Error Near Miss: Line entanglement while setting anchors

[Cthippo]

This is not exactly a dive accident, but close enough.

This morning I was helping set and anchor docks for a hydro race on the Columbia River and had a near miss. I was not actually diving, but rather using a wetsuit and snorkel gear since aside from picking up dropped hardware it all ended up being surface work. At one point I needed to swim a 20-odd lbs river hook style anchor away from the dock and drop it 30-50 feet from the dock in 10-15 feet of water. I swam the anchor out and dropped it, but when I turned to swim back Inrealized that in the swim the anchor line had wrapped around my ankle. While I was swimming out the anchor line had wrapped itself woth each kick without beong noticed.
Fortunatly, the anchor was on the bottom and I was on the surface and so it was just a matter of a little frustration to untangle myself. Had I been tangled closer to the anchor I would have enough buoyency to not be pulled under, but it would have been a challenge.

The lesson here is that any work in the water, even not on air, requires a cutting device. If I had my dive rig on I would have had a BFK and trauma shears, but necause I was in between I had no cutting devices. Live and learn

 

[lermontov]

imagine if you'd been deeper and couldn't reach the surface- it seems innocuous but these are the sort of things that given a bad set of circumstances can go horribly wrong- like those guys that die looking for golf balls !!! seems such an unlikely scenario

 

[johndiver999]

I generally don't go in the water without a knife strapped to my leg. I know I look like a dork going in a designated snorkeling spot, but I pretty much always take a knife.