Safety - Trust your judgement

[Cpt_Smooth]

In retrospect this is a really novice lesson learned, but I thought I’d share it as at the time it didn’t seem so obvious and it caused me a bit of grief. My advice to all newbie divers is to trust your better judgement when it comes to safety, no matter how much you would like to be able to rely on the diver operator’s experience and professionalism to look after you.


I’m a casual / holiday diver, having completed 30 dives at the time, all entirely in warm and temperate waters in wetsuits. I took a holiday to a cold water location, for which I prepared by taking the PADI Drysuit Diver course before heading there.


When it came to the actual dive, I booked and was told all the gear would be brought to the site, which was 45 minutes from where I was staying. We were driven to the site by the operator and when we got there the only available suits were too loose around the neck for me. To correct this I was offered a rubber band to tighten the seal. This seemed very unusual and unsafe to me (certainly not discussed in the PADI course), but since this was being offered by several dive masters there who had lots of dry suit experience, and who assured me it was common practice and safe, I overruled my better judgement and assured myself they knew what they were doing and wouldn’t want to put a customer at risk. The fact that I was out of town and had already paid also let me pressure myself into trusting the situation, after all, I’d never done a non-training drysuit dive before and they’d done 100s, they probably do this all the time, why should I ruin my trip when I’m not the expert.


You can guess where it went from there. During the dive the rubber band blew off the seal and my suit flooded, leaving me to abort the dive with a case of mild hypothermia.


So my lesson learned is as I mentioned at the start, trust your better judgement when it comes to safety and be cautious when an operator suggests you do something that goes against what you’ve be taught is the safe way to go about things. You’re much better off having an uncomfortable conversation, demanding a refund and refusing to dive, than you are risking injury or worse. Further to this, it’s now my policy to try all gear prior to leaving for site, so that there’s no pressure when you get there.


Anything you have to add to this lesson or further advice is much appreciated.


I’d be keen to know if the old rubber band for a neck seal is common practice and if anyone else has had good or bad experiences with this.

Cheers

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I have never heard of this. In fact it could be downright lethal. Too tight and it cuts off blood.flow to the brain. Too loose as you found out could kill you from hypothermia when the suit floods. Those DM's were dangerous and should be reported to their agency. You can also add, buy your own gear. Take it with you.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TSandM]

I've used a variety of compressive bands to temporize failing neck seals, and they've actually worked reasonably well for me. But I don't think it was reasonable for them to rent you a dry suit and then not provide one that functions properly. There are a couple of different systems that a rental outfit can use to allow changing seals to the correct size, and if you are renting dry suits, I think you should be using one of them so your clients get a good fit.

 

[iamrushman]

thanks for sharing.....good advice....great story...glad your safe !

 

[Seymour Fisch]

I've got a skinny neck, so when I did my drysuit training, the rental suit neck was a bit loose.

The shop gave me one of these:
Apollo Sports: Dive Gear: Bio Seal
It felt really weird to touch -- something like slime, or a jellyfish, or some horrible space alien from a horror movie -- but it was very comfortable to wear and helped keep the neck leak-free. (Without it, in the pool, I was getting a lot of leakage.) They also put a velcro strap on top of the neck seal, but I'm not sure if that did anything, as it wasn't tight.

 

[Storker]

We were driven to the site by the operator and when we got there the only available suits were too loose around the neck for me. To correct this I was offered a rubber band to tighten the seal. This seemed very unusual and unsafe to me (certainly not discussed in the PADI course), but since this was being offered by several dive masters there who had lots of dry suit experience, and who assured me it was common practice and safe, I overruled my better judgement and assured myself they knew what they were doing and wouldn’t want to put a customer at risk.


[...]

I’d be keen to know if the old rubber band for a neck seal is common practice and if anyone else has had good or bad experiences with this.

I've never heard of the rubber band solution, but when I took my OW course (in the shop's rental DS), it was SOP to use electrical tape inside the neckseal (between the two folded layers) to ensure proper snugness. In our case, the instructor and DMs were very capable in determining just how tight the tape should be, though, so no-one had any issues with that.

On one of my first dives with my own gear, my neck seal was way too wide, and then one of the other divers (also an instructor, BTW) lent me a knife strap that was applied the same way. No problems there, either. But, again, the person helping me out was competent and capable to determine how tight it should be.

I've got a skinny neck, so when I did my drysuit training, the rental suit neck was a bit loose.

The shop gave me one of these:
Apollo Sports: Dive Gear: Bio Seal
It felt really weird to touch -- something like slime, or a jellyfish, or some horrible space alien from a horror movie -- but it was very comfortable to wear and helped keep the neck leak-free. (Without it, in the pool, I was getting a lot of leakage.)

I've got one of those. I never managed to avoid leaks in my neoprene neck seal, even when it shouldn't be much tighter, but the Bio-seal solved all my problems. I'll probably retire it now as I've gotten a new DS with silicone seals.

(BTW, the producer warns that the Bio-seal may reduce the life expectancy of the seal if it's used with a latex seal)

 

[Diver0001]

I’d be keen to know if the old rubber band for a neck seal is common practice and if anyone else has had good or bad experiences with this.

I've seen this used on the inside of neoprene drysuit seals. It accomplishes the task but only goes to prove that renting a suit sucks as compared to having your own. I always tell my students that the first things they need to buy are a mask, suit and computer in that order. Mask and suit are high priorities because they're the "comfort" pieces that make a huge difference to how diving "feels".

R..

 

[Cpt_Smooth]

Thanks all for your feedback. Would love to have my own DS and avoid the problem all together, but I don't get enough time to dive to make it a good value investment.

Those bio seals look to be an ok option if I ever decide to take a cold water dive vacation again.

 

[Hawkwood]

One of the nice things about having dry suits with "zip" seals in the rental fleet? The student or diver can buy their own neck seal and have one that fits them with no problems.

 

[dbulmer]

Thanks all for your feedback. Would love to have my own DS and avoid the problem all together, but I don't get enough time to dive to make it a good value investment.

Those bio seals look to be an ok option if I ever decide to take a cold water dive vacation again.

You learned the hard way about the drysuit and another lesson is that there is no shortage of Dms talking bollocks.

Hope your next experience is more fun