Who has had to bailout?

Have you ever had to bailout?

  • Yes, due to a flooded loop

    Votes: 31 23.7%
  • No, never

    Votes: 44 33.6%
  • Yes, due to failed electronics

    Votes: 18 13.7%
  • Yes, due to loss of gas in the rebreather

    Votes: 9 6.9%
  • Yes, for another reason not listed

    Votes: 50 38.2%

  • Total voters
    131

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Can you say anything more about the co2 effect? Always interesting to hear first(ish) hand accounts :)

I took a mild hit on a unit I was training on. The unit in particular has a crappy ADV that fires at the worst possible times. I was having some mask issues due to my beard and had to do a lot of clearing. That would then fire the adv way too easily. So it was a constant battle of fighting for ideal loop volume, which led to not cycling breaths as well as one would hope though the unit. I was in the process of doing a skill while fighting a leaking mask and the adv, when all of a sudden it felt like I got hit in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. It was a horrible instantaneous headache. Then suddenly my breathing rate started going up, but I was conscious of it and trying to slow it down. I never felt panicked or got panicked breathing. As hard as I would tell myself to slow my breathing it wouldn't happen and it kept going up. I never felt panicked, but I felt very uneasy and unsettled and felt I wanted the dive to be over. I thumbed it and exited. We were in the very front part of a cavern, so it was 20 seconds to the 20 foot mark where I could flush the hell out of the unit with oxygen. When we surfaced I breathed oxygen a while longer which helped make the headache go away.
 
Dumb question maybe, does the heart rate increase when getting a C02 hit?

If I recall what I learned from this presentation correctly, the answer is "it depends on the person".

 
Yes, it happen
- Hypercapnia due to scrubber malfunction....An extremely unpleasant feeling
- got a hits of pure O2 in the loop at 90 feet/oxygen solenoid malfunction... It all of a sudden started firing continuously. I started to feel nauseous and immediately switched my back up OC bailout cylinder just as my HUD lit up like a Christmas tree
 
Yes, it happen
- Hypercapnia due to scrubber malfunction....An extremely unpleasant feeling
- got a hits of pure O2 in the loop at 90 feet/oxygen solenoid malfunction... It all of a sudden started firing continuously. I started to feel nauseous and immediately switched my back up OC bailout cylinder just as my HUD lit up like a Christmas tree

Just curious, what unit(s) were you diving when those things happened?
 
Just curious, what unit(s) were you diving when those things happened?
If her profile is to be believed, a Prism.
 
Dumb question maybe, does the heart rate increase when getting a C02 hit?
To me it just felt like I could not get enough gas to breathe and anxiety. I actually tore/ broke the neoprene the neck of my wet suit when I had breakthrough on my scrubber... they kept feeling like it was too tight on my neck and I couldn’t get enough gas in my lungs . I was definitely breathing too fast.And that was only a small amount of CO2 at a shallow depth within 10 minutes of the dive starting.
 
To me it just felt like I could not get enough gas to breathe and anxiety. I actually tore/ broke the neoprene the neck of my wet suit when I had breakthrough on my scrubber... they kept feeling like it was too tight on my neck and I couldn’t get enough gas in my lungs . I was definitely breathing too fast.And that was only a small amount of CO2 at a shallow depth within 10 minutes of the dive starting.

That's exactly it. I had one due to an improperly sized neck seal paired with a bit too much exertion 30 minutes into a cave at 160'. And that was on OC. It's very much possible. It was a slow build. Feeling a little more narced than I felt like I should have on 18/45 initially. Then I was consistently just a bit behind on my buoyancy. Then I started feeling overworked and winded. By the time the anxiety and creeping panic/dread started to set in, it was hitting hard. Ended up cutting the neck seal and flooding the suit, but it took a couple minutes to get my breathing under control to the point that I felt comfortable moving towards the door and another 15 or so minutes after that to get back to baseline RMV. I had to take off my hood, as any pressure on my neck felt unbearable. It was probably psychological, but I was at a point where I was feeling spasms in my throat, like I physically couldn't breathe enough. Easily the scariest diving experience of my life. I remember having to talk to myself mentally when it was hitting hard and tell myself to focus on getting my breathing stabilized before anything else or I wasn't going to make it. 0/10, would not recommend. That said, it was a really valuable learning experience in a lot of ways. I'm hyper aware of all the little things that led up to that now and I feel reasonably confident that I'd pick up on a CO2 hit on the loop a bit earlier than I otherwise would have without that experience.
 
That was a Prism Topaz... Got a bad batch of CO2 scrubber material

By any chance that really dusty stuff that turns pink? (Grace Sodasorb, I think it was called). That stuff had bigger grains, was soft and very dusty. Nasty dust when packing - which I always did outside.

My only breakthrough happened with that stuff many years ago. Since I switched to the Sofnolime which has much smaller grain size and is harder and much less dusty and have not had a breakthrough since.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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