Scubaroo
Contributor
Well it got beaten to death here a whiles ago in a yoke versus DIN debate - whether or not yoke o-rings are actually a potential failure during a dive. Most yoke proponents were suggesting that if a yoke o-ring was going to fail, it would fail on the surface when the valve is turned on.
Well I just had one fail at depth.
Just got back from Fiji, doing a third dive of the day, boat DM switched my gear over, the outfit we were diving with had appeared to be very competant, so I was lax and slipped into holiday/honeymoon mode and let them do everything. My wife decided to sit the dive out, as she was feeling tired from the previous dive (lots of current), which meant that I was going to be part of a group dive following the DM around the new site, with no particular assigned buddy. Basically a solo dive, but the DMs were good, so I planned to stick to the DM for this dive. It's only the second or third dive I would have done without an assigned buddy, and thanks to a little tap on the shoulder from Mr Murphy it will likely be my last.
The site was a large reef on a sea mount. Basically a big underwater hill of coral. Geared up, entered into about 20' of water, and we proceeded down the side of the reef to about 50'. Here the DM turned the group around, and proceeded back up the reef to 16', presumably as he'd started the dive off in the wrong direction he intended. I found myself about 5-8' behind the rear diver in the group, and was making a lazy move forward to stick next to the DM when all hell broke loose behind my head. It sounded like a hose or the first stage had totally failed, and the tank itself was freeflowing. This was 5 minutes into the dive, and depth was 16'. I weighed up my options, which were a) swim to the nearest diver and do the old OOA routine, or b) emergency swimming ascent. Seeing as the closest diver seemed oblivious to the slight drama unfolding behind him (turns out he heard it but wasn't sure what it was), I chose to bail myself out and do a simple ascent, dumping air from my wing and exhaling as I went up. As soon as I hit the surface I hit the inflate on the wing, and tried manually inflating it for a few breaths just to make sure that the wing was still intact. Fortunately I was pretty much directly under the boat when it happened thanks to the DM turning the dive group around and heading back the direction we'd came, so I was only about 30' from the boat when I hit the surface. Got to the swim step, and the remaining crew member turned my valve off, and I exited the water.
Had a look at the reg - it was firmly attached to the valve, but there was still almost a third of the o-ring extruded. There was only 400psi left in the tank, starting pressure was around 3000psi, and the dive was only 5:20 long. Had it happened at any deeper depth, I would have probably gone for an air donation.
Lessons learnt -
a) DON'T trust someone else to rig your gear - I had been inspecting o-rings on the tanks I had switched out myself, had I done this one myself I might have caught it (I had spare o-rings with me).
b) DON'T assume someone in the group will be looking out for you, or even notice you have a problem (basically, for me that means dive with a buddy)
c) Stick to diving DIN where possible
Well I just had one fail at depth.
Just got back from Fiji, doing a third dive of the day, boat DM switched my gear over, the outfit we were diving with had appeared to be very competant, so I was lax and slipped into holiday/honeymoon mode and let them do everything. My wife decided to sit the dive out, as she was feeling tired from the previous dive (lots of current), which meant that I was going to be part of a group dive following the DM around the new site, with no particular assigned buddy. Basically a solo dive, but the DMs were good, so I planned to stick to the DM for this dive. It's only the second or third dive I would have done without an assigned buddy, and thanks to a little tap on the shoulder from Mr Murphy it will likely be my last.
The site was a large reef on a sea mount. Basically a big underwater hill of coral. Geared up, entered into about 20' of water, and we proceeded down the side of the reef to about 50'. Here the DM turned the group around, and proceeded back up the reef to 16', presumably as he'd started the dive off in the wrong direction he intended. I found myself about 5-8' behind the rear diver in the group, and was making a lazy move forward to stick next to the DM when all hell broke loose behind my head. It sounded like a hose or the first stage had totally failed, and the tank itself was freeflowing. This was 5 minutes into the dive, and depth was 16'. I weighed up my options, which were a) swim to the nearest diver and do the old OOA routine, or b) emergency swimming ascent. Seeing as the closest diver seemed oblivious to the slight drama unfolding behind him (turns out he heard it but wasn't sure what it was), I chose to bail myself out and do a simple ascent, dumping air from my wing and exhaling as I went up. As soon as I hit the surface I hit the inflate on the wing, and tried manually inflating it for a few breaths just to make sure that the wing was still intact. Fortunately I was pretty much directly under the boat when it happened thanks to the DM turning the dive group around and heading back the direction we'd came, so I was only about 30' from the boat when I hit the surface. Got to the swim step, and the remaining crew member turned my valve off, and I exited the water.
Had a look at the reg - it was firmly attached to the valve, but there was still almost a third of the o-ring extruded. There was only 400psi left in the tank, starting pressure was around 3000psi, and the dive was only 5:20 long. Had it happened at any deeper depth, I would have probably gone for an air donation.
Lessons learnt -
a) DON'T trust someone else to rig your gear - I had been inspecting o-rings on the tanks I had switched out myself, had I done this one myself I might have caught it (I had spare o-rings with me).
b) DON'T assume someone in the group will be looking out for you, or even notice you have a problem (basically, for me that means dive with a buddy)
c) Stick to diving DIN where possible
You learn something new every day, but now if I see a leaking reg I guess I'll have to check to see what kind it is before I act
