Regulator Flooding

[japan-diver]

A few things went wrong with this dive the first and most important being poor buddy communication and buddy procedures- turning a minor equipment malfunction into what could have been an accident. As pointed out by others the best maintained newest regulator can malfunction in the way described.

To solve the problem better training, buddy contact while descending. Remember that you are responsible for you and your buddies safety whenever you enter the water. DM's should be there to help but don't count on them- some are good; others ????

Others have pointed out the technical aspects of the failure, my guess being a folded exhaust diaphram - especially if this was the same reg she used for the check-out dive. But the failure in training is much more serious and needs to be addressed before diving- a new reg won't solve that problem!

Safe Diving!

 

[Wreck]

DA Aquamaster had a very good point I am going to add the suction check to my predive checks. I had never really gave it any thought before this. Makes sense to me.

This is standard proceedure, taught in the SSI OW book. I've checked this on every dive, but after this thread, now I know WHY I should do it.

 

[bebo]

Any equipment can malfunction at any time, I can live w/that.
Most rentals are crap, I can live, w/ that.
But the fact the store denied the incident, that's a VERY CLEAR SIGN that you should not rent a single snorkel from them anymore

 

[Groundhog246]

Not sure what you mean by "denied the incident". If you mean they checked the reg and found nothing wrong with it, they might be perfectly correct.

Since my last post, I had a problem that sounds very similar to what you described. I dive Aqualung regs. I've got a "comfo bite" mouthpiece on my primary second stage and a "regular" mouthpiece on my octo. While diving in a local quarry the zip tie let go and the mouthpiece came off my primary (that's the second time in the same quarry, the first time was last season). I was diving in a threesome and it's only 20 feet, so I switched to my octo and we continued. Suddenly, it breathing wet. I remove it from my mouth, purge it, try it again, still a bit wet. Signal an ascent and up we go. Checked it over on the surface and found it was just me not getting my lips around the different mouthpiece correctly (wearing an unfamilair hood and it's thicker around the face) and allowing water in when I inhaled. Pulled the hood down under my chin, set the mouthpiece and we descended and finished the dive. So, did it breath wet? Yes. Was it faulty? NO. Will I start paying closer attention to the zip ties? I'll try.

 

[crispos]

I'm trying to imagine you with a Comfobite in your mouth and no regulator, Groundhog!

Those things are huge.

My read is this thread has come to the proper conclusion.

 

[Groundhog246]

I'm trying to imagine you with a Comfobite in your mouth and no regulator, Groundhog!

Those things are huge.

I think you're thinking of a Seacure. A comfobite isn't much larger than a regular mouthpiece, but the two pieces you bite down on and joined by a strip that sits against the roof of your mouth. Divers generally love em or hate em (I love em).
It wasn't near the "surprise" this time as it was the first time it happened (was diving with my wife and Boogie711 at the time, same quarry). Luckily I didn't lose the mouthpiece either time, just had to put it back on with a new zip tie. As it happens, I hadn't installed either of the zip ties that let go either. I suspect the "tail" of the tie was trimmed off too close. My own spare zip ties are a higher strength than regular ones. Main difference is a little different tooth design.
I've had a close look at the rest of our regulator collection and replaced one other that had the "tail" trimmed flush just in case.

 

[2DiveCrew]

Immediately the dive shop's attitude was: "that could not have happened".That's BEFORE they even saw the regulator come off the boat or knew anything about. The next day, when my wife showed up for a shallow dive with an instructor to review emergency drills, he gave us the a similar line and started lecturing on how do deal with freeflowing regs (almost exactly the opposite problem). I don't know whether they actually checked the reg. later - my wife didn't dive the rest of the week and I changed shop.

Now I'm shopping for new gear.

It is interesting that he only people willing to admit there could be a problem with the equipment and its maintenance were the two divemasters on the boat.

 

[Groundhog246]

Yeah, if they refused to listen to what happened or told you it couldn't happen, then I wouldn't support that LDS. Of course, if you marched into the shop in a foul mood (and your first post would lead me to suspect you might have been), put the regs on the counter and started in on whoever was there, then I could understand if they immediately become defensive or uncooperative. I service laser printers for a living. On a few occasions, I've repaired a machine, only to have something else fail the next day. (Kinda like having had new tires put on your car and having the I'm stupid fail the next morning) Most people understand it happens. Every now and then you get someone who calls in and starts raising hell because the machine that was supposed to have been repaired yesterday wasn't fixed properly and they want it fixed "NOW!". I'm not perfect and occasionally miss seeing a second issue that wasn't mentioned (called because it was leaving balck marks on the page, didn't mention it also wasn't feeding paper properly from tray 1). And sometimes we get a faulty replacement part. But yelling at our receptionist or me and stating that you're not paying for another service call because it wasn't fixed (unnecessary to say it because we don't charge for repeat calls for same issue within a month) and generally being abusive, WILL NOT get your equipment fixed quicker. I have on several occasions refused to do service calls (once the immediate issue is dealt with) for people/companies who have treated us that way.

And I think that concludes my contributions to this thread. Happy and safe diving.

 

[dj0318]

Something similar happened to me on a deep dive everything was fine during descent then during the swim across the deck I took a breath and inhaled a lot of water immediately I tried to clear the reg by purging several times did not work I inhaled a lot of water again thankfully I was with an instructor I was doing my advanced certain she gave me her reg but many theories as to what happened reg was just serviced, they think maybe I was narced and lost seal on my mouthpiece but whatever the cause I'm scared to death to dive again. It felt like I was drowning took me 3 days to cough the water out of my lung

 

[scubamask]

I am writing about an accident that my wife recently had with rental equipment. She is a beginner diver with just 16 dives.

We did a buddy check on the boat before jumping in and starting our descent all seemed alright. As we were descending my wife noticed that when she inhaled she was getting mostly air but also some water. She thought maybe some water was getting in from the mouthpiece and continued the descent. At 16 meters the regulators started flooding completely and as she inhaled she got no air - just water. She signalled to me that she was having problems but I could not understand that it was an air related problem. She decided to ascend. Her dive lasted a total of about 5 minutes all descent time.

I have asked different divers what can cause this kind of technical problem with no definitive answers. Some have said that it is a second stage problem, others a first stage (which could possibly mean that also the octopus would malfunction??). Almost certainly I suppose that it is a maintenance related problem which exacerbates itself with increased pressure as the problem was not evident at the surface.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can tell me what can cause this and how it can be prevented.

As a footnote, the dive shop denied that the accident occured and that there were any problems with the regulator (while the divemaster on the boat admitted that rented equipment is often crap). The dive shop simply blamed her for ascending.

Fortunately, considering that she had no air in her lungs the possibility of a lung injury from rapid ascent would be very small and I would think that the chances of getting bent would be relatively low from the first dive of the day, at that depth for that short a time.

What I am most interested in is knowing what can cause a regulator to malfunction in this way. Is it a first or second stage failure?? Is the proper maintenance of the reg. a factor?

Basically, somethings not delivering the air. No way without examining equipment to determine whether the 1st or 2nd stage had failed; result in either case could be no air. Very rare for the newer regs to fail and not deliver air - the design usually results in a free flow state if failure. Did she check air pressure in tank before dive (having a couple hundred psi in tank could result in no air delivery on descent)? Was valve opened fully or maybe just barely turned on?

Couple things concern me in your post: (1) why didn't you understand she had an air problem. A couple of underwater signals, including "out of air" are pretty universal. (2) Why did she make a "rapid ascent"? Did she try the octo and it didn't work, either? If octo worked, she could have made a slow, safe ascent.