Accidents and Incidents:What mistakes have you made?

[rongoodman]

A couple of years back I managed to roll the valve shut in a swimming pool in a single tank rig. The only overhead there was those plastic floating lane dividers, so they must have been the culprit, although I'm guessing the valve was partially shut to start with.

 

[TSandM]

cocoajoe, a lot of people are taught to open the valve all the way and then turn it back a quarter turn. If you turn the valve the wrong way, you'll close it and then open it a quarter turn, which will produce exactly the symptoms described.

 

[gcbryan]

And the most common way (I think) is to start to prepare your gear (start to turn the valve) and someone comes up and you stop to talk to them and when you go back you don't realize that you didn't turn the tank on completely. This also requires that you not notice the bouncing needle as you check your air just before diving in.

This is how it happened to me the first and hopefully last time it happened to me.

 

[spectrum]

cocoajoe, a lot of people are taught to open the valve all the way and then turn it back a quarter turn. If you turn the valve the wrong way, you'll close it and then open it a quarter turn, which will produce exactly the symptoms described.

That brings to mind something I ran into today. A buddy asked me to check his valve at the entry to a shore dive. I turned and turned until it was open. I don't know if it started closed or cracked open but it was definitely not close top open.

As I completed this I realized that the diver was beginning to dabble on the edge of tech and that these were fairly new cylinders. I did a double check to make sure that this was not an opposite hand valve intended to be 1/2 of a future doubles set.

All was good.

Pete

 

[spectrum]

My most notable screw-up resulted in no incident or accident but screamed a valuable lesson. On a shore dive at a local park we were gearing up while chatting with another couple we were diving with that day. The dive was uneventful.

At the end of the dive I slipped out of my BC and could not find my weight belt. I looked around and had not absent mindedly pre-doffed it. What the heck, where was it?

Imagine my hysterical mortification when I realized that it was under my 7mm hooded step-in shorty vest! I got into my full suit, donned the weights belt THEN the vest!

That taught me to value my pre-dive routine and to be extra vigilant whenever that routine is diverted. Virtually every little guffaw that has happened since can be traced to distractions while setting up. Fortunately follow-up checks have been good at catching things. I will now generally turn off the world at some point and run through things to make sure I'm good to go. It really explains why some tech divers will be very much to themselves while setting up for a dive.

Pete

 

[kelly7552]

Is was more of a close call than a mistake. I was in Bali giving a talk at a professional conference and had some time on my hand so I decided to try scuba diving. I found a local shop and showed up on time and I received about 3 minutes of instruction and jumped on board a 20 person boat. I was the only american, there was an aussie, and about 15 Japanese tourists. When we arrived at the beginning of our drift dive, the DM in broken english said, roll over backwards and enter the water; the boat was pitching fairly badly so I dove in. I was having trouble on the surface and the DM was unable to get anyone else but the aussie in the water. We had a great dive the three of us and I was STOKED.

I returned the next day with my good friend Marty, we also had a great dive and on the way back from the dive, the DM asked if we were flying. My friend said, yeah in about 4 hours! The DM LOOKED at his watched, and said, OH yeah that will be fine. Luckily we went to our hotel after the dive and we told of our dive to other friends. One friend asked for Marty's keys and said, I'm a certified diver and your not flying until tomorrow.

Convinced me to get certified.

Also, the DM was about 16 and was clearly in rough physical shape; he was shivering violently before we got in the water and was probably feverish.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Today: while trying to grab a small speared fish that ended up on the string of my speargun, I missed slamming my hand into a lion fish by about 2 inches and half a second. Last weekend I rolled off my buddy's boat and got a boat cleat stuck under the leg of my swim trunks, I was suspended with just my face in the water for what seemed like a long time, until the shorts FINALLY tore through and released me. My leg is hardly sore anymore.

 

[Mike Boswell]

Today: while trying to grab a small speared fish that ended up on the string of my speargun, I missed slamming my hand into a lion fish by about 2 inches and half a second. Last weekend I rolled off my buddy's boat and got a boat cleat stuck under the leg of my swim trunks, I was suspended with just my face in the water for what seemed like a long time, until the shorts FINALLY tore through and released me. My leg is hardly sore anymore.

Retractable cleats are your friend.

 

[TSandM]

Virtually every little guffaw that has happened since can be traced to distractions while setting up.

Or hurrying. My biggest preparation errors have been when I'm late to the site and everybody else is already getting dressed, and I hurry. I've learned to tell myself to SLOW DOWN -- I'm discommoding everybody by being late, but I'll inconvenience them even more if I get in the water and swim all the way out to the drop point and discover I don't have my weight belt (happened).

 

[Mike Boswell]

On a dive the other day, I jumped in with a full tank and swam straight down as fast as I could to rescue a fish. I was in a big hurry and I neglected to do the normal things like adding air to my wing. By the time I got to 80 feet or so I was very negative and becoming a dirt dart. When I got to 115 feet I tried to stop but was so negative I had to swim like hell just to keep from going deeper while I inflated my wing.

What I should have done is force myself to relax, think, plan, and go slowly.