Odd event at depth

[openmindOW]

The shop opens in 1/2 hour and I will be taking the tank AND the reg in (BTW, I am familiar with the "newly serviced reg" taste and it wasn't it). Interestingly, I could still taste it from touching my tongue to the mouthpiece once the gear was back in the car (I haven't checked it this morning). [/QUOTE}

Please have the gas independently checked. And please let us know the result.

 

[TSandM]

I don't think we need to have the gas independently checked. Our shop is one of the most reputable ones in our area, and the owner is beside himself about this, even though we all sniffed the gas this morning and neither he nor I could detect anything odd about it. Samples from that tank, and the other one we picked up the same day, are being sent out for comprehensive analysis. No other complaints have been received by the shop, and the tanks were filled some time between the 8th and 10th of this month -- so, given the clientele there, a LOT of tanks from that period of time have likely been dived already.

We are seriously wondering whether Peter ran into something that had been dumped into the WATER. A storm drain empties into this dive site, and it has been raining and there is a lot of runoff right now. If someone emptied a gas can or something into the storm drain, I suppose it's possible that Peter could have gotten a face full of it.

Anyway, I am totally confident that the gas will be analyzed and the results will honestly be reported to us. No concerns about that at all.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

While it is indeed responsible to drain all suspected tanks, you never know for sure unless tested. The scarcity of CO analyzers is the real problem, but that is changing. Only one boat has the Clear inline monitor but Anaolox is introducing a new portable unit in November.

Yep. But, an analyzer would not help in these types of instances. It may not be registerable (yes, I made up a word), on the the surface, so depending on just that is not always the answer.
However, I would not just drain, because that doesn't ensure complete eradication of the problem. I would open them, inspect them, and then clean them, just to be certain. It is worth it, to us, just to be sure. I would always rather be safe than sorry.

I don't have a CO analyzer. We are scrupulous about our compressor area, tanks, and maintenance, but I don't know about places where I travel. I am quite sure of my own tanks, but I have definitely been to so out of the way, dodgy dive areas...... A personal one may be a sound idea for those of us who travel a lot.

 

[DevonDiver]

We are seriously wondering whether Peter ran into something that had been dumped into the WATER. A storm drain empties into this dive site, and it has been raining and there is a lot of runoff right now. If someone emptied a gas can or something into the storm drain, I suppose it's possible that Peter could have gotten a face full of it.

That could certainly be a possibility. Even a very small film of fuel on the surface could get into the 2nd stage leave you feeling pretty nauseous.

I've stuck my head into quite a few pockets of diesel when wreck diving. It really gets impregnated into your kit and can be a bitch to get out.

Did Peter's mask/hood/hair have any gasoline taste/smell?

 

[gitterdun]

...maybe I ran into a patch of oil (or something) floating in the water and that is what got to me?

That actually happened with someone in our group, a few weeks ago.

We were on a longer scooter dive in the St. Lawrence, and were showing some friends a new wreck that we had found. There were six of us, but in two groups of three, one group behind the other. I was in the group of three in front.

Once we got to the wreck, one of our friends in the back group did their gas switch, and shortly after, wrote to me that their gas tasted a bit funny. I offered my long hose, which was denied, so since I do dive with this person on a regular basis, I signaled to the team that I was going to stick with this buddy, showed them the wetnotes, and we started for home. Surfacing was not an option. I know this person very well in the water, and stuck to them like glue, watching their every movement, and ready to donate. They said they were ok, just didn't like the taste in their mouth.

Once we got to shore and doffed our gear, they called the shop. They are a good shop, monitor their fill station like clockwork. They checked all filters etc., and we actually went there to show them the tanks. You could actually smell horrible gas, when purging the reg on the surface.

The regs were taken off, and when turning the tank valve on, the gas didn't smell bad at all. Now, there was definitely a mystery.

Finally, the shop owner thought to open the regs, and everything was absolutely covered in some kind of petroleum. Also, their neck seal and wing also smelled horribly of oil.

Somehow, near that new wreck, there was some kind of petroleum product either floating through the water, dumped, or disturbed, and only hit one out of the six of us.

Kind of like a needle in the haystack, in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, but... it's possible.

Glad that everyone made it back safely, and good on ya, Lynne.

 

[Country Diver]

Thanks Chantelle, and I would like to add to this if I can. It was very odd b/c after I had switched to my back gas and breathed it for about 10 minutes everything was fine. I then felt a tingle on my chin, and scratched it, and again fine, then a few minutes later had a petroleum taste, but not with every breath. I let the group know through wet notes, and through patting my reg and pinching my nose. I felt fine, and this was why I didn't accept the gas donation, but accepted Chantelle's offer to stick with me as she knows my mannerisms on dives and would be able to clue in fast if there was an issue.

After we got out I thought that I was desensitized to the smell, b/c I smelt it everywhere! The gas was fine, but my back up reg's diaphragm was coated with some sort of petroleum product, as was a bit of my neckseal and a little on the suit and wing. We put Seal Saver on the seal immediately even though it stunk. My primary reg was okay but still had some...just enough to taste, so I must have been exhaling at the time of impact. The guys at the shop were great at solving this mystery, but it didn't help that I now had a clean up on my hands to get rid of the nasty smell. The regs, especially the diaphragms, were torn apart at home and soaked over night in Dawn and a bit of hot water. The suit from the shoulders up was also soaked in Dawn, as was the wing (opened and all exposed for cleaning). The next day I changed over to Simple Green and soaked the regs and my mask, as it also got some. I let everything soak all night and all the next day mainly because the petroleum had embedded into the rubber, and diaphragm. After rinsing everything again and everything passing my sniff test, I thought that I would try it out. There is no more taste of oil or smell of oil. I do have replacement diaphragms and a new neck seal waiting should I need it, but so far so good. After the drysuit neck seal was taken out of the Dawn and rinsed, I did put Seal Saver on it again.

It was a fluke, and it sounds like you might have had the same thing happen to you....some random oil blob that hadn't settled yet. Try to smell the gas in the tanks separately, or use a different set of regs. If the gas didn't taste funny right from the get go, then get some Dawn and soak those regs. Oil and latex don't get along, and it will break it down. We totally disconnected the regs from the back gas to figure this out.

Think back to just before you tasted it...did you feel a tingle on your face at all? I was replaying the dive around that time over and over again in my mind, and I remembered that moment of tingle....when it must have happened, but because we saw little fresh water jelly fish earlier, I actually thought that maybe they do sting...lol. Now I know differently.

 

[swamp diver]

I don't think we need to have the gas independently checked. Our shop is one of the most reputable ones in our area, and the owner is beside himself about this, even though we all sniffed the gas this morning and neither he nor I could detect anything odd about it. Samples from that tank, and the other one we picked up the same day, are being sent out for comprehensive analysis. No other complaints have been received by the shop, and the tanks were filled some time between the 8th and 10th of this month -- so, given the clientele there, a LOT of tanks from that period of time have likely been dived already.

We are seriously wondering whether Peter ran into something that had been dumped into the WATER. A storm drain empties into this dive site, and it has been raining and there is a lot of runoff right now. If someone emptied a gas can or something into the storm drain, I suppose it's possible that Peter could have gotten a face full of it.

Anyway, I am totally confident that the gas will be analyzed and the results will honestly be reported to us. No concerns about that at all.

I would be very selective in which of the accredited US labs is used for the gas analysis. There are at least two volatile hydrocarbon exposure incidents on the Decostop whereby two different labs reported trimix and nitrox as having oxygen contents of 21 percent. One incident involved a fatality and the other was a serious injury. Labs get busy and make mistakes, techs get lazy and think all diving samples must be air, some labs have better equipment and procedures than others, etc.

I'd spend the $100 and use the same lab the US Navy uses for many of its specialty assignments. Analytical Chemists is a one man shop and the owner David Elgas is fastidious about ensuring the results in these types of cases are reliable and accurate.
If you can breathe it we can analyze it

I know of two bad gas incidents from Florida where the original analysis was reported as normal simply because the lab did not investigate a total volatile hydrocarbon result of 14 ppm which is considered normal under CGA Grade E but would be considered highly anomalous under other global dive standards which have been updated more recently. Upon further investigation using the GC/MS the anomalous volatile hydrocarbons turned out to be toluene which is very narcotic at concentrations below that which is allowed by the CGA Grade E standard. If I recall the divers were impaired with toluene concentrations of 5 ppm and 10 ppm in the 80 foot range. The larger labs generally won't speciate the individual components making up the volatile hydrocarbons until they are > 25 ppm. Here in Canada the dive standard only allows 5 ppm of volatile hydrocarbon before a sample is failed. David Elgas at Analytical Chemists will identify any major hydrocarbon peaks even if the total is < 25 pm if a dive injury/fatality is reported.

The accredited labs report that about 3 to 5 percent of samples fail the CGA Grade E standard for carbon monoxide and depending on which lab one speaks to about 0.5 percent of samples fail at 25 ppm for total volatile hydrocarbons. These events are far more common that we think and they can happen for various reasons even at reputable fill stations from time to time.

I know of one incident at a "reputable" fill station whereby the compressor was serviced by an third party outfit which used brake cleaner containing trichloroethylene (TCE) to degrease the compressor and then did not rinse out the piping thoroughly. TCE is highly narcotic and could be used as an anesthetic if one ignored its nasty side effect profile.TCE concentrations as low at 2 ppm at recreational depths will impair some sensitive individuals.

It may turn out that the breathing gas was not the problem, but until an high quality analysis is done by a lab willing to identify the individual components by GC/MS if the total volatile hydrocarbon is > 5 ppm I'd hold off on coming to any conclusions.

Analox has a great video here of several bell divers whose dry suits were contaminated with crude oil and how they were unable to follow commands to put on FFM with clean gas. Having one's regulator become contaminated with liquid or solid hydrocarbon on descent would also have the same effect if an aromatic hydrocarbon at sufficient concentration and the diver at depth.
YouTube - AnaloxSensorTech's Channel

Most of the incidents involving volatile hydrocarbon poisoning present first with cognitive changes (excitation initially followed by decreased level of consciousness) and coordination problems at depth whereas the CO incidents in general present with shortness of breath, nausea and headache if the ppCO is sufficient or often simply exertional fatigue if subclinical symptoms with lower ppCO.

 

[DandyDon]

It may well have been something in the water? I am not very experienced in shore or close to shore diving and have only dived up there a little. The one dive we did from a city parking lot and the two we did in dead end Hood Canal did make me wonder about such possibilities tho; I saw in the news this week that Hood is having fish kills and some consider it on the verge of a big problem.

Or it might have been something else in the gas? As Swamp Diver has well explained, there are other possibilities and you don't know until well tested.

Yep. But, an analyzer would not help in these types of instances. It may not be registerable (yes, I made up a word), on the the surface, so depending on just that is not always the answer.

Yes, with regard to the more common threat of CO, testing on the surface would certainly be informative. If there is not enough CO to register on the surface on a applicable low range unit, then that is not the problem and we do already have a few different brands of portable, low range CO testers available to Ops and divers both. So easy & cheap now to rule CO out, or not - and the new Analox portable CO unit coming out in a few weeks looks great.

However, I would not just drain, because that doesn't ensure complete eradication of the problem. I would open them, inspect them, and then clean them, just to be certain. It is worth it, to us, just to be sure. I would always rather be safe than sorry.

Good plan...!

I don't have a CO analyzer. We are scrupulous about our compressor area, tanks, and maintenance, but I don't know about places where I travel. I am quite sure of my own tanks, but I have definitely been to so out of the way, dodgy dive areas...... A personal one may be a sound idea for those of us who travel a lot.

That attitude worked for Ops in the past, before affordable options, but won't now. I am confident that your compressor is clean & operated well, you might even be using the scrubbers available, but if you don't monitor or test with today's technology - it's hopeful diving. Even the cleanest compressors with remote air intake can get hot enough to diesel & produce CO internally and conditions for that risk are more possible in Kuwait than Seattle weather for sure. Today, any compressor can have an Analox Clear inline monitor for $1000 US with complete installastions followed by cheap calibrations. Many or maybe most don't but even my tiny LDS in Lubbock does, and even as scrupulous as the M.V.Spree already was about everything onboard - it is now the first liveaboard to have one in operation. It's your shop and your call, but since you volunteered here that you don't, even tho there is just no need for skipping today's safety technology. It's doable and affordable.

For any Op that refuses to use the Clear inline monitor, and there are far too many today - then the Analox Portable CO unit coming out in a few weeks or one of the other portable units available today is certainly a good defense, for Seattle, Kuwait, Roatan, or wherever. The main fill station on Cozumel is scrupulous too, but we got readings last month anyway, some worrisome - and they weren't the first.

It just not safe for any Op to not use the inline and/or portable tester to be sure. For the Ops that don't bother, a portable unit is the only safeguard.

 

[Slamfire]

Lynne, Thanks for posting. Peter, I'm very glad you are fine. Lynne, don't be so hard on yourself. This was not a drill or a class. This is what the drills and the classes are for. In the real world, any landing from which you can walk away is a good landing.

When I was going through flight training, I had a very rough touch and go landing during a solo training flight. It was a cross country flight that involved landings in a couple of airports that were not my base. The landing was so rough that I was scared that I had messed up my landing gear. For the next 20 mins, I was flying very fearful about how my next landing could end in disaster because of a messed up wheel. Nothing happened. The landing gear was not damaged after all.

The airport where I landed rough became a symbol of a less than optimal skill that I needed to conquer. A little later, while doing a practice flight for the final flight test with my instructor, we went to land in that very same airport. This time my landing was sooo smooth that for the first few moments I was doubtful that the wheels had actually made contact because there was barely any felt impact. I got into a celebratory mood and exclaimed to my instructor, "was that a smooth landing or what!?"

My instructor being a little bit of a prick said,
- "Yeah, but did you look at your airspeed while landing. What if this had been a short runway or an icy runway?"

- "But it's not a short or icy runway and you did not tell me this had to be a simulated short landing. Airspeed was 70 knots which is on the high end but still within nominal parameters for a normal landing."

So it doesn't really matter how good you execute something, if you look really close and long enough you will always find something to critique about it. Bottomline is that Peter and you both walked away from this and this is good.

 

[TSandM]

Thanks for the moral support, everybody. But I was trained by people with very high standards, and I can certainly hear their debrief! We got through a simple problem reasonably smoothly, but there are definitely lessons for me to take home, and hopefully, the next problem (which I pray is a LONG time away) will be handled more adeptly.

If anything, this taught me that you can run all the drills you want, but nothing burns stuff into your nervous system like executing under stress.