the post-dive debrief was my buddy's strategy to turn the valve off and then try turning it back on, which Steve vetoed because he knew how little air I had. We discussed the difficulties I had controlling buoyancy on the way up. We also discussed things we could have done underwater, assuming the valve was shut off and I had enough remaining air to make it worthwhile, to find the cause of the problem and correct it.

I honestly don't know how long it was between the onset of the freeflow and the emptying of the tank. I had about 1900 psi when it started. But under stress, time dilates and compresses in strange ways, so I don't know how long it took for me to fiddle with the reg, decide it wasn't going to stop, get on Steve's long hose, and ascend. And as it turns out, when the noise stopped, it wasn't because the tank was completely empty, but because my buddy had shut the valve off. But I'm pretty sure I would have had plenty of time to get to the surface IF I had made an expeditious decision that I needed to do so. Of course, we were only in about 35 feet of water.

 

[Darnold9999]

Doc, I love you, but wouldn't having my buddy five or six feet away from me, and reasonably attentive, forestall the need for a 60 fpm ascent while trying to stay calm and focused on top of an obnoxiously noisy and distracting freeflowing regulator? Is six feet not enough room to have fun? (I'm trying not to be acrimonious -- I reserve that for my spouse.)

Two thoughts: First, distance, in good vis with good buddy awareness, does not really change much in terms of response time. i.e. the difference in swim time between 6 feet and 20 feet is really not that much. (Assuming your buddy is paying attention)

Second, I want to be solving the problem myself first with buddy as backup resource so my first thought will be how can I resolve this, so I can get to the surface alive. i.e. feather the tank etc. then, as my backup plan, turn to my buddy. I may turn to the backup plan right away as it is a safer alternative, but I want to train my brain in "solve this problem without the buddy first" mode. YMMV - this is how I want my brain working, given how I dive.

 

[Peter Guy]

Can I plan the whole trip, would you guys mind?

No problem Catherine!

We've chartered a 50' Cat Liahona/Scuba Diving and I'm planning on taking MANY pictures (taking 2 cameras, new S80 and "old" DiMage Xg). There will be 4 couples with (gulp) Lynne and me the most experienced (except for the DM Skipper). One couple will be finishing their OW cert in Tortola just before we leave, another have less than 25 dives (and went to Maui with us in Feb) and the last one did his OW in Maui in November but hasn't been in the water since!

The charter includes 2 tanks/day and I'm sure we'll go to the Rhone and yes, I'll take many pictures for you.

Now if I can just get used to the S80 and get the focusing right -- especially on Macro....