Out of air incident

[Still Kicking]

Vindicator knobs. Green when valve is open. Red when valve is closed.

Vindicator Valve Knobs

The Vindicator Handwheel for scuba valves is a safety device that can help divers avoid inadvertently starting a dive with a cylinder valve in the wrong position.

www.divegearexpress.com

Fwiw i see about one diver a month or two in the shop who has managed to cross thread the inserts beneath the handle in those valves and jam it closed. Don't ask me how. Stripping them down and fixing it requires some tools.

If you like the thicker knob you can remove the colored inserts and use it like a standard valve handle without a chance of jamming.

Not telling anyone not to use them - just be aware they have a downside.

 

[Marie13]

I’ve been using them for four years. No issues at all.

 

[Edward3c]

@Lovestardust when you say gauges. Where these old fashioned pressure gauges (analogue) or electronic getting information from transmitters.

If the former, then investigate why the needle didn't move on the breathing check.
If the latter, remember electronic gauges can take up to 20 seconds to register a change in pressure. One or two breaths may not register at all. Hence why I still have analogue gauges even with transmitters and computer.

@grantctobin what’s confusing about my post, so I can improve future ones?

 

[KenGordon]

I am 100% embarrassed that this even happened and feeling emotional about it today. I want to share what happened to me with everyone here as a learning experience and hope to prevent this from happening to anyone else.

My husband and I are dive buddies. We each have over 400 logged dives and have been diving for 7 years. We recently this year earned our Intro to Cave Diver certification from one of the best instructors in the Bahamas. We have been practicing our skills in the Cavern at Ginnie Springs for several weeks. Yesterday we went to Ginnie Springs to do our very first Cave dive in the Devils Eye by ourselves, no guide or instructor. Our first dive went well! No issues.

Getting into the water for our second dive, we placed our cylinders (side mounting) into the water on the steps going down to the water with the tank valves ON. With all the people at Ginnie Springs entering and exiting, somehow my right cylinder was kicked off the stairs and landed down on the sandy bottom. A young man in the water was kind enough to fetch it up for me and I continued to hook up for the dive.

We did our safety check and I did breath off of both cylinders prior to the dive and checked the gauges…..I DID NOT check the handles to be sure the cylinder was open all the way and herein is the error. When I took breaths off each cylinder the gauges did not move so I believed all was well.
I was able to breathe off the right regulator from the surface stairs down into the Devils Eye into the cave until 43 feet when I had no air. No indication of any problem at all until it was a problem.

This is the first time in my life that I have been so close to death…seriously panicked and thinking I’m going to die in the cave today. It’s true when you hear people say they want to bolt to the surface in a panic/out of air situation. And it’s true that your life flashes before your eyes. I’m so thankful to be alive today as I did switch to my left regulator after 2 breath cycles on getting no air out of the right cylinder. I did inhale some water into my lungs in this incident and I am still coughing today.

The lesson we learned here is to ALWAYS CHECK to be sure your air is on prior to descending. I made an assumption based on my watching my gauges breathing from each cylinder on the surface and it could have cost me my life. Apparently, when my cylinder rolled off the stair, and upon retrieval of it, the handle rolled off enough to cut off my air supply at depth. It was breathing fine up until 43 feet. And believe me, the element of surprise at 43 feet deep in an overhead environment can be deadly.
This was a true lesson for life for me and my husband. I will be a better cave diver for it. Lesson learned.

Excellent post.

What I find interesting here is not the mistake with the valves but that it led to an issue. The training will have included similar scenarios and in theory divers are equipped to manage this without a problem.

In practice though stuff can turn out much worse.

I was messing about in the pool recently and failed to be able to take a working regulator, having gone a bit far in exhaling while swimming from my ditched kit. What we think will work and what actually works might be two different things.

 

[clownfishsydney]

As others have said, this is no way an out of air incident. You had two full cylinders.

I also cannot see how a tank that was turned on could turn itself off so much in the situation you explain to not function at 43 feet and so quickly. Normally you need one or more situations for a partially opened valve to cause a problem. First one is depth, 43 feet is not deep enough to cause a problem for a full or almost full tank. The second one is lower air pressure. Again, this should not happen at the start of a dive as you should still have had an almost full tank. I suspect that perhaps this tank was really fully off when it rolled and it actually turned on a little to pressurise the gauge.

Plenty of ways out of the problem anyway, swap to other reg, turn the "faulty" one back on, go to buddy for air. Should not have led to a panic situation as you describe. Perhaps cave diving is not for you.

 

[grf88]

@grantctobin what’s confusing about my post, so I can improve future ones?

He has flagged multiple posts of mine as confusing and I don't think they all were . He did not respond to PM

 

[beester]

I'm not a sidemount diver so I'm not going to comment on that.

Kudos on posting this. Critical incidents posted by the one who experienced it are very good learning lessons for all. I salute you!

I second getting checked out. Secondary drowning (when water that entered your lungs, causes inflamation to your plumonary pleurea, which can cause edema) is a realy thing. Specialy if you start experiencing symptoms like coughing, chest pain, trouble breathing, wheezing sound while breathing...

 

[mcohen1021]

Apparently, when my cylinder rolled off the stair, and upon retrieval of it, the handle rolled off enough to cut off my air supply at depth.

After I re read the post, this is the part that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me…. I don't believe that the tank could fall in any way that the valve would turn enough to cause this problem..

Only thing I can think of is that the person that gave back the tank turned it off or down in handling it

Just chalk it up to an honest mistake and learn from it.

 

[Hojo in SC]

Did you have Left and Right tanks or both the standard tank?

 

[mwerle]

I see far too many divers "sip" their air during their pre-dive checks, afraid of using up too much of their precious air before diving. Any diver diving with me, I make sure they take a couple of deep full breaths off their reg while watching gauges.

As for OP; I'm sorry to say, but IMHO you really should practise sidemount more before venturing into caves if a cylinder failure (for whatever reason) caused you to nearly panic. You are not safe for yourself or your buddy. Sidemount the first thing you should do if there's any issue is to switch to your other reg, calm down, then examine the situation to determine if you can continue the dive or abort.

Glad you're ok, but as others have said, get checked out by a doc. Secondary drowning is also a thing along with the issues people have already mentioned.

All that said, thank you for sharing; we can all learn from other peoples' experiences and the discussions that follow.