Spare Air & Pony Tank

[Rick Inman]

This works very well for me and since my pony saved my life once, ...

Can you tell us about it?? What happened, and how did the pony save you?

 

[scubadiver214]

Can you tell us about it?? What happened, and how did the pony save you?

Sure, I can tell everyone but I'm a bit embarrassed...and I'm sure there will be a rash of replies. To circumvent this, I'll try to admit to all the mistakes that made it necessary for my pony bottle to save my life. The primary problem was that I committed the cardinal sin: I simply ran myself out of air. My dive team was recovering a stolen vehicle that was at 85 feet in a very cold dark quarry: water temp 34 degrees. I was wearing my dry suit and a positive pressure full face mask with comms. I had located the vehicle and tied a float to it a few days prior; unfortunately a fisherman in a boat must have taken a liking to my brightly colored float and confiscated it. On the day we showed up for the recovery, the dive chief sent me down with another diver to relocate the truck. I had assured him I could find it fairly quickly without the need to set up any type of search pattern (Mistake #1). My partner had to abort the dive, and after surfacing, I convinced the chief I could go down by myself (big mistake #2), quickly find the vehicle again, confirm the license plate number, and tie off another float. Then, since we only had four divers, as planned, the next duo of divers could haul the chains down for attaching the tow truck cable to pull the vehicle up and out. Well, I went back down, it took longer than expected to find the vehicle, I realized my dry suit had a leak (Mistake #3)brrrrrr!), and the full face mask wasn't sealing very well over my hood (Mistake #4). Therefore I was cold, breathing much heavier, and I was losing air out of the mask around the temples. When I finally found the vehicle, I checked my watch (but not my air gauge...big mistake #5) and saw that I had only been down 18 minutes. Given my experience on deep wrecks, I assumed I must still be good on air (Mistake #6). I drew on my slate the relative position of the vehicle, searched around the vehicle and the interior, and wrote down the plate number. I then tied off the float and when I went to deploy it...honest to God, and I've never seen this before...the float didn't float! It sank in the soft muck under the vehicle (Mistake #7). It was my dive chief's homemade float made out of a wooden dowel (I had to prove it to him later that it simply didn't float!). As I was looking for the float in the soft muck, to my big surprise, I sucked the last breath from my tank. Oh ****! I don't know if it was the increased breathing rate because I was cold from the leak in my dry suit (most likely) and/or the air coming out of the mask (I don't know if this was a substantial enough of a loss), but I was completely out of air. I let go of my primary light, ripped the mask off, and started fumbling for my pony regulator. Normally held to my upper left bcd harness d-ring by an o-ring, the pony 2nd stage regulator had gotten pinned under my armpit and wasn't where I was expecting it to be. I, thank God, was able to think and reached for the 1st stage of the pony bottle (I hang the bottle upside down to protect the 1st stage) and followed the hose to the 2nd stage and was able to cram it into my mouth before sucking water. I then ascended and reluctantly admitted my how my assumption had caused me to run out of air to the rest of the team. In looking back, I thank God I lived and I hope I learned from this. I had considered myself an experienced diver and someone who wouldn't ever run himself out of air...that was prior to having done it. In the past, when I heard stories about people who ran out of air, I considered them stupid or inexperienced, and I thought I was above that...not any longer. There is one guy on my dive team who seems like he cannot let this go...he likes to remind me and others from time to time that I did that. I figure, since I've had a lot of diving experiences that he hasn't and that he's trying to position himself as "Number One" diver on the team, he needs to criticize me. I guess that's OK, again, I'm just glad I lived to learn from it. This is why I won't leave the surface without a pony bottle...even on recreational dives.

 

[bluemagoo]

"Experience" is surviving your mistakes -- and learning from others. Thanks for sharing. Being a warm-water weenie (once in a frozen Michigan lake was enough) and gone OOA only once in 35+yrs (my 3rd openwater dive to 110fsw for basic certification on the use of tables and air consump calculation -- yes, what was considered "basic skills" were different in the stone age when SPG's were still not in widespread use and octos were only things you ate), I've no room to critique your configuration or technique. The only item which struck me was no mention of abort criteria. I never go solo without an inviolate abort plan; any hit on the checklist and, *bing*, I'm on the escape sequence; no second-guessing. Sometimes, I don't even make it into the water. "Better to be on shore wishing you were in the water, than to be in the water and wishing you were on shore".

 

[Rick Inman]

Can you tell us about it?? What happened, and how did the pony save you?

Sure, I can tell everyone but I'm a bit embarrassed...

I knew it! Good story! Thanks for posting it. A lot to type for way down in this thread. You might re-post it as a new thread under Accidents and Incidents where more people will see it. Just a thought.

 

[scubadiver214]

"The only item which struck me was no mention of abort criteria. I never go solo without an inviolate abort plan; any hit on the checklist and, *bing*, I'm on the escape sequence; no second-guessing.".

Bluemagoo,

Thanks for your post. To answer your question about why I didn't abort: it was simple, pride. I was with a another public safety dive team prior to the one I was on for this particular dive. I felt I needed to prove myself a capable diver to the new guys instead of just letting it happen. I wanted to show the chief I could "get the job done." Under different circumstances, I would have aborted. I know it. I think I've since proven myself capable and no longer feel a need to prove it. That in itself has makes me a better diver.

Scubadiver214

 

[Mandy3206]

Glad you're OK, if you want to post it at the accidents forum, a simple copy paste will do!

 

[bluemagoo]

Bluemagoo,

why I didn't abort: it was simple, pride. I wanted to show the chief I could "get the job done."

Scubadiver214

Pilots have a similar syndrome called "getthereitis". Pilots, especially from military backgrounds, are an aggressive "can do" lot and can be tempted to push the envelope "just a little bit". A lot of innocent passengers have died because of it. It takes a lot of discipline (and guts) to bailout even when it seems to be such a "small" gamble. The crux is that problems tend to accumulate exponentially into a death spiral. I consider the best passenger pilots and solo divers to be "courageous cowards". That is, they have the self-confidence, self-sufficency, attention to detail, and practice(!) to take care of themselves under stressful situations and yet are smart enough to know when to say "when" -- to draw the line that others (with their overbearing ego or false sense of security) look down upon as as prematurely bailing out.

The wisest words ever said to me were: "You use your superior judgement so that you don't have to use your superior skill".

 

[fisherdvm]

Spare air bottles should not be ditched because of their small size. I think the convenience of being able to pack them in a suitcase (disassembled) for flying is a big plus.

At below 80ft, spare air would not give you enough air for just a few breath, but once you sense that your main tank is empty, and you can not see your buddy, at least the spare air on your side would cut down the anxiety a bit. Just enough to let you THINK about doing a slow controlled ascent while trying to suck the last bit of air from your tank. Then once you are near 20 or 30 ft, hopefully your empty tank will give you another breath or so until you can switch to your spare air.

At the shallower depth, the spare air would give you theoretically twice to 3 times the breath of the deep breaths.

So it would make sense to use spair air - if it would give you just a minute at 15 to 20 ft. To me, one should not start sucking on the spair air until he started the ascent, but should start the ascent while he is trying to remove the bottle out of the holster. Because what could be worse than anxiety attack with an uncontrolled ascent??

 

[eandiver]

I feel that I need to add this....at 80' spearing AJ's and not paying attention to my air I ran out( that right......dumbass.....) thanks to my buddy (Bret) we shared his tank to the surface and all was good. He had a spare air but due to the amount of air in his tank we opted to breathe from it and use the SA as a last resort..........2 days later he checked the SA and discovered it was filled with sea water...

 

[fishnchips]

I feel that I need to add this....at 80' spearing AJ's and not paying attention to my air I ran out( that right......dumbass.....) thanks to my buddy (Bret) we shared his tank to the surface and all was good. He had a spare air but due to the amount of air in his tank we opted to breathe from it and use the SA as a last resort..........2 days later he checked the SA and discovered it was filled with sea water...

Yap, proper maintenance of dive equipment is just as important as the skills and experience.