Tried to Kill Myself but Failed!

[mattvish]

Completely agree with some of the previous comments; having a technical set-up and safety routine can prevent getting into such situations. Siedemount and DIR are, in my opinion, the safer configurations. For solo boat dives, sidemount is also easier to handle, and I know senior divers who prefer it.

@ Dawg: why do you have two smb's with you?

Two DSMBs is a good practice. I carry both orange and yellow; deploying them together signals 'HELP!'. Also losing or letting go of one can happen.
Tip: Size matters; smaller SMBs stand upright with little pull and are easier to spot, while larger ones tend to float horizontally and may need several pounds to stay upright. And, of course, they should always be closed type.

 

[PatW]

Easy mistake to make. Maybe checklists are not so bad. Good recovery.

 

[NAUI Wowie]

So I’ve been on the fence on whether or not to post this……because it’s really hard to openly and publicly admit when you do something totally stupid. But then I thought more about it last night and figure that if it might provide some productive and positive food for thought and discussion…..or maybe help someone else from making the same mistake….that I really do need to talk about it.

Day before yesterday we are out on our boat and I’m doing a nice easy dive to celebrate my 68th B-day and get us a nice Lingcod for my B-day dinner. (it's a tradition thing) I’m a solo diver (certified SDI/TDS) and have done this dive many times with no issues. Nice easy exchange with little current, descent vis of about 10 ft.. I dive an HP102 Steel with a back-mount 19cf pony and a Zeagle Ranger BC.

My wife snapped the pic below right before I donned my hood, mask, gloves, fins, speargun & stringer prior to back-roll entry over the side. In looking at the pic I have realized my mistake and what happened. The “yellow” circle is my primary Apeks 2nd stage. My pony second is kinda hidden just below and behind my right hand. The “green” circle is the clip that I normally route my pony hose through so that the pony 2nd is basically is right in front of me, always there and easily accessible. Once I finished kitting up with all my crap for the dive, I was in a rush to splash and inadvertently must have grabbed my pony 2nd rather than my primary, inserted the pony 2nd into my cake-hole, took a couple of hooves, then back-rolled into the Sound. All seemed good so I gave my wife the OK, swam forward, descended the anchor line to about 60ft and began my hunt.

About 10 minutes into the dive and after bagging and stringing a nice dinner Ling, I noticed my reg getting a bit stiff to breath….then the next breath where there was NO gas. I immediately went for my pony 2nd, but it wasn’t there in it’s normal spot because it was already in my mouth and not in it’s normal clip. My brain is spinning and totally telling me that my main gas supply is depleted for some reason and I NEED my pony 2nd. I have a moment of what I would call “high anxiety” and possibly first stage panic. My brain is saying WTF??? ESA??? so I go to my BC / Air 2 thinking that I can “re-breath” on the way to the surface if needed. The Air 2 immediately delivers blessed gas from my still full primary tank and I am some how able to calm down, settle to the bottom, re-group and access the situation.

I check my pony SPG and it’s zeroed out so I start to realize my mistake. I sweep and recover my primary 2nd, switch to that from my Air 2….and all is good. I check my primary computer and realize that I still have 3350psi of a 3500psi fill. The picture of what happened starts to clarify in my mind and I bet I spent a good full minute or two on my knees just breathing and slowing down my heart rate as I stare at my primary AI computer and see that I have LOTS of primary gas available and all is well.

Being solo and with my redundant gas now gone, I call my dive and nav back to the anchor line and my marker strobe…….make a nice slow ascent with SS and surface with plenty of primary gas remaining. Had a great Lingcod dinner and glad that I get to be a year older…

Anyway….. it’s not easy to post this because I’m totally embarrassed that I made such a stupid flipp’n mistake…. But hoping that we might be able to have some productive conversation about it.

My “personal” lessons learned.

• Confirm, crosscheck, double check and triple check all configurations and functions before splashing.
• Confirm, crosscheck, double check and triple check all configurations after splashing.
• Don’t be lazy about checking gauges early and often. If I had checked my primary gas PSI earlier I would have realized that I wasn’t using my primary gas.

That’s it. Sorry about the long post and thanks for listening….

I sling my pony in front. That completely eliminates your issue. the hose is bungied to it. that way you can unclip and hand to someone or use if needed. Yes its slower if someone comes up to you out of air thats why I have alternate air on my bcd.

bonus you can simultaneously help TWO out of air divers that way. Hey go to utube it happens. A diver rescued two fools at 120 feet depth. Once at surface they were both completely empty.

 

[Scuba_tacoma]

Well, I have read the first three pages of this thread, and I have a few observations.

First, for NW Dive Dog, you were never out-of-air (OOA). You only thought you were, and figured out what was going on, switched regulators, and decided to bag the dive.

Second, you had two alternat air supplies, the pony (which you used up) and the AIR. The AIR2 allowed you to sort things out, and apparently several others use the AIR2 also. This should be recognized as a “save” for the AIR2.

Third, I would not have bagged the dive because of this. You were at a max of 80 feet, had a full tank, SPG, etc., and that’s all I usually carry on a dive. Realize that at 80 feet, you are well within the depth where a CESA is not only possible, but rather easy to do.

Now, Bill Herder of Deep Sea Bill’s in the 1970s (Newport, Oregon) called what today’s divers consider normal diving “Push Button Diving.” By that, he meant “equipment-dependent diving.” The diving world now considers having a pony bottle a “necessary” piece of equipment for solo diving. I have never used a pony bottle, and I have been solo diving since 1959. There are two problems with this extra safety gear:

—They provide extra equipment, but also extra decisions, to be made when diving. This includes which second stage to use when entering the water. Because I do a lot of vintage diving, I don’t have much problem with which mouthpiece to use, as my primary is usually a double hose regulator mouthpiece, which is different from my safe second (which I do usually have). My Trieste II regulator has a VDH Dive/Surface Valve mouthpiece, which differentiates it from my safe second, which is a MR-12.

—NW Dive Dog, your situation reminds me of a situation that occurred when I was going through the U.S. Army Jump School at what was Ft. Benning (now Ft. Moore) in 1967. One of the student jumpers, on one of his first jumps, had a line-over canopy (a suspension line over the canopy, cutting it in two and making his descent faster). He deployed his reserve, but was not descending fast enough for it to inflate. The reserve’s canopy surrounded him, and he could not get it loose or see anything. In the meantime, his line-over situation resolved when the line rolled off the canopy, so he had a full canopy, but did not know it. He continued to fight his reserve, and did not prepare for his landing. His landing was what we later called a PFL (Poor Fouled-up Landing), in that he landed on his heels and went directly to a head plant, which broke his skull and killed him. I say this because too many people, in my opinion, are panicking when they perceive being out-of-air. It is this panic that causes the problem, as in almost all situations there are ways out of it. So I think your title here, “Tried To Kill Myself, but Failed,” is a bit of hyperbole, or if actually felt, contributes to the thought that running out of air is it immediately life-threatening. That perception is what leads to panic, and can contribute to a fatal outcome.

My only other thought is, when did divers start calling a neck strap for a second stage a “neckless”?

SeaRat

Your post reinforced what I was thinking. You may not agree and this will probably make some people mad but its just a thought and everyone should dive how they believe is safe.

My take-away from this is too much stuff can and will cause more problems. Less stuff will equal less options but also way less problems.

At 80ft, and not planning any deco then no need for a pony. Is there any situation which you can't get to the surface? Why would you need the pony?

I have been diving solo for a long time and with lots of divers with pony bottles and I can't think of one situation they were needed but have always caused many problems.

Deco diving or even considering going into deco is a different story.

 

[MB NZ]

I sling my pony in front. That completely eliminates your issue. the hose is bungied to it. that way you can unclip and hand to someone or use if needed. Yes its slower if someone comes up to you out of air thats why I have alternate air on my bcd.

bonus you can simultaneously help TWO out of air divers that way. Hey go to utube it happens. A diver rescued two fools at 120 feet depth. Once at surface they were both completely empty.

My take-away from this is too much stuff can and will cause more problems. Less stuff will equal less options but also way less problems.

At 80ft, and not planning any deco then no need for a pony. Is there any situation which you can't get to the surface? Why would you need the pony?

I agree with both of you, BUT if I found myself OOA at 80 feet (24 metres), I would feel like a right plum for not having a redundant gas supply with me. That's a long way to travel at the end of a breath.

 

[johndiver999]

Your post reinforced what I was thinking. You may not agree and this will probably make some people mad but its just a thought and everyone should dive how they believe is safe.

My take-away from this is too much stuff can and will cause more problems. Less stuff will equal less options but also way less problems.

At 80ft, and not planning any deco then no need for a pony. Is there any situation which you can't get to the surface? Why would you need the pony?

I have been diving solo for a long time and with lots of divers with pony bottles and I can't think of one situation they were needed but have always caused many problems.

Deco diving or even considering going into deco is a different story.

I can think of many situations where it would be very dangerous to attempt to ascend from 80 feet. Have you ever done it yourself, or is this something you just assume based on reading things? I am serious, have you practiced multiple free ascent from this depth without any problems?

I don't worry too much about running "out" of air at 80 feet. If you are calm and you run the pressure way down, it is not that hard to add a puff of air to the BC and breathe shallowly as you ascend at a moderate rate. Once it gets a little hard to inhale at depth, in reality there is quite a bit more usable air in a full size scuba tank if you are calm enough to sip it.

But what if you are for example, catching lobsters.. and you have 400-700 psi at 80 feet and lurch forward under a ledge to snatch a lobster and you rip the LP hose as it exits the first stage? (Or the yoke first stage is dislodged from the tank due to the low pressure and force of impact allowing the valve face oring to extrude)

What if (at the time) you have a bag of heavy lobsters on your harness, what if you are deliberately 5-7 lbs negatively buoyant at the time (so you can more effectively work the bottom)? Now you exit the hole, and your air supply is going to be completely exhausted in maybe 20 seconds? If you don't immediately get air in the BC, very few people are going to be strong enough to swim to the surface.

That is one very simple scenario, that I can envision that would make a pony bottle very useful.

I know lots of people look at the risks and decide a pony bottle is not worth the trouble, but to imply that there are no situations where it would be extremely beneficial (or needed) is pretty short sighted.

 

[kirbyc1986]

Great heads up.

 

[happy-diver]

What if I'm laying in the backyard getting in some sun in the nude and Godzilla walks past
and she drops one with the ensuing huge cloud of noxious gas rendering me unconscious
if I had been sunbaking nude in the backyard and also naked of my loving pony as I wasn't

 

[MB NZ]

What if I'm laying in the backyard getting in some sun in the nude and Godzilla walks past
and she drops one with the ensuing huge cloud of noxious gas rendering me unconscious
if I had been sunbaking nude in the backyard and also naked of my loving pony as I wasn't

You make an excellent, if obscurious point. It's something I struggle with for the aforementioned reason.

 

[johndiver999]

Had a yoke valve o-ring extrude during a dive today in 85 feet. I was down a few minutes and then all of a sudden, POP and I am engulfed in bubbles. I figured a LP hose blew or something, but the primary second stage was still working. I signaled my buddy bye bye and went up immediately with zero stress. I didn't know if my back mounted pony bottle failed or my primary, but I figured, either way, I am not really going to have a problem. Having the pony was extremely reassuring and made it a non event.

Got to the boat and the captain shut the tank down and I had only lost 1500 psi in the 90 seconds or so of air leak. Checked the Oring, re-tightened the yoke and did another dive 10 minutes later.