It's finally happened

After nearly 200 dives, I've had my first 'incident'. I've been over scenarios in my head time and time again. Wondered how I'd cope. Yesterday it happened! We were diving in the Farne Islands. Water a 'toasty' 13C, 8m viz. Being the only idiot in a wet suit - 5mm long, with a 5mm 'shortie' with full arms and hood - I had quite a lot of weight on - 12kg. The plan was to explore a rocky wall at the 15m mark, and poke around in some gullies. On the surface, buddy check proved everything to be ok. Started a slow descent. Added a few blasts of air to check my descent, and heard a roaring sound. As we were the first in the water I thought, wrongly, that this was the engines of the boat dropping more divers in! Started dropping quickly again, and then the penny dropped. My inflator hose had detatched from the BC, allowing water to flood into the jacket. I was finning hard to stay put. My buddy and another buddy pair had meanwhile turned round, and I hadn't noticed, as I was too busy trying to work out what was going on. So I stopped. Thought. I have plenty of air, that is not a problem. I can remain at the same depth by finning hard, as long as I get to my buddy fairly soon. So I swam hard - and grabbed her fin. I pointed to the problem and signalled up. We were by now at 14m. She saw the problem, Grabbed my jacket and inflated her BC. I kept one hand on my weight belt, with the thought that if she let go for any reason, I would attempt to swim up, but drop weights if I failed. Whilst remaining logical, I could still feel my eyes widening, my breathing rate increased (though I was working hard too) and my buddy said later that I was very definate about going up!!! We surfaced successfully, without any problems, and I had a fabulous dive once the hose was fixed back on. So, lessons learnt. Always check every bit of your equipment. It had never crossed my mind to check the top end of my hose ( the bit which screws on to the bc). You bet I will now! Buddies - whilst I don't believe you need to be surgically attached - always know where the other is. And stop, think, act. It really does work! What would you have done? Did I do OK? To finish on a funny note; I'd been teased all weekend about diving 'wet' by my dry-suited friends. When they learned what had happened, one wise-cracking friend said, "why didn't you just hit the inflator hose on your dry suit...oops forgot!!!" Thanks for listening! xxx

Does your BC have a pull dump on it, where you pull the corrugated hose in order to dump the contents of the BC?

If so, step back and rethink how wise it is to be yanking on this piece of fragile equipment; I know I have and that's probably the only recreational equipment design/procedure that I actually consider dangerous.

Roak

Roakey, that was the first thing I thought of when the hose came off. I'm not pulling that thing again in a hurry! It is a real design flaw. Guess I'm joining the wing brigade.....!

Glad to hear it was an Incident and not an Accident. Glad you lived to learn from. take care and dive safe.

The penney dropped? Hmmm.... Thanx for the tip, yanking on the dump hose-common sense, I will certainly be changing my technique zeN||

ok..my eyes missed it...what brand bcd did that happen with???

i have had lengthy conversations with Seaquest and they indicate that is not an improper procedure and "their" equipment is designed for and able to stand that type of usage..

considering how short my inflator hose is...i prefer that method

Er...it was a Seaquest. It's a cheapy that I bought for pool work, which I find more comfortable than my expensive Scubapro Glide! I don't think I'll be going into open water with it again now.

tear off, or was it not securely screwed in to the right threads at the shoulder? Yet another reason to check things twice and maybe three times.

that you are alright and things went reasonable well once "the penny dropped"

I have 195 dives with on of my BC's and I have GENTLY pulled on the hose to dump air and have never had a problem. I will however give it a bit closer inspection tomorrow before getting in the water

I don't consider it to be any more of a design flaw than any other dump valve used.

I use the dump on the Octo + hose myself. I always "thought" I did it gently, but will be more aware of it now that it has been brought up.

Thanks,