Odd event at depth

[Kingpatzer]

Well, for the safety of those who get their gas filled after you, I think you should get it tested. Inform the shop that something was amiss and make sure they check and recheck everything.

Do you know the date and time of your fills on those particular tanks?

 

[parzdiver]

Since he felt he had bad gas, are you planning to have his tank (and yours) analyzed?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think your lessons learned is missing a piece (unless you just didn't finish the story).

You surfaced from depth with the possibility of having had breathed bad air. Did Peter get on O2 at the surface? If not, why not? It is unknown what, if anything, he breathed at depth. Any potential effects of that substance (if there is one) is thus unknown. Wouldn't getting on 02 and being monitored for an hour or two be an appropriate response?

Yanno, that's something that never occurred to me at the time ... and I had an O2 kit handy. I asked Peter if he was OK and he said "I've felt better". Absolutely correct that I should've offered him O2 ... just didn't think of it.

Thanks for bringing it up ... another lesson learned.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

Yes, we do know the date (not the time) and we will be talking to the shop. Their setup is electric, but I understand that filter issues can still end up with hydrocarbons in the gas. I remember a story on the Deco Stop about someone whose gas ended up having toluene (I think) in it.

The reason Peter came to me and not Kelly was simple . . . Peter knew that a) I'd give him gas, and b) there would be no buoyancy or visibility issues with doing so, or with a subsequent ascent or exit. Kelly might have been able to do the same thing, but he didn't KNOW that. We were all close together, so it wasn't a big deal, and as soon as he was on my reg, he signaled to the other two to buddy up, a signal they both saw and understood. It was really more akin to reordering a team. I would have done the same thing.

I will say that I was surprised at how much anxiety it caused, though. Being in relatively deep water, in the dark, and knowing that your spouse is in some kind of distress that you don't understand is more frightening than I was prepared for. In fact, the air-share was clumsy, because when Peter didn't return the "okay" signal as we are trained to do, it broke my normal sequence, and I failed to finish deploying the hose, although I did it shortly afterwards when I felt a tug on the canister.

I'm not really sure that O2 was indicated. If someone came into the ER stating that they thought they had inhaled a small amount of hydrocarbon, we would just check their sats and watch them for a little bit. Since Peter wasn't complaining of shortness of breath or poor exercise tolerance (as evaluated by carrying his gear up the steps and to the car) I didn't think it was likely that he had any significant pulmonary issue.

 

[DandyDon]

Hi,
I have been doing some reading recently about CO, and agree with Don that when compressors heat up air quality can differ.

I am actually trying to find any information on 'taste'.
Whilst I know that CO is supposed to be tasteless, odorless and colourless, from the mass of information I have been reading, it seems some people are able to detect a distaste.
It is suggested that this may be because of small particles of oil or lubricant from the compressor.

CO is indeed tasteless & odorless, but it is often found with other contaminates, yes. Car exhaust fumes are a common example of both together altho today's vehicles are not as bad as those I grew up with.

Can't comment to the rest of your post; beyond me.

The highest probability of dangerous contamination (Carbon Monoxide) entering a scuba tank is due to exhaust fumes being sucked into the compressor system and either bypassing or passing through filter/s to be compressed into the diver's cylinder.

Well, that is certainly one way, depending on the air intake for the compressor and possible changes. The capability of those filters can also change in a day's use. CO scubers also exist to remove missed CO but I don't know how commonly they are used. Anonlox Clear inline monitors with auto shutoff are often used in the US, but are not required - and with Padi no longer requiring even quarterly testing (not that was enforced or even meaningful then), we may see fewer unless more divers test and complain.

A clean compressor with a good air intake can produce CO on its own tho as production heats up the compressor to cause internal dieseling.

Many diver shops have tested at recognized labs and some still do, but 3% of those tests fail - some horribly. You have to expect the samples to be taken right after filter changes and while the compressor is cool so you got to wonder how bad it can get at bad times.

I think your lessons learned is missing a piece (unless you just didn't finish the story).

You surfaced from depth with the possibility of having had breathed bad air. Did Peter get on O2 at the surface? If not, why not? It is unknown what, if anything, he breathed at depth. Any potential effects of that substance (if there is one) is thus unknown. Wouldn't getting on 02 and being monitored for an hour or two be an appropriate response?

While not obvious from her post, TSandM is known to be an emergency room physician and married to the victim, so I am sure he received any care indicated - except it does sound from the involved posters that the stress of the moment might have caused some misses?

Well, for the safety of those who get their gas filled after you, I think you should get it tested. Inform the shop that something was amiss and make sure they check and recheck everything.

Again, there may well not be anything wrong with the gas - but I think CO testing is indeed indicated: Of that tank, not the compressor on another day. Often in these suspected cases a CO tester cannot be found, but I think this dive team can find and use one ok. Looking forward to results.

 

[ianr33]

There was a big thread on Thedecostop about contaminated gas a while back. Think it was started by barney after he had an unpleasant episode on a cave dive.
IIRC correctly the contaminant was toluene caused by brearakdown of compressor oil.

This is it http://thedecostop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8069&highlight=toluene

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

There is no surprise to me that your "buddy" looked to you for assistance. I can not imagine NOT looking for my lifemate first. MY god Lynne, he did what I would hope you prepare for, or at least think about every time you dive. Maybe it's my profession, but I must assume failure at every point. You must expect it to fail.

To set the scenario a bit more clearly ... Lynne and I were leading, Peter and Kelly were trailing us by only about 15 feet. Vis was better than usual ... perhaps 35-40 feet ... and Peter's signal was very easy to see. My first thought when I saw the flashing was "Geez Peter, you really don't need to do drills on every dive". Lynne reacted instantaneously, and had Peter on her reg less than 5 seconds after he flashed. Kelly and I were watching. As soon as I saw Peter give the thumb I looked at Kelly and signaled that he and I were now buddies, almost at the same time Lynne was signaling the same thing.

I think Peter went to Lynne because Kelly is a relatively new diver and I don't think they've dived together before. So it was a more comfortable reaction. Under the circumstances, it was the right call ... especially given our proximity.

There was no confusion or uncertainty involved in how the situation was going to play out. Kelly and I started following them upslope and when I noticed them veering too far south, signaled the correct direction and took the lead. Kelly did exactly as I expected him to do.

It was an odd situation, but at no time did it feel like an emergency ... even the "new guy" played his part exactly as he should. To my concern, it's an example of why practicing your skills matters ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[rx7diver]

On the surface, Peter told me he thought he had bad gas. He got a bad, oily taste at depth and began to feel nauseated. It got worse over a couple of minutes, so he wanted to have someone else's gas to breathe, to see if he felt better. He told me my gas tasted much better, but he was still nauseated and that's why he thumbed the dive.

Bob and I both breathed his gas once we got back to the car, and neither of us could detect anything odd.

TSandM, a couple of remarks:

1. Had your husband's regs and/or valves been recently serviced? If so, maybe the cleaner/procedure used had something to do with this. I used to service my disassembled regs using a warm dishwater wash, followed by a soak in warm vinegar (with agitation), followed by an extended soak in running fresh water (with agitation). After I took my first Nitrox course, I began using Simple Green instead of dishwashing detergent. During my first dive after I switched degreasers, I detected the oily taste/smell of Simple Green in my air when breathing at depth which was not detected at the surface either before the dive or after the dive. I re-serviced my regs, this time using dishwashing detergent (rather than Simple Green) on the regs' soft parts. I did NOT detect the oily taste/smell during the subsequent dive.

2. This is really an observation, rather than a remark. This event has made me think again about a thread you and I recently participated in, which discussed buddy-breathing the short hose. Many people assume (1) the need to share gas during a tech dive will be due only to an OOG emergency, and (2) redundant regulators fail independently. To my mind, these are really huge assumptions. Your event is an example of a situation where there was a need to share gas even though there was NOT an OOG event, despite you and your husband each wearing redundant regulators. Okay. If your long hose reg had failed while you and your husband were sharing gas, then you two would have buddy-breathed your short hose (assuming, of course, that the other two divers couldn't assist you). Or maybe your husband would have breathed your short hose while you breathed your power inflator, as suggested in that thread by an extremely experienced DIR diver.

 

[Quero]

First of all, congratulations on handling the incident. I don't think it matters that it wasn't "flawless." The result is what counts, and that result was a happy ending, including learning about your own feelings and reactions so you can fine tune your responses should there ever be a "next time."

I have had a similar experience with air that tasted fine on the surface but was bad at depth. It was also a Nitrox fill. Luckily for me, I was on a boat dive and all I had to do was surface and switch out the tank. Nobody else on the surface was able to taste the bad air in my case either, but I got the taste almost immediately after splashing in and descending straight down. When I reported it to the dive center, they drained every tank they had filled that afternoon, checked/changed the filters, and started over, since there was no practical way to know whether any other tanks had been affected. We hypothesized that there had been a motorcycle running outside of the building near the air intake while the rider was engaged in conversation with a resort staff member. The dive center later fenced off that area so no vehicles could pollute the air directly under the intake hose of the electric compressor.

 

[DandyDon]

I have had a similar experience with air that tasted fine on the surface but was bad at depth. Luckily for me, I was on a boat dive and all I had to do was surface and switch out the tank. Nobody else on the surface was able to taste the bad air in my case either. When I reported it to the dive center, they drained every tank they had filled that afternoon, checked the filters, and started over, since there was no practical way to know whether any other tanks had been affected.

That's the usual. Destroy the evidence and move on...