OOA in Cozumel

[kimbalabala]

I'd love to be judgmental, but the fact is that I took a tank from our home and missed three separate steps in my pre-dive procedure where I check pressure, so I ended up in the water with a partially filled tank. It wasn't an issue for the dive, and I certainly discovered it before my gauge read zero, but I empathize with the diver who ended up in the water like that.

What we concluded from my experience was that, during the pre-dive check, every diver must announce his specific tank pressure, rather than saying, "Okay," or anything else that's generic. Of course, if you have no buddy, you have no one to keep you honest about this, or remind you if you have forgotten.

We generally announce to one another what our beginning psi is - and then recheck after we hit the water - but I say "generally" because once I say "always" we'll forget to do it! Last time we dove I had a tank that read more after we got in the water than before we got in the water (obviously, this was before we descended). Anyone care to explain how that happens? (I know, that question probably belongs on a different forum).

 

[TSandM]

I have had that happen . . . the last time was a year ago in Florida, when the air temperature was in the 20's, and the water was 75 . . .

 

[Blastman4444]

When I was in the key's a few months ago I noticed the Captain called out everyone's name after everyone had a tank on there back and sitting down for our pressure and name he checked each off and wrote down the starting pressure. When we got out of the water he again did the roll call and asked for our name and pressure very good procedure they had.

 

[CoralSeaMan]

Although the other diver may have made mistakes, you did a great job (not that you might not improve like others have pointed out)...

There may have been another factor at work here, depth. My very first real dive in the ocean was at the Santa Rosa wall at about 90 feet. It was awsome. After what seemed like two minutes my buddy swam up to me, grabbed my pressure guage and showed me I only had 500 pounds. I could not believe my gear was broken. He then showed me his SPG and he only had 750 pounds. I could not believe both our gear was broken. Of course I was narced. We managed to surface safely and figured out we actually did a dive of over 20 minutes. Predive checks are important but you cannot rule out another cause.

 

[scubafanatic]

Those are great points. I think I didn't immediately offer my alternate because he showed me his gauge and looked at me like, "wtf?" instead of signaling out of air. In that brief moment we both thought there must be a malfunction in the gauge. Regardless, the best thing to do would have been to offer it right away. Definitely a learning experience.

Incidentally, earlier in the year I was on another Coz trip with a couple who were newly certified. The guy was using a rental reg which read in bars instead of PSI. Apparently, that tank wasn’t filled either and he didn’t know how to read the gauge and went OOA in that dive. So, in 2 of my 3 Coz trips someone went OOA. Is it really that common to get tanks that aren’t filled all the way??

regardless of if the SPG reads in 'PSI' or 'Bar', '0' is still '0', so whenever one sees the needle-thingy getting close to the '0', it souldn't take a rocket scientist to interpret the meaning.

 

[islanddream]

We just got back Sunday from Coz and on three occasions the AL80's I was given were filled to about 2600 PSI. I always check the PSI before getting into the water. I asked for new tanks and got them.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

FWIW, I've been on a dive boat in the Caribbean that had one central rack for dive bottles and on the first dive of the day, empty tanks were in the same rack as full tanks. I mentioned it to the boat operator and the reaction was one of chagrin but it was obvious that this was standard procedure.

This seems to me to be a process issue. Even though divers are trained to check their tank pressures immediately upon opening the tank valve, some may assume that the tanks are all full (especially on the first dive of the day) and, as even experienced divers in the thread have noted, mistakes do happen. Out of curiosity, for the dive boat operators, how do you separate your full tanks from your empties, or do you?

 

[Thalassamania]

If it has tape over the valve it's full, otherwise it is not, or it is at least suspect.

 

[TomZ]

When I was in the key's a few months ago I noticed the Captain called out everyone's name after everyone had a tank on there back and sitting down for our pressure and name he checked each off and wrote down the starting pressure. When we got out of the water he again did the roll call and asked for our name and pressure very good procedure they had.

This seems like an excellent procedure for every boat dive, done by either the Captain or DM. It doesn't however, seem like a substitute for a comprehensive pre-dive check by the diver and their buddy.

 

[openmindOW]

Where was the OOA diver's buddy?