Well that was stupid ... complacency strikes

[iamrushman]

thanks for sharing and having a good attitude and teaching spirit.....all is good till something goes wrong.......

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Thanks for sharing.

However, this isn't a complacency problem. This is a problem of bad habits, or lack of good ones.

Complacency would describe a diver pushing his air reserve limits as he gets more comfortable in the water, or always pushing NDL limits (or even exceeding them).

Not checking an SPG before jumping in? If this was a one-time deal, then it was a brain-fart. If this is a regular thing, then it was Russian Roulette.

I'm going with brain fart. Checking the gauge when I turn the tank on is SOP, and for most recreational dives I also check the pressure beforehand when analyzing my gas at the shop. I was missing that initial step for the first time in a while and may have been lulled by this being a comparative "milk run." In my book, that's being complacent - not stopping to check for that wild card like a drained tank or a bad o-ring.

 

[doctormike]

I see a pony bottle as useful, but more as insurance against a catastrophic failure of the first stage, HP LP hose failure, or just being stupid enough to overstay one's limits at depth..

Minor edit

 

[doctormike]

I'm going with brain fart. Checking the gauge when I turn the tank on is SOP, and for most recreational dives I also check the pressure beforehand when analyzing my gas at the shop. I was missing that initial step for the first time in a while and may have been lulled by this being a comparative "milk run." In my book, that's being complacent - not stopping to check for that wild card like a drained tank or a bad o-ring.

Thanks for posting this story! Brave of you to do that, and very helpful.

I guess it's semantics, but I would call this a failure of standard practices rather than a one time brain fart due to complacency. The one thing that I do every time I put on my dive gear before I splash is to pick up my SPG, and take three breaths from each regulator while looking at it.

If you didn't do that on this particular dive, it's a brain fart. If you aren't in the habit of doing this, but have been lucky on the past 700 dives, then that's a bad practice.

Milk run or not, you need to splash with gas in your tank. The relative ease of the dive shouldn't change your practices.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

It's funny since I got out of it, but this really, really, really would have been an embarrassing way to check out on Dive # 700-something after a good 14 years. I've decided to post this to show that even an "experienced" diver can make a very basic mistake through sheer complacency.

Some time ago I went on a dive charter with a friend. We rented nitrox tanks from the boat at the dock and loaded them aboard; when we settled into our spots there was a fifth tank next to us in the racks (I'm not sure if it was between ours or at the end) that was presumably left over from the morning dive. One of the DM's came through and checked the O2 mixes on all five tanks while we watched the readouts, and off we went. First dive, no issues.

On the surface interval, we switched over tanks. One of my buddy's tanks had a bad o-ring, so rather than changing it out I told her to take the next tank over and I bumped down to the next tank in line. This is where I made my big mistake; I put my BC on the tank, hooked up my reg, turned it on, and did not check my pressure gauge. Not right after I changed the tank over, not as I was gearing up for the next dive, not before I got in the water. I just turned the tank on and jumped into 75-80 ft of water with the expectation that everything was in order.

Welp, about 15 minutes in at a depth of 75 ft I notice my reg is breathing a little hard. At this point I decide while I shouldn't be having air issues, I'll look at my gauge. Now, since I wear a wrist computer I just have a bare SPG on the end of my high-pressure hose, and when it's under pressure the swivel on the gauge is very stiff. When I grabbed it this time, the gauge spun freely in my hand. That was my second hint I was screwed.

My third hint was when I looked at the gauge. Zero. Zip. Nada. ****!

Now, I was fortunate at this point that my friend was a) someone I hadn't dove with before, b) someone I was taking on a checkout trip for a more demanding dive two weeks later, and c) really knew her stuff. So first off I actually had a buddy I was sticking to like molasses (something that's become less and less frequent in recent years) and second that person knew what to do when I swam over and showed her a flatlined gauge. I never actually pulled a Coke bottle on the tank, but after getting about 10 ft off the bottom I signaled to start a shared air ascent. There were no further problems, we took the time for a three-minute safety stop, and overall it was a very cool, calm, and collected affair. Needless to say, I paid for her dive trip after we got back to the dock - the "save your buddy, get a free dive trip" rule.

Afterwards, I tested my reg on the tank from the first dive (600 psi) and the one with the dodgy o-ring (3000+ psi). So in hindsight, what must have happened was that one of those five tanks was probably drained down to about 1000 psi or so at the time we left the dock. As stated, I'm not sure whether that tank was one of the ones we drew out of the equipment shed at the dock or the "spare" left over from the morning dives; however the end responsibility was mine to make sure the damn thing had gas in it before I jumped off the boat. I blew that responsibility off because I had gotten complacent; I assumed everything was in perfect order for a dive that in my book was something of a milk run. If I hadn't been sticking close to a buddy, I would have been profoundly ****ed with nobody to blame for it but myself.

Mark my words, I'm never doing that again.

If I hadn't been sticking close to a buddy, I would have been profoundly ****ed with nobody to blame for it but myself.



why would you say that? You could not have made a safe and controlled ascent from that depth with a low on air tank? Are you being dramatic or do you feel this situation was unsurvivable, without help from your buddy?

Certainly a blown hose or some other problem would have been more significant than simply finding it "hard to breathe" at 75 ft. Do you view a failure at 75 ft as lethal, yet carry no redundancy for this depth?

I suspect I know exactly what you did, you listened to the air shooting into the reg when you turned it on and it sounded full. I've done similar things, but then again, I carry redundancy.

 

[billt4sf]

Thanks for thus reminder. I have noticed that, as I am on a resort trip, I tend to get complacent about checking my gear and sometimes I have "forgotten" to check air (take two breaths while watching the SPG) before every dive.

Good reminder - thanks for posting.

- Bill

 

[HalcyonDaze]

If I hadn't been sticking close to a buddy, I would have been profoundly ****ed with nobody to blame for it but myself.



why would you say that? You could not have made a safe and controlled ascent from that depth with a low on air tank? Are you being dramatic or do you feel this situation was unsurvivable, without help from your buddy?

Certainly a blown hose or some other problem would have been more significant than simply finding it "hard to breathe" at 75 ft. Do you view a failure at 75 ft as lethal, yet carry no redundancy for this depth?

I suspect I know exactly what you did, you listened to the air shooting into the reg when you turned it on and it sounded full. I've done similar things, but then again, I carry redundancy.

Put it this way - I probably could have made a controlled ascent from that depth, in the same sense that a pilot can pull off a deadstick (no power) landing in a plane. Doable, yes. It's also, to use a description from a writer friend of mine, what happens "when your last resort and your last, last resort kill each other in a freak accident." I did keep breathing on my reg until we got up to about 60 ft, at which point I felt I was better off switching over to my buddy's gas supply rather than see how far I could push mine. Could I have ascended solo? Possibly, but it would have been a dicier situation than I like to get myself into.

Redundancy is definitely something I'm going to pursue; I foresee a pony bottle being an early Christmas present to myself. Even if I never do something this boneheaded again, hoses and regs can fail at depth and having a bailout tank is the best precaution there.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

A pony? I thought your were a DIR Proponent?

 

[lamarpaulski]

Well, his octopus was indeed worthless but his buddy's was sure valuable. A pony would be even better of course.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

A pony? I thought your were a DIR Proponent?

I'm a "whatever works for me" proponent. Redundancy is good, but I'm not going half a mile into a cave. Something that'll buy me 10 minutes or so to get out of a jam without being too cumbersome is more my style.

Funnily enough, on a lark I tagged along on a local GUE dive a little over five years ago when I lived in Seattle. Waiting around for your dive buddies to triple-check their triple-redundant gear ain't fun when you're the only one in a wetsuit and it's February.