Tried to Kill Myself but Failed!

[Cthippo]

.... actually, up here on Vancouver Island ... the GUE crew are all pretty good with Non GUE divers.

I 100% believe that.
This seems to mostly be a SB phenomenon.

 

[Derbdiver]

So I’ve been on the fence on whether or not to post this……because it’s really hard to openly and publicly admit when you do something totally stupid. But then I thought more about it last night and figure that if it might provide some productive and positive food for thought and discussion…..or maybe help someone else from making the same mistake….that I really do need to talk about it.

Day before yesterday we are out on our boat and I’m doing a nice easy dive to celebrate my 68th B-day and get us a nice Lingcod for my B-day dinner. (it's a tradition thing) I’m a solo diver (certified SDI/TDS) and have done this dive many times with no issues. Nice easy exchange with little current, descent vis of about 10 ft.. I dive an HP102 Steel with a back-mount 19cf pony and a Zeagle Ranger BC.

My wife snapped the pic below right before I donned my hood, mask, gloves, fins, speargun & stringer prior to back-roll entry over the side. In looking at the pic I have realized my mistake and what happened. The “yellow” circle is my primary Apeks 2nd stage. My pony second is kinda hidden just below and behind my right hand. The “green” circle is the clip that I normally route my pony hose through so that the pony 2nd is basically is right in front of me, always there and easily accessible. Once I finished kitting up with all my crap for the dive, I was in a rush to splash and inadvertently must have grabbed my pony 2nd rather than my primary, inserted the pony 2nd into my cake-hole, took a couple of hooves, then back-rolled into the Sound. All seemed good so I gave my wife the OK, swam forward, descended the anchor line to about 60ft and began my hunt.

About 10 minutes into the dive and after bagging and stringing a nice dinner Ling, I noticed my reg getting a bit stiff to breath….then the next breath where there was NO gas. I immediately went for my pony 2nd, but it wasn’t there in it’s normal spot because it was already in my mouth and not in it’s normal clip. My brain is spinning and totally telling me that my main gas supply is depleted for some reason and I NEED my pony 2nd. I have a moment of what I would call “high anxiety” and possibly first stage panic. My brain is saying WTF??? ESA??? so I go to my BC / Air 2 thinking that I can “re-breath” on the way to the surface if needed. The Air 2 immediately delivers blessed gas from my still full primary tank and I am some how able to calm down, settle to the bottom, re-group and access the situation.

I check my pony SPG and it’s zeroed out so I start to realize my mistake. I sweep and recover my primary 2nd, switch to that from my Air 2….and all is good. I check my primary computer and realize that I still have 3350psi of a 3500psi fill. The picture of what happened starts to clarify in my mind and I bet I spent a good full minute or two on my knees just breathing and slowing down my heart rate as I stare at my primary AI computer and see that I have LOTS of primary gas available and all is well.

Being solo and with my redundant gas now gone, I call my dive and nav back to the anchor line and my marker strobe…….make a nice slow ascent with SS and surface with plenty of primary gas remaining. Had a great Lingcod dinner and glad that I get to be a year older…

Anyway….. it’s not easy to post this because I’m totally embarrassed that I made such a stupid flipp’n mistake…. But hoping that we might be able to have some productive conversation about it.

My “personal” lessons learned.

• Confirm, crosscheck, double check and triple check all configurations and functions before splashing.
• Confirm, crosscheck, double check and triple check all configurations after splashing.
• Don’t be lazy about checking gauges early and often. If I had checked my primary gas PSI earlier I would have realized that I wasn’t using my primary gas.

That’s it. Sorry about the long post and thanks for listening….

I had a similar experience with my Brother (Dive Master) I have only certified for OW. We started a beach dive off Redondo Beach. At the start, before we made our way out between sets he asked about my dive computer, I replied on and working fine. I asked him same (Oh it appears my battery is dead), fortunately for him I had a wrist backup. We started our dive (Submarine Canyon), he always leads our dives. As we descended past 70ft I noticed him rubbing his hands (Turns out both his gloves 58F water now) were useless. He has Raynaud's and his hands were already yellow, so at 70+' I traded my good gloves for his crappy holey ones. We finished the dive with no further issues but as we were donning our gear he asked what the max depth I had was and how long. I said check the computer I gave you (Oh he had forgotten to turn it on as it required bare finger contacts to activate and I told him this). After this experience I realized that sometimes the most expert divers get over confident. I'm glad you kept a cool head and didn't panic by shooting to the surface. I don't live near the coast so I never have the privilege of getting over-confident as my dive trips only add up to maybe 10 in a good year. Cheers.

 

[Wibble]

I had a similar experience with my Brother (Dive Master) I have only certified for OW. We started a beach dive off Redondo Beach. At the start, before we made our way out between sets he asked about my dive computer, I replied on and working fine. I asked him same (Oh it appears my battery is dead), fortunately for him I had a wrist backup. We started our dive (Submarine Canyon), he always leads our dives. As we descended past 70ft I noticed him rubbing his hands (Turns out both his gloves 58F water now) were useless. He has Raynaud's and his hands were already yellow, so at 70+' I traded my good gloves for his crappy holey ones. We finished the dive with no further issues but as we were donning our gear he asked what the max depth I had was and how long. I said check the computer I gave you (Oh he had forgotten to turn it on as it required bare finger contacts to activate and I told him this). After this experience I realized that sometimes the most expert divers get over confident. I'm glad you kept a cool head and didn't panic by shooting to the surface. I don't live near the coast so I never have the privilege of getting over-confident as my dive trips only add up to maybe 10 in a good year. Cheers.

I guess your brother’s hands were comfortably numb after swapping gloves

The good news is you are learning as you do more dives. Ultimately there’s only one person responsible for you, the person you see in the mirror. Whilst it’s great to dive with other people, especially those with more experience, those people can have off days.

Valuable lessons from that dive.

 

[gordonscuba]

I had a similar experience with my Brother (Dive Master) I have only certified for OW. We started a beach dive off Redondo Beach. At the start, before we made our way out between sets he asked about my dive computer, I replied on and working fine. I asked him same (Oh it appears my battery is dead), fortunately for him I had a wrist backup. We started our dive (Submarine Canyon), he always leads our dives. As we descended past 70ft I noticed him rubbing his hands (Turns out both his gloves 58F water now) were useless. He has Raynaud's and his hands were already yellow, so at 70+' I traded my good gloves for his crappy holey ones. We finished the dive with no further issues but as we were donning our gear he asked what the max depth I had was and how long. I said check the computer I gave you (Oh he had forgotten to turn it on as it required bare finger contacts to activate and I told him this). After this experience I realized that sometimes the most expert divers get over confident. I'm glad you kept a cool head and didn't panic by shooting to the surface. I don't live near the coast so I never have the privilege of getting over-confident as my dive trips only add up to maybe 10 in a good year. Cheers.

I would not personally like a computer that would not turn on automatically when it detects a pressure noticeably greater than atmospheric pressure. All of my computers are shearwater, they all turn on automatically if you jump in the water. Of course that is intended as a fail-safe, they should be turned on as part of the pre-dive checks, especially if you dive gases other than air.

 

[8mb]

How did this result in killing a number of divers? The reason I ask is that I've experienced this myself. Though I was on the backside of Molokini, group diving with a guide with everyone spread out (so solo). I used the same reg for my primary and my pony. I was at probably 80 feet when I noticed that my gas was out. I figured it out fairly quickly as I looked at my SPG and saw I had all my gas. I just switched and then stuck closer to the DM. The only thing I fixed after that was to make sure the regs were unique and to necklace my pony.

I like having my chest area clear, so I never slung a pony.

Broski, that man looks like he’s the epitome of organization and he still feels he nearly offed himself.

I mean, just look at his eloquently worded post even That’s a guy that thinks about things in advance - better than many.

Considering the above, if OP found himself in that (non) boat, then boy oh boy for the vast majority of the (if I had to guess), likely statistically higher numbers of the more haphazard people out there.

Doesn’t take too much to die underwater.

Lots of people with thousands of dives and all the training joined the “I did one dumb thing on one unexpected off day one time” club.

I don’t know why scubaboard makes me feel so spicy. I am generally a very vanilla person. I don’t know what is happening here must be something in the water.

Big kudos to OP for sharing. I love that the post got lots of attention and people are going to double, and triple check, for a while now.

10 gold stars for OP

 

[happy-diver]

.... something to be said for slinging one's pony tank, not mounting it on your back.

Yes also if they do have trouble starting the dive breathing the correct reg or turning on their air
it would probably also behoove them to weld their reg to their tanks and weld their valves open

 

[eightytwenty]

I 100% believe that.
This seems to mostly be a SB phenomenon.

A phenomenon that you're doing wonders to squash.

 

[lermontov]

Yes also if they do have trouble starting the dive breathing the correct reg or turning on their air
it would probably also behoove them to weld their reg to their tanks and weld their valves open

lets start a thread on this

 

[Bento.Box]

Just out of curiosity: What's the reasoning for choosing a pony bottle over a sidemount for solo diving?

regarding the regs:
I chose green and red hoses, so I see which reg goes to the starboard and port tank.

 

[Cthippo]

Just out of curiosity: What's the reasoning for choosing a pony bottle over a sidemount for solo diving?

For me it is simplicity and saving on fills. As I understand SM, you awitch back and forth throughout the dive, keeping both about equal. I prefer just breathing off one tank and ignoring the pony except to turn it one and off at the start and end of the dive.

With SM you need to get both tanks filled after each dive, whereas with a pony I breathe so little off it each time that I can often go a whole season on one fill.