Scared I Missed Safety Stop

[Steve_C]

I know that there is a lot of discussion on this thread about "perfect weighting". However, if you are renting gear or in a new configuration you are better off with an extra couple pounds on dive one as you have illustrated. I did a rental gear dive, different tank, different wet suit a couple weeks ago. DM guide suggested 3 pounds more than I suggested. At 500 psi we were spot on.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I am more concerned that you had to ask this question.

On top of being improperly weighted and using gear you were not familiar with.

What did your training teach you about weight checks, ascent rates, making sure your gear was safe and working properly, and how much time was spent on identifying possible problems after a dive?

 

[CT-Rich]

The one thing you left out of this was your dive profile. If you were right up against the NDL and missed the stop, you could have dumped air and gone back down to finish the safety stop. If you were down for 15 minutes don't worry about it. Asking for medical advise on the internet? I hope you were more curious than concerned, because..... you are gonna' DIE! (oh, I'm sorry, that was the answer from the last equipment thread I was on...) .

 

[Kairoos]

I've had this happen to me before - all my previous dives were with 12lbs, including the week before. I couldn't stay down with 12lbs and I had no change in equipment from the previous dives as I dive my own equipment. Rented tanks though, so the difference in buoyancy characteristics between different company's AL80's could have been the difference. Now I dive with 16lbs, though 14lbs might be enough. I'd rather be 2lbs overweighted than find out I'm underweighted during a safety stop!

I wasn't close to my NDL so I wasn't worried.

 

[Pullnglide]

my advice would be to not exceed 60' with equipment you are unfamiliar with. I have had a inflator hung open on more than one occasion with rental bcs and terrible experiences with rental regs but not all operations are like that. I take my equip with me wherever I go now except for tanks of course. I believe DCS would not be a problem but you should definitely obtain DAN insurance and you can also contact them anytime you have a question like this instead of posting here. Never be embarrassed or unsure about calling them with a possible dive injury question! PYD/DYP!

 

[tomfcrist]

The likeliness of you having DCS is pretty much zero percent.

I agree with some previous posts about using DAN as a resource if you have questions involving medical opinions. Doing so on here is similar to typing in the symptoms of the common cold on WebMD...next thing you know, you are convinced you have rickets.

 

[boulderjohn]

I agree with the above, but I want to point out that asking for medical advice on an Internet forum isn't a very good idea.

I am a DAN member who has called DAN with questions and gotten excellent advice. When you do make that call, you will be in immediate contact with some sort of medical assistant. If the question is more challenging, a doctor will be contacted. Frequently, you may be advised to contact a physician in your area with diving knowledge, and they will suggest some names.

If you instead ask the same question on a general forum on ScubaBoard like this one, you will get responses from people with a variety of backgrounds, but that variety can include physicians with strong diving backgrounds, which is what happened in this case. You got a response from one of our medical moderators. You are better off asking such a question in the ScubaBoard Diving Medicine forum, where you are certain to get the attention of the ScubaBoard medical moderators, some of whom are about as knowledgeable about dive medicine issues as anyone on Earth.

So, yes, DAN can give good advice, but it is also possible to get excellent advice on ScubaBoard, provided you figure out which responders are the ones who are really in the know.

 

[Keith.M]

I am more concerned that you had to ask this question.

As I was reading this thread, this was certainly my thought.

 

[100days-a-year]

pretty sure i've never done a safety stop but have done a bit of deco.Pretty sure I am OK.Also sure uncontrolled ascents are different from being a little underweighted.

I hope you take some time to get more familiar with your equipment,diving and weighting before heading back out.It'll not just be safer but more fun being comfortable with all the aspects.

 

[TSandM]

To add some information -- a safety stop is basically a way to slow the ascent in the shallows. Divers with weak skills have the most trouble in shallow water, where the proportional pressure changes are also the biggest, so the safety stop is a way to ensure enough time is spent in the shallows to offgas, and also to slow what may well be a steadily accelerating ascent. A safety stop may safely be omitted on almost all dives (except the ones with a "mandatory" safety stop, and how that's different from a decompression stop is something which has NEVER been clear to me) but it's advisable to keep the ascent rate in the shallows as slow as you can. If the OP was struggling to stay on depth, it's likely he wasn't rocketing to the surface (although it's not impossible), so the ascent rate probably wasn't crazy. Even when it is, most of us survive the event. I did more than one uncontrolled, feet-first ascent as a new diver in a dry suit, and I'm still here to talk about it.

Deeper understanding of what you're doing on ascent, and how a safety stop plays into that, can be gained from further reading and study. I would highly recommend to the OP Mark Powell's book, Deco for Divers, which is the best available resource on the topic -- quite readable, well illustrated, and without any math. A better understanding of how to interpret a dive profile and ascent rates might have reassured the OP and made this post unnecessary.