PADI 5-Star Water World sued for selling toxic scuba tank air

[DivePartner1]

. . . "The air we sold Mr. Hanselman was extremely malodorous," said Katzenmeyer. "It should have been smelled before he made a dive. We always tell people to smell their air before using it. Experienced divers always do that. If John [Hanselman] had smelled his air, he wouldn't have had a problem."

It's not clear to me where that came from. It might have been quoted to him by the reporter from the complaint. Not that a reporter would ever reconstruct a quote to change the context . . .

In fairness to Mr. K, it's hard to avoid the temptation to defend yourselve when faces with accusations, even before you have the facts, especially if you know the press intends to skewer your business.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

If you aren't sniffing your air prior to dives, you should be. You should also take a few breaths off the reg on the surface and note any odd/ unusual tastes (sense of taste is much more sensitive than smell). You may not be able to identify what you are smelling and or tasting, but you will know if it is "odd". This is no joke. On the TDS board there has been ongoing discussion about a bad gas episode (which I witnessed) which occured about a year ago. Much testing and analysis has determined the culprit to be tolouene (sp?). How, you might ask did that particular chemical compaound end up in breathing gas? Most likely from compressor lubricant overheating and breakdown. It was definitely "tastable"- to me it tasted like rubber. I will find the thread later and post a link if anyone is interested.

Bad gas can be potentially deadly- check it every way possible, and dont mistrust your instincts.

Got that right ... last month in Roatan we found a whole bunch of nitrox cylinders (already loaded on the boat) that had a distinctive petroleum odor. Only one guy on the boat noticed it ... but after he mentioned it everyone else gave their cylinders the sniff test. We ended up offloading a lot of tanks and switching to air for those dives.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Bibendum]

When I took my recent OW class, we were told to always smell the air in our tanks when we got a refill. It's something I have done on all 9 of my dives and will continue to do.

 

[rickyd]

Does anyone smell their air before they dive???

Yup I sure do, prior to every dive.

 

[divetahoe]

When I took my recent OW class, we were told to always smell the air in our tanks when we got a refill. It's something I have done on all 9 of my dives and will continue to do.

Istill take a whiff when I don't know the person or place filling. I did once get a bad fill, and was able to smell it. Pretty obviously, the compressor intake was in a location where a diesel engine had been running. The air not only smelled bad, but tasted bad too (yes I did take a breath on the reg as well). Nothing like diesel exhaust...UGH!
Needless to say I skipped the dive. Of course that was the one where the 6 whale sharks and the 5 mantas teamed up and were playing flag football with a bunch of great white sharks and singing humpbacks... or so said my buddies who did the dive!

 

[scubatwinned]

My condolences to the dive shop. It looks like the newspaper was fed the suit before the lawyer even hinted making a claim to the shop. The newspaper then obligingly ambushes Mr. Katzenmeyer. Nice work.

Okay, they claim they used the air in 2002 and just discovered the claim? Someone tested it? When? And they sat on evidence of this great injustice for THREE YEARS, without even a letter of complaint? Hmmm.

The wife had to get enough stuff into the poor guy to do the brain damage before they could go after the shop... ya ya thats it...Heh Heh

 

[Kriterian]

I just wanted to add that BOTH methane (CH4) and Carbon Monoxide (CO) are colorless, odorless gasses. A sniff test would not detect them, but it still could detect other forms of bad air.

The only problem I can see with the story is that exposure to both of those gases would cause their problems almost immediately. Complications from the incident could still occur after three years but it wouldn't just suddenly pop up that much later. Of course we're going on the assumption that it happened three years ago and he's just now getting hurt by it. In reality, it could be that he was hurt three years ago (brain damaged) and it's taken this long to get a law suit off the ground.

 

[padiscubapro]

Istill take a whiff when I don't know the person or place filling. I did once get a bad fill, and was able to smell it. Pretty obviously, the compressor intake was in a location where a diesel engine had been running. The air not only smelled bad, but tasted bad too (yes I did take a breath on the reg as well). Nothing like diesel exhaust...UGH!
Needless to say I skipped the dive. Of course that was the one where the 6 whale sharks and the 5 mantas teamed up and were playing flag football with a bunch of great white sharks and singing humpbacks... or so said my buddies who did the dive!

sounds like the diveshop did not have proper filtration.. I properly filtered and maintained station can really remove lots of contaminates... I remeber doing a demo showing the effectiveness of hopcilte for removeing co... we tested exhaust from car with a co detector and obviously showed lots of it, we then took the exhaust and passed it through hopcilite an there was none detectable..

 

[mongoose]

Does anyone smell their air before they dive???

I invariably do this as part of my personal pre-dive checks. My question is...

Wouldn't he have known that air was "malodorous" when he took the first hit off of his regulator? And then got out of the pool? And then told the shop manager? And then made it a rule to always smell his air before he got in?

Would the one hit from his reg cause damage.

I know I'm a newb, but something's funky here...

--'Goose

 

[Taipeidiver]

PADI used to instruct divers to crack open the tank slightly and smell the air. I do it SOP now but I guess this is no longer in practice (or in vogue)? The practice also assumes one's nose is sensitive enough to pick up carbon monoxide (exhaust gases).

Methane, Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide, in their pure forms, are all odourless and tasteless. What you are smelling for is other impurities, such as burnt oil or other particulates, which signal the potential presence of those gases. You should also be able to taste those same impurities once the reg is in your mouth.

I always take a couple pulls on the reg before I get in the water, I will be extra vigilant from now on.