When do you put the weight belt on?

[Eric Sedletzky]

One of my closest friends has been a dive boat skipper in Monterey for years. I lost track of all the stories where he and the dive master were yelling “Drop your weight!” when a diver was on the surface and getting panicky or in real trouble. I have heard the exact same stories from day-boat and liveaboard captains in several oceans.

Apparently it is far from the first thing that the great majority of divers think of when they are struggling to breathe on the surface. This is the most dangerous form of lead poisoning in diving.

The Sea Divers and Redwood Empire Divers both have club policies in place that if you are on a club sponsored dive and have to drop your weights, the club picks up the bill.
That keeps the cheapo's from thinking twice about dumping a $70 weightbelt.

 

[Akimbo]

The Sea Divers and Redwood Empire Divers both have club policies in place that if you are on a club sponsored dive and have to drop your weights, the club picks up the bill.
That keeps the cheapo's from thinking twice about dumping a $70 weightbelt.

That is outstanding, but I doubt cost is a factor when someone is in real trouble — especially bordering on panic. Most of these people would try to climb on their mother’s shoulders if she was there and floating.

I think about dumping my weightbelt every time I put one on.

 

[boulderjohn]

More on dive fatalities and weight belt dropping...

According to DAN's annual reports, cardiac events average over 40% of fatalities annually. DAN and PADI did a joint analysis of fatalities a couple of years ago and determined that the number one training-related cause of fatalities was the sequence of drowning preceded by air embolism preceded by rapid, panicked ascent preceded by out of air emergency. In those cases, the victims succumbed at or near the surface. It should be noted that in those cases, the divers generally do reach the surface. I most cases, the bodies are found floating on the surface. Prompted by that study, PADI made a number of changes to its OW instruction, including more focus on the buddy system, more emphasis on gas management, and dropping weights while at the surface so that it is easier to stay there once the surface is reached.

The annual DAN studies (which have not been published for a while, BTW), include descriptions of the incidents. In many cases, they have little to no information. In some cases, the details of the incident are known, but no autopsy was performed or they do not know the results of the autopsy, so they cannot be sure why a diver died. You see a lot of descriptions of a diver suddenly surfacing in distress and then dying, for example, with no indication of why there was distress. I happened to have the 2008 report handy, and I went through the descriptions. There were 86 described fatalities for that year, and I found 10 in which it could be argued that dropping the weight belt at depth might have helped. In several of the cases, the divers were out of air. We do not know, though, what preceded that. In several of those cases, the divers were extremely experienced. There were other cases in which so little was known that no conclusions could be reached.

It is dangerous to make assumptions about these cases.

A few posts ago someone referenced the death of a ScubaBoard moderator, a friend of mine. I know a lot about the case, and I will repeat what has been repeated publicly so far as an example. The divers finished a dive at a very benign site. The diver reported that she still had 50 bar of air (roughly 750 PSI). The group was now headed for shore, and she elected to go in under water rather than on the surface. I have been to the site, and I would estimate that the difficulty of that swim was roughly akin to going from the deep end of a swimming pool to the shallow end in all ways--depth, distance, and surface conditions. When others reached the shore and realized she had not made it in, they began a search and found her very quickly. She was on the bottom, roughly where she had descended, with no air. She was an experienced instructor with the skills and knowledge to drop weights in an emergency. Everyone who knows the case is completely baffled.

 

[Akimbo]

…It is dangerous to make assumptions about these cases...

True, but if you are already on the surface and feel you are having trouble getting enough air it is a pretty safe bet that you are better off not backing so much lead.

It’s pretty simple really, a diver is less likely to die if they are on the surface breathing than on the bottom and not. At that point, all the reasons for not having enough to breathe are irrelevant. When everything goes wrong, regardless of why, follow this guideline:

Avoid drowning, embolism, and getting bent — in that order.

 

[boulderjohn]

True, but if you are already on the surface and feel you are having trouble getting enough air it is a pretty safe bet that you are better off not backing so much lead.

It’s pretty simple really, a diver is less likely to die if they are on the surface breathing than on the bottom and not. At that point, all the reasons for not having enough to breathe are irrelevant. When everything goes wrong, regardless of why, follow this guideline:

Avoid drowning, embolism, and getting bent — in that order.

My point is that it is dangerous to assume that the diver made a decision regarding the lead. As in the case of sudden cardiac death, it is hard to make a decision when you are not conscious.

---------- Post added June 17th, 2014 at 11:30 AM ----------

As in the case of my friend, it is inconceivable that she could have gone through 50 bar of air in so little time. The assumption is that it left the tank via free flow. You would have to assume that a person with her abilities did not lie on the bottom of 10 feet of water during a free flow wondering what to do, so you would have to assume that she was not conscious during that free flow. Why? I have no idea.

 

[Akimbo]

John, my observations lead me to believe that most divers don't think of dropping lead. Of course they were told about it, but they have not really thought about it since sitting in class.

Maybe integrated weights exacerbate the phenomenon because they aren’t reminded every time they gear up. I wasn’t exaggerating when I wrote that I think about dropping lead every time I don a weightbelt.

I have never dropped a belt outside of drills in over 50 years, but I have had my hand on the release at least a dozen times and I don’t recall ever internally verbalizing it. That time sitting in class hearing “drop your weight” isn’t often included in that newsreel of life flashing before your eyes.

 

[boulderjohn]

John, my observations lead me to believe that most divers don't think of dropping lead. Of course they were told about it, but they have not really thought about it since sitting in class.

Maybe integrated weights exacerbate the phenomenon because they aren’t reminded every time they gear up. I wasn’t exaggerating when I wrote that I think about dropping lead every time I don a weightbelt.

I have never dropped a belt outside of drills in over 50 years, but I have had my hand on the release at least a dozen times and I don’t recall ever internally verbalizing it. That time sitting in class hearing “drop your weight” isn’t often included in that newsreel of life flashing before your eyes.

I agree that some divers do not think to drop their weights. I just said it is dangerous to assume that someone found dead on the ocean floor did not drop weights because of that reason when in fact that person may well have been incapacitated and unable to act in any way.

 

[Akimbo]

I agree that some divers do not think to drop their weights. I just said it is dangerous to assume that someone found dead on the ocean floor did not drop weights because of that reason when in fact that person may well have been incapacitated and unable to act in any way.

I did and do agree, however very few sudden medical events are not preceded by feelings that something is wrong. Perhaps dropping weight should not be considered a last ditch effort. Dropping 10-20 Lbs of lead is safer than adding a little air to a 40 Lb lift BC if you are feeling woozy.

 

[EFX]

Are you a certified diver? Every agency I know of recommends ditchable weight.

Every agency also recommends a snorkel and buddy diving. In the real world, things are quite different. I use a balanced rig, one that I can swim up from depth without adding air to my wing. Those divers should learn to dive without so much weight.

I am at the lowest possible weight possible. The test being able to hover at 15 feet with 500 psi and an empty BC. At 80 feet I tried emptying my BC and swimming up with all my weight intact. I reached 45 feet and was nearly breathless. I had to stop and catch my breath. I was diving wet with a 7mm, 80 ft3 tank, and split fins. I am in good shape for diving. My guess is that diving with a balanced rig and dry suit, the difference in bouyancy between the surface and depth is not that great. In my case, I would have to ditch weight to survive. What do you think? Does a dry suit make the difference? Paddle fins vs. split? Any other reason?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I am at the lowest possible weight possible. The test being able to hover at 15 feet with 500 psi and an empty BC. At 80 feet I tried emptying my BC and swimming up with all my weight intact. I reached 45 feet and was nearly breathless. I had to stop and catch my breath. I was diving wet with a 7mm, 80 ft3 tank, and split fins. I am in good shape for diving. My guess is that diving with a balanced rig and dry suit, the difference in bouyancy between the surface and depth is not that great. In my case, I would have to ditch weight to survive. What do you think? Does a dry suit make the difference? Paddle fins vs. split? Any other reason?

If you are at the lowest possible weight by the 15' test, then yes with a 7mm suit if you are deep and your wing fails for some reason then you would have to drop weight to survive. Depending on how deep and how long would determine if you get bent to some degree or not.
The split fin question: try paddles and go to a depth that you can dump all your air and test them out. If you get better traction and thrust then switch. It's a personal choice.

For these wetsuit buoyuancy issues many people dive dry for the redundant bouyancy. Some carry a bag they can inflate as a back up.
But in the very remote (but not impossible) situation that both the drysuit and wing fail and the diver has no bag then they would more likely be totally screwed whereas a wetsuit diver at least will still have the bouyancy and warmth of the wetsuit.
Me, I dive wet with steel tanks and a metal backplate so my weightbelt is fairly minimal.
The way I figure it, if I have to drop a belt because of a wing failure, my belt isn't that heavy, plus the wing will be dead so that means it's not going to be expanding as I go up, my suit will not expand enough quickly enough to send rocketing to the surface. So in the event I have to drop my belt I theorize that I will be able to do a fairly controlled ascent mainaining a moderately slow rate of speed. Unfortunately dropping a weightbelt at depth isn't something I would want to practice just to see what happens. Kind of like emergency ejection out of a fighter plane, you are trained in theory, but practice is when you actually really need to do it.

Of course there won't be any stopping for safety stop, so for this reason I do not dive deep wet or anywhere near deco.