Officer died in Chesapeake Dive Team training

[tech_diver]

It seems to me that industry standards for public safety divers has been generally rising over the last 15 years (in terms of training and proceedures). It may just be my perception that more and more local dive teams have codified proceedures and documented training. I don't know any real statistics.


One of my first jobs in the dive industry was working behind the counter in a dive shop. I'll always remember a call I once got from a local volunteer fire department.

"yeah... do you guys have any old, used gear you can sell cheap? We're starting a dive rescue team and we're on a tight budget."


I thought,"isn't it the divers in old, cheap, used gear who usually need rescuing?"

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Alrighty the camera zoomed in on seaquest and the rip cord of a three year old bc did not work, or did the other 12, so that issue become aware for them to realize they the divers can not maintain the gear themselves. So I guess not a seller for hog regs to this dive team.

All the points were the changes in order to start dive operations again. For one wear a separate weight belt, "COME ON" why would you want a heavy BCD in an emergency, you need to sling that baby on quickly, there practicing on a bank cliff to the water, looks to be.

Inflator buttons stuck, leaked gas supply? so it was a bit of a problem.

Alrighty the big one here and this is the biggest death rate I know of dumping the gear, a diver believes they can make it back to surface and entry point and do not want dump and loose there gear. Why? cause it will cost them to replace.

Any rescue team is stupid to not have a means to pay for all gear, this way the rescue diver has no reason to benefit from not dumping faulty gear PRONTO! So if the rescue team leader feels it is more important to save a couple a bucks and have them buy there selves let it be and these diving deaths will keep occurring.

Now for not to get sued , they make them purchase, great then there must be a to pay them back for there gear so they can avoid that Issue.


I have four bp/w's one side mount, and other bp/w's can become a side mount, two stab jackets, two regular BCD's two weight intergrated BCD's, two back packs with bladder and two with out, and two horse collar for those. Several weight belts and weights, several reg sets, and enough airtanks and oxygen tanks, commercial tanks that if it blows up 5 minutes later it will be ready to pour a new foundation. I will dump in a heartbeat, I have more gear.

If there can be one stressed point, for the love of god dump the gear, cause it means you get new gear "YIPPY"

 

[DandyDon]

mistake

 

[Hatul]

The BC in the video was a Zeagle Ranger, and the rip-cord system up to now was considered fool-proof. I have the same system in my Zeagle Escape but have never tested it to avoid having to rethread it. I guess I'll have to test and rethread mine now.

 

[DandyDon]

The BC in the video was a Zeagle Ranger, and the rip-cord system up to now was considered fool-proof. I have the same system in my Zeagle Escape but have never tested it to avoid having to rethread it. I guess I'll have to test and rethread mine now.

We test ours on every outing. If I had that one, I'd use a belt. Been there, done that, as I said above.

 

[markmantei]

The BC in the video was a Zeagle Ranger, and the rip-cord system up to now was considered fool-proof. I have the same system in my Zeagle Escape but have never tested it to avoid having to rethread it. I guess I'll have to test and rethread mine now.

Absolutly recommend it. Like any skill weight ditching should be practiced and rehearsed. I use a Ranger as well and have only ditched weights once in the pool. Yes its a bit of a pain to rethread, but its not the end of the world. I will also be doing this more often.

I have an extremly difficult time believing that in a 3 month time period 12, count them 12, BC's using a ripcord weight system failed. I would imagine it would need to be an issue either with a misthreaded cord (looped around something???) or damaged cord (cord breaks somewhere leading to the cord under the weights remaining in place) because even buildup of gunk around the cord should let loose with a good tug. It has also been said that the weight can be removed from the zippered pocket in the event of a failure, and ditching the entire rig. Do people not practice this anymore? Complete gear removal and redonning underwater is rehearsed at least once EVERY pool session. That means mask, fins, BC everything, redonning the mask is done last.

In regards to using weight belts, too each his own, but I have seen more issues with new divers trying to deal with weight belts slipping down or rotating around, etc. Getting rid of the weight belt and having everything in the BC is way easier to manage, especially crawling over rocks and climbing down steep inclines, etc. than having a weight belt. Belts might be fine for a few pounds in warm water but when you need alot of weight to counteract bouyancy from your exposure protection they can become a real pain.

 

[Thalassamania]

I believe that was 3 years, not 3 months.

All the weightbelt problems you cite can be solved with either a rubber belt or a "Seaquest" belt, not to mention adequate training.

 

[markmantei]

I believe that was 3 years, not 3 months.

All the weightbelt problems you cite can be solved with either a rubber belt or a "Seaquest" belt, not to mention adequate training.

It just occurred to me that this was training. If the gear being used was really in this poor state of repair, how would the team even plan to stage a successful rescue?

 

[Thalassamania]

Very few department dive teams are actually trained and equipped to perform rescues. Most of what they do is body and other evidence recovery.

 

[fjpatrum]

I have a pretty good idea why the dive team did not test the weight-ditching mechanism on their Zeagle BCDs on the dive in question and before all dives as part of the pre-dive checks. It can take several minutes to re-string the ripcord once it has been fully deployed on a BCD. The video mentioned that 3 months prior to the incident all of the divers on the team had tested their BCD weight-release mechanisms and all functioned appropriately...but after the incident all of the weight-release mechanisms "failed testing" (failure mode was not disclosed). There seems to be some sort of disconnect here. To have all 12 BCD weight-ditch mechanisms fail within a 3 month period is very peculiar. Something ain't right.

Perhaps someone "restrung" them the wrong way so they didn't release properly? Is that possible? (I've never seen a rip-cord system work so I don't know how it's restrung.)