Rookie Diver mistake: uncontrolled ascent

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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.
 
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.
 
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).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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