Video: SCUBA Failure at 80 Feet, Yesterday

[Deep South Divers]

I looked hard at the Hog. type of configuration and I emulate the aspects of it that I find value in.

By definition, Bill Main - the inventor of the Hogarthian concept - warned against "picking and choosing." All of the system is reliant on the rest of the system to function properly... That is, it only works if you use the whole system.

Task loading and excessive gear IS an issue. Certainly something to be careful of. Getting tangled is another issue. I've been tangled up literally dozens of time in line and things and have had to remove my scuba unit many, many times.

Really? In thousands of dives, I have never once ever had to remove my life support system at depth. And while I've bumped into a line before or come across some old mono on a wreck or whatever, I have never once ever experienced a true entanglement... And I'm a commercial diver that dives in line-filled, zero-vis, high-current waters all the time. I raise true shipwrecks - complete with every line they ever had in the water (and usually covered by a diesel fuel spill) - about three or four times a year. All that, and I have never experienced a true entanglement.

Check our website and go to our YouTube Channel. There you'll see me filmed doing disentanglements of large commercial fishing vessels - at least three times over the past 90 days or so, and that's just what was filmed... Me removing in some cases several miles of monofilament from the prop of a large fishing vessel.

...All of that experience and I have never once ever been personally entangled to the point of having to cut myself out, and certainly never entangled to the point of having to remove my life support at depth. Could your problem be all of the gear you have with you?

I sometimes wear a BP/W, but lately I've been on a scuba pro Bc kick..

I have a hard time believing this too, DD. I'm not calling you anything... I'm just saying that I have a hard time believing your statement above just as I would have a hard time believing someone who said, "Yeah, I own a Ferrari and sometimes drive it, but lately I've been on this Kia Sportage kick..." Do you have any pictures or video to back up this claim?

I also forgot another few pieces of gear: I had a whistle and a dive alert on an extra lp hose and a lobster guage somewhere ... LOL

...And I suppose that if you had a Ferrari, you'd put "twenty-twos" on it, too... Or maybe some glitter paint or tassels in the windows, right?

I've been diving a long time.

Me too. 26 years, to be exact. And some on this board have been diving almost twice as long as I have.

I've seen several people die and bad accidents and many close calls.

I've seen a couple - most of them dramatically task loaded, overweighted, and with gear in a poor state of repair. They didn't like me pointing out to them the obvious issues that they had, and most of them told me to "go away" after yelling at me and getting all wrapped around the axle and basically blaming me for the issues that they were having. They stopped diving with me - until I did the body recovery.

In every case, I was told by them that "they've been diving a long time," as if that somehow meant that the rules of diving and the laws of physics didn't apply to them. They usually told that to me in a very angry tone before telling me off and refusing to dive with me anymore. Guess the dead don't get to choose who their last dive is with - me, your body recoverer.

I don't carry a spare mask or a spare computer or wet notes or a jon line or a second light (unless at night and then I have 3 often) or a long hose or a barrel clip on my primary reg hose .. many people think all these things are needed.

...So the logic is that you could have even more stuff with you if you wanted to?

The only thing I have learned from this thread is the comment TSM made....kinda obvious, but relevant and not something I've really considered... "us tech divers kinda figure out what the guy is breathing from before we shut it down"... or something along those lines...

I doubt that Lynne referred to herself as a "tech diver," and I'm confident that she was talking about shutting down her own systems, not someone else's. The training agencies responsible for her knowledge do not teach the practice of shutting others' systems down - they teach how to shut your own system down to isolate a problem and save available breathing gasses in the event of a catastrophic failure.

I assure you I am not task loaded with my configuration.

I assure you that you are. I also assure you that you are apparently unaware that you are task loaded. I also assure you that task loading is the #1 problem in the downward spiral of dive-related accidents.

But I am curious, what exactly am I carrying that gives you such heartburn? I have no problem with reasonable criticism, heaven knows I can dish it out. Do I look burdened to you?

Yes.

The yelling through the regulator is a good indicator. While it may not be the end-all indication (yelling could mean a lot of things), it is not a very common thing to hear underwater and a good indication that you are stressed. So is going off on the person that points it out.

...And you DO have a problem with "reasonable criticism." And I apparently have upset Splitlip by repeating the problems that I see in your task-loading tendencies, so I will not repeat "what exactly you are carrying that gives me such heartburn." Drop all of it. Leave it on the boat - especially the sharp impliments. Take with you a light and maybe one camera if you have to.

 

[Quero]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Discussion of the issues surrounding spearfishing with a young diver have been split off into a new thread, found here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...e-about-taking-young-divers-spearfishing.html

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[TSandM]

I doubt that Lynne referred to herself as a "tech diver," and I'm confident that she was talking about shutting down her own systems, not someone else's. The training agencies responsible for her knowledge do not teach the practice of shutting others' systems down - they teach how to shut your own system down to isolate a problem and save available breathing gasses in the event of a catastrophic failure.​

Just to clarify . . . GUE (and UTD and NAUI, from the training I have had with instructors for those agencies) teach that, when you hear a massive leak behind you, you shut down your own valve where you THINK the leak is coming from, and if it doesn't stop, you isolate. At the same time, you are signaling your team to come and assist. If you have misidentified the leak, the team member who comes in will see that you still have bubbles. His FIRST responsibility is to verify which reg you are using, because he may not have seen which one you shut down. IF you are breathing the reg that has the leak, he is to ensure that the other post is open, and then have you switch regulators. He is never to turn off the gas you are breathing, nor to switch you to a shutoff reg.

This entire incident would have been a non-event with a slung bottle, where the location of the leak would have been obvious. And it would have been a non-event with a protocol in place for communicating appropriate actions in the face of a valve leak. The problem is one that frequently bothers me, which is that recreational divers use what amounts to independent doubles (two tanks mounted behind them, where they cannot see the valves) where it is often true that the diver can reach NEITHER of his valves, and neither he nor his buddy has any training in managing valve shutdowns or regulator switches. Although it's easy enough for the diver to switch to his pony bottle if the primary reg freeflows (or if, in an unconscionable event, he just plain runs out of gas), it is NOT easy to manage any kind of first stage or hose problem with this setup, as this video event so clearly demonstrates.

 

[petrieps]

I've been following this thread with some interest and thought I would add my own 2 cents.

We are hunter gatherers by nature, have been throughout history. It's hard for me to understand how someone can possibly object to selectively killing a few fish to feed the family. I grew up hunting and fishing. I was taught to respect nature and only take what what we can consume and never kill for the sake of killing. There is a certain satisfaction to catching and preparing your own food. I get the same satisfaction working in my garden as I do hunting in the ocean. The best meals I've had have been the food I've caught or grown. I don't think I could get that same satisfaction from eating fish sticks.

Deep South Divers I just do not see what you see. You mention killing alligators to protect your divers. What you should've said was you kill alligators so you can make a profit recovering objects. I see that as far worse than killing for food.

I also don't see DD as over-tasked. He handles his gear with precision, which only comes from experience and skill. At any time he could unload gear and tend to an emergency.
DD, Your son looks like a great dive buddy. I hope my sons will be as calm and skilled as yours when something happens. I would dive with you guys anytime.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

By definition, Bill Main - the inventor of the Hogarthian concept - warned against "picking and choosing." All of the system is reliant on the rest of the system to function properly... That is, it only works if you use the whole system.



Really? In thousands of dives, I have never once ever had to remove my life support system at depth. And while I've bumped into a line before or come across some old mono on a wreck or whatever, I have never once ever experienced a true entanglement... And I'm a commercial diver that dives in line-filled, zero-vis, high-current waters all the time. I raise true shipwrecks - complete with every line they ever had in the water (and usually covered by a diesel fuel spill) - about three or four times a year. All that, and I have never experienced a true entanglement.

Check our website and go to our YouTube Channel. There you'll see me filmed doing disentanglements of large commercial fishing vessels - at least three times over the past 90 days or so, and that's just what was filmed... Me removing in some cases several miles of monofilament from the prop of a large fishing vessel.

...All of that experience and I have never once ever been personally entangled to the point of having to cut myself out, and certainly never entangled to the point of having to remove my life support at depth. Could your problem be all of the gear you have with you?



I have a hard time believing this too, DD. I'm not calling you anything... I'm just saying that I have a hard time believing your statement above just as I would have a hard time believing someone who said, "Yeah, I own a Ferrari and sometimes drive it, but lately I've been on this Kia Sportage kick..." Do you have any pictures or video to back up this claim?



...And I suppose that if you had a Ferrari, you'd put "twenty-twos" on it, too... Or maybe some glitter paint or tassels in the windows, right?



Me too. 26 years, to be exact. And some on this board have been diving almost twice as long as I have.



I've seen a couple - most of them dramatically task loaded, overweighted, and with gear in a poor state of repair. They didn't like me pointing out to them the obvious issues that they had, and most of them told me to "go away" after yelling at me and getting all wrapped around the axle and basically blaming me for the issues that they were having. They stopped diving with me - until I did the body recovery.

In every case, I was told by them that "they've been diving a long time," as if that somehow meant that the rules of diving and the laws of physics didn't apply to them. They usually told that to me in a very angry tone before telling me off and refusing to dive with me anymore. Guess the dead don't get to choose who their last dive is with - me, your body recoverer.



...So the logic is that you could have even more stuff with you if you wanted to?



I doubt that Lynne referred to herself as a "tech diver," and I'm confident that she was talking about shutting down her own systems, not someone else's. The training agencies responsible for her knowledge do not teach the practice of shutting others' systems down - they teach how to shut your own system down to isolate a problem and save available breathing gasses in the event of a catastrophic failure.



I assure you that you are. I also assure you that you are apparently unaware that you are task loaded. I also assure you that task loading is the #1 problem in the downward spiral of dive-related accidents.



Yes.

The yelling through the regulator is a good indicator. While it may not be the end-all indication (yelling could mean a lot of things), it is not a very common thing to hear underwater and a good indication that you are stressed. So is going off on the person that points it out.

...And you DO have a problem with "reasonable criticism." And I apparently have upset Splitlip by repeating the problems that I see in your task-loading tendencies, so I will not repeat "what exactly you are carrying that gives me such heartburn." Drop all of it. Leave it on the boat - especially the sharp impliments. Take with you a light and maybe one camera if you have to.

Apparently my request for you to stop badgering me and posting on this thread was deemed to be inappropriate and deleted by the moderator(s).

In this latest post you attempt to call me out when I say "I own a BP/W and lately have been using a Scuba Pro BC instead". Somehow you equate a BP/W as a prestigious sports car and a SP BC as a KIA.

And now you challenge me to show more video or a photograph or something to prove to you that I own a BP/W? Once again directly challenging the authenticity of some simple comments I've made...

This is the kind of crap that survives after a moderator's review?????

Seriously, is there no end to this absurdity?

 

[DM_cappie]

DD, I’ve read many of your posts in the past and especially enjoy what you’ve had to say about your GoPro, however it appears to me that you ARE task loaded, I completely disagree with people who say its fine because it’s common for you….
did the overloading cause the failure is another issue completely…..is it possible that while on the boat you were concentrating on gathering all your “stuff” for the dive and didn’t catch a small leak coming from your pony BEFORE the problem escalated? Did you check it at all?
Now I’ve been guilty in the past of task loading and constantly have to ask myself if I really NEED all the crap I’m planning on taking diving, and more often than not I don’t, and end up leaving it at the house or on the dock. As a divemaster I wouldn’t dream of trying to spearfish, test video lights, and shoot cameras if I was also charged with the safety of another diver. There’s just no way I can give that diver my full attention… therefore I cannot see how your son had your full attention.

I don’t know if I made it up in my head or heard it somewhere but I’ve always had this quote in my head…
Diving leads to experience
Experience leads to complacency
Complacency leads to accidents
Accidents lead to death
When divers become complacent, whether it’s slowly picking up toys until their overloaded, or not expanding their skill set, accidents occur . From there if they don’t make an effort to make corrections those accidents will lead to death, of that diver, or his buddy.

 

[Splitlip]

Same Cappie who works for Deep South Divers?

 

[DM_cappie]

Yes I am....And I'm very capable of coming to my own opinions....why do you ask?

 

[Splitlip]

I've been to your website and just remembered the name.

 

[DM_cappie]

yeah its unique...... haven't really seen to many other Cappies around.....I thought you were trying to insinuate something with that question. my apologies...