Scuba incident/accident/Rescue via USCG Florida Middle Grounds 08/16/2018

[clownfishsydney]

Next time you are at 100 feet, try hitting your inflator and see how long it will take to make you so buoyant you are out of control. When I was preparing for the Gabe Watson murder trial, I did some tests, albeit at 15 to 18 metres (45 to 60 feet), to see how long it takes to fill a BCD. Even at this shallower depth it takes a long time. At 100 feet it is at least 33% longer.

 

[TrimixToo]

I think this should be a manageable failure even with the inflator stuck wide open. I can very quickly disconnect either inflator hose with one hand. Grab hose, thumb flange away from connection, pull out hose. It takes maybe one second for the dry suit, for which the hose is always in exactly the same place, and maybe two for the wing. I made acetal (Delrin) flanges for the hoses that don't already have a flange to make this easier (and gave away several to friends). I believe a commercial product is also available. A friend and I have even practiced this to make certain we can do it reliably. It's also far faster than shutting down a post, or closing the valve on a separate dry suit inflation bottle.

 

[Bob DBF]

"Some people add an after market flange or collar that can assist, but I have said for years that the current design is ridiculous and it should be changed for safety and convenience, but nobody wants to change the "standard" I guess."

The "standard" is for the actual connection, the release could easily redesigned without affecting the interchangeability. The issue is that it might cost a bit more and production would need to be changed.



Bob

 

[Peter69_56]

For all the armchair experts I have experienced this exact failure. The time from 32m to the surface is 50 seconds.

What most people forget is they practice this and say "its simple, only a few seconds to disconnect etc etc......"

Well the first thing to allow for is recognition time, its not always clearly apparent that there is an issue, its takes maybe 5 sec to recognise you have a problem (given the bubble noise for diving and others as well as not so good hearing).

Then (in my case), I thought it was my dry suit so I disconnected it first, this lost me time, and by the time I worked out it was my wing inflator, I was at 15m and accelerating, so I disconnected my wing, and attempted to dump. All this in an unfamiliar CCR unit as it was new to me. I think my comment to myself at 15m was "Oh f%^k". My saving grace was that it was only 2 minutes into the dive. With fins spread wide and reaching for my dump valve I came out of the water like a submarine broaching. Had I have had significant decompression obligation I would have been in serious trouble. Had it been my drysuit, I think I would have had little chance to dump the air in time given the slower rate that a dry suit dump valve allows air to escape.

My fix was to completely replace the inflator valve assembly with a new one.

My OC gear has the inflator hose fitting flange mods. Unfortunately this was a new (second hand) CCR and thus standard inflator hose fittings, so with cold water, thick gloves, and a standard fitting, doing a disconnect was not going to be a simple proceedure

SO remember the following;

To recognise the issue takes valuable time
Bad or less than perfect hearing masks air leaks meaning you have to be moving up in the water column to realise you have an issue
While you are moving up in the water column you are accelerating
While dumping, and you are ascending, the remaining air is still expanding and accelerating you
Being unfamiliar with newish gear means your fix time is much slower

That was my experience anyway

 

[TrimixToo]

For all the armchair experts I have experienced this exact failure. The time from 32m to the surface is 50 seconds.

What most people forget is they practice this and say "its simple, only a few seconds to disconnect etc etc......"

<snip>

That was my experience anyway

My experience was different. I think I have posted about it before, but in any event I guessed right the first time. Starting at about 90', I rose perhaps 5' before returning to the wreck. Cold water, 3-finger 7mm wet gloves, no flanges on the BC hose (at the time). I was, however, very familiar with my rig; it was not new to me at all, and my fingers knew where to find things. I abandoned plans to enter the wreck, though, and poked about outside until it was time to go afterward, mouth-inflating as needed, and mouth inflating at the surface to establish strong positive buoyancy.

Since then, I have made sure I can disconnect quickly and practiced it from time to time to be certain.

So my message is a bit different: This *will* happen to you if you dive long enough. Prepare for it so you can manage it.

 

[Wookie]

Funny, in over 6000 dives it hasn’t happened to me yet. I use an air 2 as an inflator mechanism (although not as a safe second) and the regular part fails far more often than the inflator part. It gets serviced with my regulators, so perhaps more often than a standard inflator valve.