When drills become thrills - incident caught on video

[jimmy71]

Bill, I just spent a couple hours reviewing what post are left after the mods cleaned it.........

First a simple question. How and where is your camera mounted? Seems to be high on right arm. I tired mounting mine on the mask strap but you always miss a lot of action. I find it annoying. Yours gave a much better understanding of the situation.

I want to commend you on your willingness to put yourself to the attacks that happen on a board like this when someone presents a situation where they made mistakes and hope to teach/learn from others. Handling these discussions is not a strong point of the boards. If you did not write a book or invent diving, then your actions are ALWAYS wrong and a sign you "should not be diving." It is rubbish and has no place here. I am unsure if it is because people do not want to believe it can happen to them or that they are unprepared. We have all learned lessons by different means. If you are lucky you learned them through education and practice. If you are unlucky you learned them the hard way. You learned a lot of things that you will not soon forget. Congrats.

I also want to commend you on keeping your cool. All the books and indecent analysis you read all have a common theme, panic. A simple problem or even multiple problems that are solvable become unsolvable once a diver panics. Panic kills. You can teach a diver different techniques and lessons, it is very hard to teach away panic. It is unacceptable underwater. You recognized your situation and had methods and a plan to address it. Regardless of your choices, you had a realistic plan that you continued to reevaluate as new circumstances arose. Your goal was to reach the surface safe and had to remap and reassess how to do that at various parts of the dive. I think you did a good job of doing so exhibited by the fact you made it back to the surface safely. Sure it could have been done prettier but in the end it is the same.

I love how people fault you for performing a safety stop and also fault you for not realizing the large number of options available to you as far as air and alt air sources at said stop. At your stop in your conditions, you had plenty of air and air sources to finish a very long safety stop if needed. Why not finish it? This was not open ocean water with bad chop, it does not matter if they surfaced with zero air. I can promise you that they are probably at a remote location with little support and no O2 to handle a diver with DCS. This could have a repeat dive or other. I see no harm with finishing a safety stop in this situation. There was no added risk in doing so. He assessed risks vs benefits, saw the benefits, and acted as such. Once his evaluation changed, his actions did as well. Those are the actions of a thoughtful diver. One who does not think dumps his weight sand corks to the surface.

i would to say more but i got to go.

 

[billmas]

Hi Jimmy,

First the camera, it's on a DIY plate mounted on my wrist.



I agree, it seems to work well there. If you click through to my youtube channel (on the video in the first post somewhere), there are a few other dive vids which should give you an idea if it would work for you. The plate is very simple to make, and if people are interested I'll put some instructions up in the Videos forum.

As to the rest of your post, I didn't think I'd be posting in this thread again for fear of it going downhill again - but I genuinely think you've added something extremely useful to the thread and what any diver would take away with them from reading it, the question of panic versus thinking ahead, adapting your response to the changing situation etc (the "Mindset").

Thankyou Jimmy, well done.

Kind Regards
Bill

 

[jimmy71]

Interesting mount. Thanks for showing it. No way i could use that with the slates, computers, clip off stages and such. My forearms fill up quick. It does a nice job underwater. I would have thought that it would have generated a more erratic video. I imagined it being on upper arm. I think i will try to mount mine to my light head and see how that does. I do not have a gopro, I use a tachyon.

If you continue onto tech training, you might be surprised (as I was) that they do NOT believe in teaching or learning multiple solutions to the same problem. The rational is that the more options you have, the longer it takes to react. The goal is to take thought out of the loop and make it more like a reflex. It is an interesting idea and one to think about.

 

[abnfrog]

In light of Deep South Divers last post I wanted to repeat the concern I raised in Post 59. Kinking the hose when it is a 2nd stage freeflow will probably do no harm and could save some gas. Kinking the hose when the freeflow is the result of the 1st stage icing or otherwise failing could leave you in a world of hurt. If the other 2nd doesn't start freeflowing, which is the case with some 2nd's the inflator can start to freeflow on either your BC or drysuit or possibly both sending you to the surface in an uncontrolled ascent. Since it is impossible to tell whether it is the 1st or 2nd that is the source of the problem kinking the hose is a bad idea.

kinking the hose is a very VERY stupid idea ! ip pressure is at least 125 psi (you wont stop or reduce gas escaping ) if you knew about regulators you would know that is just THE STARTING psi it will go up after that till the lp seat fails......best thing to do is go to an octo and get out of the water , with the doubles of course there is other options. if you havent touched the bc ( remember the 2nd stage is free flowing ) the bc will not start filling by its self(i havent seen that happen in 35 + years )) yes you can with exsperience know ifs a 1st or 2nd stage free flow (maybe some day you might get that much exserience ) there is NO mistaking a 1st stage freeflow it was described in an eairlier post by someone with that kind of knowlege.......

 

[Deep South Divers]

kinking the hose is a very VERY stupid idea ! ip pressure is at least 125 psi (you wont stop or reduce gas escaping ) if you knew about regulators you would know that is just THE STARTING psi it will go up after that till the lp seat fails......

Negative. If the freeflow of a second stage is the product of a failed second stage, then kinking the hose will simply stop the freeflow. It will not cause an LP seat failure. If the freeflow is a product of a leaking HP seat, then it's not going to somehow make the LP fail either.

If it's the HP seat inside your first stage that has failed and you kink an LP hose of a leaking second stage, then your other second stage will begin to leak, too... And nobody is going to be ABLE to kink BOTH hoses - and wouldn't anyway, because they have to breathe on one.

According to grf88's post quoted above, there are some second stages that will not freeflow in excessive IP. I have never seen a second stage that will not freeflow if given too much IP. This is a wives' tale.

My point is that, no, it's not going to cause a catastrophic explosion if you kink a hose, nor will it cause you to launch toward the surface. Try it the next time you're out - and yes, it's effective.

...Not that I ever offered it as a solution to the issue anyway. What I said was exactly what YOU offered as a solution - go to backup and get out of the water. End the dive. In fact, I stressed that several times. I also offered that first, you should attempt to resolve the issue right then and there - a freeflow can typically be stopped by inverting the second stage, tapping it on the palm of your hand, or even adjusting the dials and levers or unscrewing the face slightly.

Given that I have repaired and rebuilt many regs, my personal first response (which is what I was asked for) would be to resolve the issue with the second stage underwater, which would include the above and might even include taking the face of the regulator off (about 4 seconds) and clearing whatever obstruction is causing the issue. If none of the above worked, I'd work to abort the dive. If that included an issue regarding gas management (e.g. gas leaving too quickly for me to make a safe exit), then isolating would be a consideration, or yes, even kinking a hose if I'm using a single tank.

And no, nothing's going to blow up... Not even if it WAS an HP seat failure in the first stage, which this definitely wasn't. HP seat failures don't come on so violently and stop temporarily when you inhale on the nonleaking second stage - and for a few seconds thereafter. HP seat failures also don't suddenly make all 3000 psi available to the LP hoses - they simply raise IP to a level above that which the second stage freeflows.

 

[jimmy71]

i would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on kinking the hose. yes yes we all understand that there were other options and such, I am more curious about kinking the hose to a free flowing second stage during . I can not see kinking that hose as causing a failure to the LP seat. Deep south's explaination fits my understanding.

Jimmy

 

[grf88]

Originally posted by PhilEllis of Divesports on the Board in 2006.

"I posted this information on a DecoStop thread several months ago, but I am unable to locate the thread. I will repeat what we found when we tested an Apeks regulator.

We took an ATX-200, with an Apeks ATX100 safe second installed, and put it on our test bench. The second stage was "normally" tuned and the regulator was performing as would be expected for normal diving. The diver-adjustable cracking effort knob was turned one full turn from the easiest opening position, and the opening effort was measured at 1.2 iniches of water. We installed one of the industry standard inflators (ours came from a Dive Rite wing)
to determine the level of safety (or lack of safety) of having high intermediate pressure on a balanced second stage. The results were something like the following.

We increased the intermediate pressure in increments of 25 pounds. We moved the pressure up to 275 psi before the inflator began to "auto fill". At that point, we removed the inflator to determine when the Apeks second stage would open. At 400 PSI, I decided to terminate the test due to other unknown possible safety concerns with the test. At the time of termination, the Apeks second stage had still not opened and provided relief for the pressure. I repeated the same test with an inflator from a ScubaPro jacket. That inflator opened at a pressure of about 250 psi.

Our conclusion was that a diver, using an Apeks regulator set-up, should certainly have some sort of provision for high-pressure seat failure. Our conclusion was that a spring-tension, non-adjustable OPV would be the best solution. These types of OPVs present very little actual practical potential of failure, are extremely low profile, and are not terribly expensive. Of course, you could also use an un-balanced second stage, of some other make and model, as a back-up regulator to accomplish the same thing.

The risk of an inflator "runaway", all of the training and reaction to problems of this sort aside, is much too large, in my opinion, to dive these units without an OPV. There will clearly be some dispute from many with regard to our conclusions, and that is OK. We also represent a fairly intelligent group of divers here at our store, and my IMMEDIATE reaction was to put OPVs on ALL of our personal Apeks first stages. The link below will take you to the type of OPV we used and the type we most often sell.

OPV Valve - 200 PSI Pre-Set Pressure Relief

Go to the bottom of this page for the OPV.
Thanks,

Phil Ellis "

 

[Deep South Divers]

Thanks for the information, Phil.

My experience counters your test. My ATX50s, XTX50s, ATX200s and ATX100s all freeflow between 175psi and 190psi. I know this from working on them. The same goes for my Scubpros, Dive Rites, HOGs, and Dacors.

In considering the plumbing on these second stages, all of which are of similar design, a freeflow at high IP only seems logical.

The manufacturers all confirm this as well - talk to any of them and they will all tell you that excessive IP - about 50 psi over their normal operating pressure - will cause the second stage to vent.

Extraordinary claims - that excessive IP would NOT be vented by the second stage - require extraordinary evidence. If what you say is accurate, I am sure that you understand this, as you probably would have a difficult time believing this, too, had you not seen it yourself.

Since, if what you say is true, it would necessitate the need for an OPV on every one of my diver's regs (none of us use them - in fact, I have never seen any diver with an OPV on their regs), it's a cause for concern for me. Can you duplicate the test? I'd be willing to drive to be present.

When/where? I gotta see this... It would change a lot for us.

 

[abnfrog]

Thanks for the information, Phil.

My experience counters your test. My ATX50s, XTX50s, ATX200s and ATX100s all freeflow between 175psi and 190psi. I know this from working on them. The same goes for my Scubpros, Dive Rites, HOGs, and Dacors.

In considering the plumbing on these second stages, all of which are of similar design, a freeflow at high IP only seems logical.

The manufacturers all confirm this as well - talk to any of them and they will all tell you that excessive IP - about 50 psi over their normal operating pressure - will cause the second stage to vent.

Extraordinary claims - that excessive IP would NOT be vented by the second stage - require extraordinary evidence. If what you say is accurate, I am sure that you understand this, as you probably would have a difficult time believing this, too, had you not seen it yourself.

Since, if what you say is true, it would necessitate the need for an OPV on every one of my diver's regs (none of us use them - in fact, I have never seen any diver with an OPV on their regs), it's a cause for concern for me. Can you duplicate the test? I'd be willing to drive to be present.

When/where? I gotta see this... It would change a lot for us.

exactly. deep south ..plus the hoses are not rated much past 200 (most of them ) the 2nd stage would over pressue before the inflator would ,if some of these other exsperts knew or had taken reg courses and worked in the industry instead of reading about the mechanics THEY would know that . if glenn did the test ds .....dont wast your time and gas

 

[Tigerman]

I believe the standard Aluminum 80 is a 12 liter tank, right? So a 3l should have been about 20 cubic feet of gas.

The al80 standard pressure is 3000 psi (206 bar) and their actual capacity is 77-78 cuft (~2200 liters) which makes them 11 liter tanks.
Youre correct that the 3l should have about 20 cu ft given a fill pressure of 200 bar (600 l = 21 cuft)