Human seal

on november 22nd i was out on the DnD2 and we were doing 2 dives on the yukon and after we surfaced and started our surface interval we were looking at the louis ann and the blue escape when suddenly a overinflated dry suit flys out of the water.
we thought it was a seal but it was a diver whos dry suit inflator valve had gotten stuck and he couldnt disconnect the hose in time.
his fins werent even on they were just hanging on the inflated leg holews and the diver couldnt move an inch. within seconds the saftey swimmer from our boat and the louis ann were already with the diver.

they got him out of the water got him on oxygwen.

im happy to report that he was okay
he didnt need any recompression treatment.

but a interesting surface interval....

Welcome to the board.

That must have been pretty scary.... the human lift bag, rocketing to the surface getting bigger and faster. Wow.

Hopefully it wasn't from too deep...I mean there are several ways to arrest this to keep from blimping out of control to the surface.

I hope this person is OK. Scary stuff there.

K

When that happens you can sometimes pull your neck seal on your suit and let out air.. you do it fast to dump the air you don't get to much water in your suit.. it has worked for me.. and others divers I know.. we get that some times when it gets cold..when doing ice diving... hope that might help..

he was fine didnt ave any compression issues..


yea it inflated so fast he couldnt move his arms because the suit inflated so much.

Most of the suit inflations will only feed in at a lower level than you can dump air from the valve to prevent this happening, the old cuff dumps occasionally jammed, opening a seal sorted this, gets you a bit cold and wet tho'.
Its sometimes easier ( on my set up it is) to turn on the inflation cylinder than disconnect with cold hands, but that only works if you aren't breathing off the same regulator

Mobius1 once bubbled...
yea it inflated so fast he couldn't move his arms because the suit inflated so much.

Click to expand...

Humm... I don't know about that, but I do know that this thread, and another recent thread about a stuck BC inflater, are good reminders to practice hose disconnects often. I disconnect and reconnect these hoses at some random time on almost every dive, along with a few other easy drills.
When I learned to dive in 1971 at age 13, my Dad would - at some point on almost every dive - swim over without the reg in his mouth and signal OOA. We'd buddy breath for a while, then he'd signal OK, pop his reg back in his mouth and we'd continue the dive. No big deal. And one day when I was 16 and a friend ran out of air, I didn't think much of it, just handed him my reg. HE, however, was freaked, and getting it back was another issue.
I really enjoy practicing emergency procedures, and here in Spokane on a freshwater dive, there is often times not much to see, so it gives you something to do. I sometimes dive with a guy who is a real Hoover (even more than me), and so near the end of the dive I'll purge my reg for a while and breath off the free flow.
Anyway, these recent threads on stuck inflates are a good reminder for us to always be practicing our skills.
Glad the human seal made it!

I get in so often with my hose off I got the whole connect at depth thing nailed!

Maybe I should try a disco next time...

K

But, is disco DIR? *wink*

Mo2vation once bubbled...
I get in so often with my hose off I got the whole connect at depth thing nailed!

Maybe I should try a disco next time...

K

Click to expand...

GQMedic once bubbled...
But, is disco DIR? *wink*

Click to expand...

Only when my Angels Flight suit is all black and my wide belt has no metal on metal contact.

woo woo.

K

yea his drysuit was apprantly a cheaper one the rescue diver said the valve was very hard to disconnect as he got back to our boat. he had no gloves byt the diver had some thick kevlar gloes on.