Rookie Diver mistake: uncontrolled ascent

[drbill]

Good lesson, but I'm wondering about the adding a "tiny bit" of air to the BCD. For minor adjustments in buoyancy I use my lungs (as we were taught back in the Dark Ages before people used BCDs). Was there a problem with your inflater (I've had them stick open before... happened the very first time I used a BCD)? Adding a tiny bit of air shouldn't cause you to become a Polaris missile.

 

[tstormdiver]

LOL.. I have had MUCH bigger emergencies underwater than having nothing to breathe!! Where do you come up with this stuff?

I can bet you won't survive too long with nothing to breathe & Not getting to the surface or having an alternate air supply... Everything else is only an inconvienence. As long as I can breathe,... I'm good. I came up with it through simple common sense, BTW.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I can bet you won't survive too long with nothing to breathe & Not getting to the surface or having an alternate air supply... Everything else is only an inconvienence. As long as I can breathe,... I'm good. I came up with it through simple common sense, BTW.

LOL like I said I have seen much more urgent problems underwater than having nothing to breathe... (or getting to the surface).

 

[Atsbits]

Something similar happened to me when doing buddy breathing ascents in ow cert, didn't dump air and shot up like a champagne cork as soon as my " buddy" let me go. Since then, I practice my arse-up-dump ( underwater, cause the surface one is likely to get messy:turd, full fin down technique when there is not much else to do.

 

[Crass3000]

Don't beat yourself up too hard. It's how we learn. Sometimes I don't think that we are taught everything in as much detail as we should even in a deep diver class. I've had two uncontrolled ascents. One during my deep dive for AOW where I had a freeflow at around 80ft. I didn't panick at all and was breathing from the freeflow without a worry at all but I put a little too much air in my BCD and I really didn't put much in. Suddenly I was trying to vent it and it either wasn't venting or wasn't venting fast enough. I tried to pick up rocks as I finned down but just couldn't get to them. Could have been worse I guess as my second one was much worse.

Second time I was diving the popular wreck in the Key West that sits at 140ft on the floor. I went down just find but I lost my flipper. Not sure if the strap broke or not but I went down to find it and couldn't. I tried to start finning up with one fin and just wasn't making any progress with one fin so I put a little air in it. That deep blue water all around you really disguises speed. In no time I was in an uncontrolled ascent and I knew it. There was nothing I could do as I couldn't vent quick enough -- I also had lost a couple weights that were in my pocket (unzipped -- put in the water at the last minute.). Head down and the weights fell (only 4 pounds?!). In any case I was lucky to say that when I finned up to about 130ft (only one fin!!!) I just felt LITTLE progress. A couple of puffs later I was out of control. I will never make that mistake again and I'm lucky I was OK. I was probably OK because the chain of events happened almost right away so I didn't have time to take in much gas. Moral of the story. Only put a tiny bit of gas in to get yourself going if you ABSOLUTELY need to. Obviously release quite often on the way up. I'm mentoring a diver now and my mistakes will hopefully be ones they will never make. Hopefully that good can come out of my misfortune.

Note in both of these situations I knew where my ass dump was but it got between me and my BCD so I was unable to grasp it.