Near Miss: Stuck Inflator on BCD

[chillyinCanada]

Aggie, thanks for sharing this! Not the kind of thing that happens every day, so reading about a real life experience and what you went through in the seconds it took you to handle it, I find beneficial to me.

 

[sphyrnidus]

Not commenting on what is already said, but I think it is better to attach te camera to a D ring, so you can let go of it and it's not hampering your movements. This particular incident happened on your check dive, but couldn't it happen any time? I always take my camera, once I even encountered a whale shark on a check dive, I would still be sulking, now 4 years later, if I hadn't been able to film it..

 

[clownfishsydney]

I used to have a BCD that auto-inflated if I did not clean the inflator every 20 dives or so. Of course, sometimes it did it at 15 dives. Easiest thing to do is disconnect the hose, done in a second or two. Second is to pull your dump valves if this does not work. This should drop out more air than is coming in. In most cases, inflators put air in much slower than you realise. Try counting how long it takes to inflate your BCD.

 

[oncor23]

I'm going to ditto TSandM here with the concern about continuing the dive while using oral inflation. Not such a big deal if staying at the depth you got control at or maybe a bit more, but if going back down, it sounds like task loading. When small problems start, the dive doesn't usually get better. As the first dive in 11 months, oral inflation during the dive doesn't sound like a great idea. I wonder how often anyone practices doing a whole dive without using their inflator?

I'm also wondering about the OP's wife using a dump valve during this incident...or not. My dump valves can outstrip my inflator. Yeah, if positive buoyancy gets too far ahead, it will be tough for the dump valve to catch up.