Welcome to ScubaBoard, an online scuba diving forum community where you can join over 185,000 divers from around the world discussing all things related to Scuba Diving. To gain full access to ScubaBoard (and make this large box go away) you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:
Participate in over 500 dive topic forums and browse from over 5,500,000 posts.
Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
Post your own photos or view from well over 100,000 user submitted images.
Gain access to our free classifieds marketplace to buy, sell and trade gear, travel and services.
Use the calendar to organize your events and enroll in other members' events.
All this and much more is available to you absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact the ScubaBoard Support Team.
Craig Rich
Director Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates
"Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late. The cannon don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder. I'm an over 40 victim of fate. Arriving too late. Arriving too late". --Jimmy Buffett
Hey Everyone,
Rick Allen is a very good friend of mine. We have been diving and working together over 10 years. He is in the hospital with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on 20% of his body and he has lost part of his left arm.
Apparently, he accidentally knocked over an 80 cu ft tank of 100% O2 while walking through the garage. The tank ruptured (exploded according to Rick and his neighbor) and the resulting O2 in the garage somehow created a fire. I'm not quite clear on how this can happen. The damage to his garage and cars was extensive. His wife Cindy was injured slightly even though she was inside the house--not in the garage.
Rick will be in the hospital the better part of a month they think.
There will likely be a ton of speculation about the accident and "professionals" talking about the danger of exploding scuba tanks, etc. Please remind these people that his was NOT a normal scuba tank filled with air. It was a cylinder of pure O2 for deco/blending. Rick is an experienced technical diver and underwater film maker who has worked for Nat Geo and with me on Blue World. This was a freak accident--most likely caused by a cylinder with a crack in it that let go when it fell over onto a concrete floor.
Please keep Rick in your thoughts and I beg everyone to please not start in a mean-spirited game of hindsight. In spite of extreme trauma (the loss of a hand) Rick had the presence of mind to get a hose and put out the fire before help arrived. He is my new personal hero.
Finally reached 25 dives and it only took 2 years...
Join Date
May 2010
Location
DC area
Posts
1,605
Dives
25 - 49
fishbird, thank you for your clarifications. To answer the question of how a fire would start, O2 is highly combustible and any spark (from ripping a bumper off a car, for example) could have easily set off a fire in the oxygen-rich environment around the tank.
I'm honestly surprised to hear the man is still alive. Having knocked the tank over with his own body, I'd expect more extensive injuries... not to belittle the injuries he did sustain. It sounds like the majority of them were from the secondary fire, though, rather than the initial explosion.
Never judge a day by the weather. The best things in life aren't things. He who dies with the most toys still dies. There are 2 ways to be rich - make more or desire less. No rain, no rainbows. Take it easy.
-Hawaiian rules to live by
We all of course wish the injured parties a speedy recovery. It is always a tragedy when such an accident causes dire injuries. I am sure that in time it will make sense to the parties involved and their friends that we want to look at what happened with a critical eye to help others avoid the same fate.
In this forum, it seems we always have to remind folks that we do not speculate to lay blame or callously to emphasize errors that the injured or others may have made. We do so in order to tease out additional info and explore possibilities so that others may avoid injury.
That having been said. My consideration of the info thus far leads me to wonder whether or not the tank and valve were properly cleaned and maintained for O2 use and storage. It sounds as though it was stored in a manner that we can learn from.
In a work place any tank containing 100% O2 must be secured from falling by a chain or other retraint system. In addition, 100% O2 commercial use and storage tanks are not normally pressurized to the standard working pressure of aluminum SCUBA tanks. This has often been brought up as a concern now that many more divers have and store SCUBA cylinders with 100% O2 in their vehicles and homes. I wonder if this was a 3000psi tank and if it was stored at full pressure. This might be something to reconsider by technical divers who store 100% O2 in their garages.
I also wonder of there is any chance that the tank in question was made of the pre 1988 aloy used by Luxfer and Walter Kiddie. The failure, as noted by someone previously, may not have had anything to due with the fact that it was filled with O2 though that certainly increased the negative impact of the event.
May we all live and learn. If anyone learns anymore info about the pressure/storage of the tank, etc please pass it on.
50Likes
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
