Russoft
Contributor
This isn't a near miss, but a lesson learned. It could have been a near miss had I been deeper, or panicked, I suppose. It occurred this past weekend and I just thought I'd share a real life equipment failure. I know that for me, equipment failures during a dive are largely just a figment of my imagination. It's always a "what if" but never actually happens. Equipment problems, when they occur, are obvious before I ever descend to the bottom. This reminded me that equipment can and actually will fail during a dive.
I bought a couple new braided flex LP hoses. One went onto my wife's primary regulator. She has jaw/neck issues and, as I expected, the flex hose helped her hugely as the regulator wasn't being wrenched from her mouth constantly. This weekend I put my octo/back up on a regulator necklace and put my primary on my octo hose so it could be donated. The other flex hose replaced this latter hose. I included an elbow joint at the regulator.
We were diving a quarry and were at a depth of 7 m / 23 ft. My primary regulator started to bubble constantly. I thought it was free flowing. I removed it and saw bubbles coming from the hose connection point. I signaled the problem to my wife and took her octo. I signaled her to switch off my air so I could attempt to repair the problem - hand-tighten a loose connection. No joy, I needed a wrench to work on it. When she turned my air back on, bubbling got worse, so I signaled her to switch off my air again. We ascended to the surface with me breathing on wife's octo. I orally inflated my BCD at surface and we swam back to entry point.
The problem ended up being a broken o-ring on the end that inserts into the regulator (or in this case, the elbow joint). Now, I don't know why an o-ring on a brand new hose would fail so quickly, but I didn't have a spare. So I replaced the entire hose with my old hose (which was showing signs of wear but still worked fine). That solved the problem. We managed to still get two dives out of the day despite our first aborted dive.
A few observations. This is a good reason not to make too many changes to equipment between dives. Better to test each modification individually, where possible. Don't assume new equipment is in working order. Don't do a demanding dive without testing your equipment first. Know where o-rings are and check their integrity prior to installing new hoses, etc. Remaining calm helps you think clearly when something goes wrong under water. I might have become panicky if we'd been deeper and this occurred. I'm glad I had to deal with this problem in shallow water so if I experience it at depth in the future, I can react appropriately. Finally, I learned that while I can reach back and touch my tank valve, touching and manipulating are two very different things. I had to rely on my wife to fiddle with the tank valve. Finally, always have spares. This is the second major equipment failure I've encountered on a dive trip this summer and both times I only saved the dive because I had the right spares.
A few questions. Is it wise to shut off air at depth? In hindsight, I might have been in real trouble had I become separated with my wife during ascent as she had the only working regulators. Perhaps I let my desire to save the air in my tank (so I could continue my dive later) to over rule the safest course of action: Ascend with my air on. We were shallow, but deep enough to drown! What likely resulted in a failed o-ring that should be brand new? Is it possible to pinch the o-ring while making the hose connnection? Is it possible that I didn't tighten the connection properly and the o-ring was pushed out of it's seat? I also realize I failed to lube the o-ring prior to installing the hose. The o-ring had a good chunk missing out of it, only 3/4 of it remained.
I bought a couple new braided flex LP hoses. One went onto my wife's primary regulator. She has jaw/neck issues and, as I expected, the flex hose helped her hugely as the regulator wasn't being wrenched from her mouth constantly. This weekend I put my octo/back up on a regulator necklace and put my primary on my octo hose so it could be donated. The other flex hose replaced this latter hose. I included an elbow joint at the regulator.
We were diving a quarry and were at a depth of 7 m / 23 ft. My primary regulator started to bubble constantly. I thought it was free flowing. I removed it and saw bubbles coming from the hose connection point. I signaled the problem to my wife and took her octo. I signaled her to switch off my air so I could attempt to repair the problem - hand-tighten a loose connection. No joy, I needed a wrench to work on it. When she turned my air back on, bubbling got worse, so I signaled her to switch off my air again. We ascended to the surface with me breathing on wife's octo. I orally inflated my BCD at surface and we swam back to entry point.
The problem ended up being a broken o-ring on the end that inserts into the regulator (or in this case, the elbow joint). Now, I don't know why an o-ring on a brand new hose would fail so quickly, but I didn't have a spare. So I replaced the entire hose with my old hose (which was showing signs of wear but still worked fine). That solved the problem. We managed to still get two dives out of the day despite our first aborted dive.
A few observations. This is a good reason not to make too many changes to equipment between dives. Better to test each modification individually, where possible. Don't assume new equipment is in working order. Don't do a demanding dive without testing your equipment first. Know where o-rings are and check their integrity prior to installing new hoses, etc. Remaining calm helps you think clearly when something goes wrong under water. I might have become panicky if we'd been deeper and this occurred. I'm glad I had to deal with this problem in shallow water so if I experience it at depth in the future, I can react appropriately. Finally, I learned that while I can reach back and touch my tank valve, touching and manipulating are two very different things. I had to rely on my wife to fiddle with the tank valve. Finally, always have spares. This is the second major equipment failure I've encountered on a dive trip this summer and both times I only saved the dive because I had the right spares.
A few questions. Is it wise to shut off air at depth? In hindsight, I might have been in real trouble had I become separated with my wife during ascent as she had the only working regulators. Perhaps I let my desire to save the air in my tank (so I could continue my dive later) to over rule the safest course of action: Ascend with my air on. We were shallow, but deep enough to drown! What likely resulted in a failed o-ring that should be brand new? Is it possible to pinch the o-ring while making the hose connnection? Is it possible that I didn't tighten the connection properly and the o-ring was pushed out of it's seat? I also realize I failed to lube the o-ring prior to installing the hose. The o-ring had a good chunk missing out of it, only 3/4 of it remained.
