Rocket Man

[Stormingheaven]

I was diving with my son in a local lake, we had just descended to about 35 feet and had been down about 5 minutes or so. My son was on my right side and close by, the vis wasn't very good at about 10 feet or so. I looked over at my son and then looked to the left at something on the bottom when I looked to the right for my son he was no where to be found. I was holding my reel with the dive float attached so I stopped moving and waited a minute for him to find me. I looked to the surface but couldn't see him, again the vis wasn't so hot. Anyway after a minute of waiting I surfaced to find my son next to the dive flag with a panicked look on his face. Come to find out he had tried to add some air to his BCD to trim himself out when his inflater stuck filling his BCD and sending him to the surface like a rocket, not good. We ended the dive and returned to our boat.

When we got back on board we had a talk about what had happened. My son said that all he could think about exhaling and dumping air from his BCD. He never thought about disconnecting his low pressure inflater, something he says he will never forget again. Anyway it all worked out this time and I hope he learned a good lesson. Took that BCD directly to the dive shop and had the low pressure inflater replaced.

 

[mike_s]

I've had mine stick before.

usually it's because of some foreign object damage. like sand or dirt in the power inflator.

try pumping it several times and it might dislodge it.

The time mine did it, I found sand in it when I took it apart. cleaned it and worked fine afterwards. I guess I got some sand in it when it was sitting on the beach.

 

[Teamcasa]

Get one of these and use it to keep the inflator clean.
https://www.deepseasupply.com/index.php?product=1302

 

[Stormingheaven]

He bought his BCD used, it's in good shape but it has a few miles on it and it has provided good service during his limited amount of dives. We were not able to get the inflater to stick on the surface and could not find any contaminants lodged in it. I just wanted to make sure this was unlikely to happen again that's why I chose to have the inflater replaced. That is cheap insurance or reassurance.

Oh and thanks for the link for the inflater tool got one on the way, looks like something to have in my save-a-dive kit.

 

[BuoyantC]

Sounds like you both did the best you could for the circumstances. Inflator issues seem pretty common and require the most maintenance of any of my gear. Usually they don't stick full open, luckily.

Having one stick open in 35ft. depth, especially if you are wearing a wetsuit with some air already in the BC, makes it really difficult to do much more than exhale and flare before you're at the surface.

It's really good practice to disconnect/connect your inflator hose underwater or at least under pressure to make sure it isn't also the hose coupling that needs maintenance.

 

[BuoyantC]

Sounds like you both did the best you could for the circumstances. Inflator issues seem pretty common and require the most maintenance of any of my gear. Usually they don't stick full open, luckily.

Having one stick open in 35ft. depth, especially if you are wearing a wetsuit with some air already in the BC, makes it really difficult to do much more than exhale and flare before you're at the surface.

It's really good practice to disconnect/connect your inflator hose underwater or at least under pressure to make sure it isn't also the hose coupling that needs maintenance.