Tried to Kill Myself but Failed!

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OP, thanks for sharing! Great food for thought (along with the conversation being generated as a result) if considering doing solo in the futre which I plan on after the necessary training for the cert.

Please don't dive with your pony bottle turned off. Even if you charge it first, it will eventually purge and lose that pressure during a dive. And then your 1st stage will flood via the 2nd and take on salt water. It will be a mess when serviced, and might fail to work when you need it prior to service. Some of the corrosion that results may not be easily repaired.
That has not been my experience since diving with a pony. It has always stayed charged for the entire dive until I purge it. My pony 1st stage came with a small spg attached to it (is this the button spg being referred to?) which makes it quite easy and convenient to check while diving, which I do quite frequently during the dive. I do have it slung.
 
@Fastmarc

Button SPG is quite small, screws directly into the high pressure port
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If I was going to use a back mounted pony for solo diving, especially hunting, I’d just bungee the pony second under my chin and run just one single second stage off the primary tank. Too many regs and too much clutter is no good either. I don’t have an Air2 and wouldn’t buy one just for this. If the primary has a melt down and blows up just go to your bungeed second pony and go up.
I would think that having a slung pony would be more hazardous that what it’s worth when combining hunting, especially lings that can get pretty feisty when speared. A slung pony is great for a tech configuration and I used to use one like this, but would just be in the way for hunting and more of something to get shooting line wrapped around. Plus when I shoot a ling I tend to need both hands and a clear frontside to tackle and hold the thing down while I get out my Riffe dagger knife to spine it.
My best Lingcod:
IMG_0015.jpeg
 
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.
First thanks for sharing - it's not always easy to admit (and publicly document) lapses in judgement.
Second - happy belated b-day, hope for many more

I have a molded mouth piece on my primary, I'll never mistake it for anything else.
I have a digital pressure on my computer so even a breath registers easily enough to see - always seems a silly check but this instance makes that silly check rather important.

To others comments about spg on pony - I say absolutely. You may think/assume it's good to go because it "was" at the start of the day - but that's making an assumption on something rather critical. What other assumptions are they making during a dive?

I also agree with the issues on clips - especially if you are spearing. In general rec diving I don't think clips are necessarily bad. Sure there might be filament/nets in the water somewhere, but I've never come across more than a stray single fishing line doing recreational diving (resorts, well dove reefs). But spearing and solo, being more careful about entanglements with your gear becomes more important.
 
This is an advantage of having my primary routed under my arm, with a elbow (the "streamlined primary" set-up). And on a yellow hose - mainly for my buddies' benefit so they know that's where their emergency air comes from. And my

It'd be really hard for me to put the wrong reg in my mouth, and to not notice the hose.
 
Thank you NW Dive Dawg for sharing your experience. It takes maturity and wisdom to share an embarrassing and potentially fatal or DCS resulting incident with us so others can learn from your mistakes. Bravo.

When I was considering carrying a pony for Recreational diving both in groups and solo over 2 years ago I was quickly steered to slinging by many people on this forum mainly to avoid this potential scenario. Thank you to those people.

Of course I don't hunt or carry a camera rig and I understand why many of these people back mount their ponies.

Diving is potentially dangerous but with a slung pony with hose and second stage bungeed to the pony this is one of the dangers I don't have to worry about.
 
@NW Dive Dawg happy birthday, and I'm glad to hear that you made it out safe and sound. I don't think you'll find another ling that tastes quite as good as that one, for some time to come. Thank you for sharing your story here, this is a good learning opportunity for all of us. It takes a person with the right attitude to make a thread like this, let alone to take in 9 pages of feedback graciously! If you've read Gareth Lock's Under Pressure, I think this attitude is consistent with what Lock would call "Just Culture," which he identifies as one of the clearest indicators of being on a trajectory of improved safety outcomes.

In case you're open to feedback from yet another SB poster, here's mine:

You already mentioned several times that you will work on doing a better job with pre-dive checks: breathe both regs, check both SPGs, check both valves, etc etc. I think that's a great idea, and will help keep you safe down the line. But, one thing to keep in mind is that we're all human, and all fallible, so relying on our memories alone to keep us safe will only work, like, 99% of the time, not 100%. Checklists are a well-documented way to improve outcomes of safety checks like this. You might give it a shot, and if your wife is not a diver, she might be a good checklist reader.

I will echo others that a bungeed pony reg, or a slung pony would be safer. Not going to belabor that point, since it is discussed at length above. Also, +1 that spring-loaded brass clip on your chest doest not strike me as a safe way to secure your alternate reg (or anything, really), especially while diving with line. It takes a surprisingly small amount of pressure to open the gate on these things, particularly with thin line like monofilament or cave line. If your spear fishing sometimes involves a wrestling match with the ling like Eric says, I would think this applies doubly.

I don't have an opinion on whether Air2s are a good idea or not -- I don't use one myself, but my belief isn't firm enough to try to convince you not to use yours. Your idea of rebreathing out of your BCD on your way up is interesting to me. The concern I would have is hypercapnia: too much CO2.

That little voice in your head that tells you to breathe, isn't triggered by low oxygen content in the lungs, it's triggered by high CO2 content in the lungs. So, if you are rebreathing, each breath you take is going to make your body hungrier for air, and want to breathe faster and faster. Hypercapnia can quickly lead to severe headaches and loss of consciousness. The rebreather subforum has many stories of hypercapnic experiences when their sorb fails. Those stories are ******* scary, man.

But what you are talking about here, I would expect to bring on a hypercapnic state even more quickly, since you don't have any sorb at all, versus a rebreather sorb breakthrough, where you'd still have some sorb draining CO2 out of the system, just not enough to maintain life. I get what you are saying when you say that you'd stick the Air2 in your mouth just in case that urge to breathe gets to be too much -- but I dunno man, it's going to cost you that little bit of time and mental energy to deploy, and if the situation where you actually start breathing it is where your body is desperate for air, you might not be getting any upside out of the deal. I think discussing this with a rebreather instructor, or a dive doctor would be a good idea, because it might be worth doing, or it might just add more gas to the fire.

One other note that I didn't see brought up yet. You mentioned a couple of times that this was a complex dive in challenging conditions: cold water, drysuit with thick undies, difficult to see your own gear, bad viz, the need to navigate and keep track of where your boat is, handling the spearfishing gear, hunting around for lings, diving solo, thinking about a delicious buttery lingcod dinner ( :p ). That's a lot of factors! Would you consider this to be an apex dive for you, or somewhere near it? That is, a dive which is at or near the limit of your experience, training, and capability?

I have found in my own experience, and from reading anecdotes, that serious issues often occur on apex dives. The extra gear to set up makes us rush, the extra gear, tricky conditions, and specific goals like hunting, will tend to task loads us during the dive. That task loading makes us more likely to make mistakes, more likely to miss clues, and less likely to have important information available when we suddenly find ourselves neck deep in the sh--. This is a natural consequence of how our minds work, and something we all need to be aware of. Before a dive, it is worthwhile to evaluate how the planned dive compares to what you're used to, and when it's on the high end, really remind yourself to take that extra five minutes to breathe deep, get in the zone, and triple-check your stuff.

Glad you're alive, that this thread is up, and that the discourse is still pretty good, 80-something posts in. Hope this helps, cheers,
- Brett
 
@NW Dive Dawg happy birthday, and I'm glad to hear that you made it out safe and sound. I don't think you'll find another ling that tastes quite as good as that one, for some time to come. Thank you for sharing your story here, this is a good learning opportunity for all of us. It takes a person with the right attitude to make a thread like this, let alone to take in 9 pages of feedback graciously! If you've read Gareth Lock's Under Pressure, I think this attitude is consistent with what Lock would call "Just Culture," which he identifies as one of the clearest indicators of being on a trajectory of improved safety outcomes.

In case you're open to feedback from yet another SB poster, here's mine:

You already mentioned several times that you will work on doing a better job with pre-dive checks: breathe both regs, check both SPGs, check both valves, etc etc. I think that's a great idea, and will help keep you safe down the line. But, one thing to keep in mind is that we're all human, and all fallible, so relying on our memories alone to keep us safe will only work, like, 99% of the time, not 100%. Checklists are a well-documented way to improve outcomes of safety checks like this. You might give it a shot, and if your wife is not a diver, she might be a good checklist reader.

I will echo others that a bungeed pony reg, or a slung pony would be safer. Not going to belabor that point, since it is discussed at length above. Also, +1 that spring-loaded brass clip on your chest doest not strike me as a safe way to secure your alternate reg (or anything, really), especially while diving with line. It takes a surprisingly small amount of pressure to open the gate on these things, particularly with thin line like monofilament or cave line. If your spear fishing sometimes involves a wrestling match with the ling like Eric says, I would think this applies doubly.

I don't have an opinion on whether Air2s are a good idea or not -- I don't use one myself, but my belief isn't firm enough to try to convince you not to use yours. Your idea of rebreathing out of your BCD on your way up is interesting to me. The concern I would have is hypercapnia: too much CO2.

That little voice in your head that tells you to breathe, isn't triggered by low oxygen content in the lungs, it's triggered by high CO2 content in the lungs. So, if you are rebreathing, each breath you take is going to make your body hungrier for air, and want to breathe faster and faster. Hypercapnia can quickly lead to severe headaches and loss of consciousness. The rebreather subforum has many stories of hypercapnic experiences when their sorb fails. Those stories are ******* scary, man.

But what you are talking about here, I would expect to bring on a hypercapnic state even more quickly, since you don't have any sorb at all, versus a rebreather sorb breakthrough, where you'd still have some sorb draining CO2 out of the system, just not enough to maintain life. I get what you are saying when you say that you'd stick the Air2 in your mouth just in case that urge to breathe gets to be too much -- but I dunno man, it's going to cost you that little bit of time and mental energy to deploy, and if the situation where you actually start breathing it is where your body is desperate for air, you might not be getting any upside out of the deal. I think discussing this with a rebreather instructor, or a dive doctor would be a good idea, because it might be worth doing, or it might just add more gas to the fire.

One other note that I didn't see brought up yet. You mentioned a couple of times that this was a complex dive in challenging conditions: cold water, drysuit with thick undies, difficult to see your own gear, bad viz, the need to navigate and keep track of where your boat is, handling the spearfishing gear, hunting around for lings, diving solo, thinking about a delicious buttery lingcod dinner ( :p ). That's a lot of factors! Would you consider this to be an apex dive for you, or somewhere near it? That is, a dive which is at or near the limit of your experience, training, and capability?

I have found in my own experience, and from reading anecdotes, that serious issues often occur on apex dives. The extra gear to set up makes us rush, the extra gear, tricky conditions, and specific goals like hunting, will tend to task loads us during the dive. That task loading makes us more likely to make mistakes, more likely to miss clues, and less likely to have important information available when we suddenly find ourselves neck deep in the sh--. This is a natural consequence of how our minds work, and something we all need to be aware of. Before a dive, it is worthwhile to evaluate how the planned dive compares to what you're used to, and when it's on the high end, really remind yourself to take that extra five minutes to breathe deep, get in the zone, and triple-check your stuff.

Glad you're alive, that this thread is up, and that the discourse is still pretty good, 80-something posts in. Hope this helps, cheers,
- Brett
I echo the thanks for posting. It is a wonderful thing when we are challenged to think about a problem scenario in the safety of our lounge and to learn from others mistakes/experience. Thank you!
 
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
Been there, done that. It took me about a year to share how I really eff'd up during a dive, in a way that could have been dangerous, if you changed a few variables. Sharing these stories could save another diver's life, or save them from a PTSD like experience.


I also recently ended my first dive early. No major safety issues, but a couple too many things went wrong at the same time and I was reminded of my "3 strikes rule." Basically most diving tragedies I've looked into are the result of multiple things going wrong at the same time, but each problem by itself wouldn't have been fatal.

In the recent dive I terminated, first I was tired and not the most alert, then I lost a fin (but had another pair), then my sidemount equipment was improperly adjusted and being a pain, then I wasn't having fun and couldn't find the lost fin, then I started to cramp up. Nothing too dangerous yet, but I decided to call the dive anyway because I wasn't confident I was in the state to handle any foreseeable emergency.
 
But slinging it is easier, more flexible, and safer as your secondary can't be easily conflated with a primary. With a 40cf setup it is also nearly neutrally buoyant.

I agree with this part of the post. It's also adaptable. Solo dive or dive with a new buddy, clip on the pony. If diving with a reliable, familiar buddy, the pony can stay at home or on the boat, although it's never a bad thing to bring it along anyway. I don't find a 3L or AL40 cylinder to be any hassle at all in the water.
 

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