TrimixToo
Contributor
I have had a mask kicked off at a safety stop. I caught it and put it back on. I had a mask strap on the edge of breaking, and when I removed the mask after the dive to see why the strap was loose I noticed the tear in the strap.
But the most memorable thing was what I saw sitting on a boat. A large area of the ocean suddenly effervesced, perhaps 20-30' across. This was from a first stage failure that vented someone's deco tank very quickly. Not long after that, the diver surfaced, having omitted 12-15 minutes of deco. It seems that the cloud of bubbles created a near-zero visibility situation and the sudden movements in reacting to the startlement caused by the failure and the bubble cloud caused the primary reg *and* the alternate to be hard to locate in turn.
The diver's buddy was close by when the failure occurred. In the ensuing rush by the first diver to get something breathable in hand under low-to-no viz, his mask was knocked completely off. He knew his deco obligation and had two more stops. He estimated depth with handwidths on the upline and counted down his stops ("one thousand one, one thousand two...").
Despite the omitted deco the diver with the reg failure was OK after agreeing (with some persuasion) to sit still and breathe some O2. The buddy surfaced sans mask and calmly swam to the boat, perfectly OK after completing deco.
I carry a spare mask in the pocket of my dry suit. If I did not dive in overheads and with a deco obligation on most dives I probably would not bother, but these real-life examples have adequately demonstrated to me that sh...er, "stuff" happens. YMMV.
But the most memorable thing was what I saw sitting on a boat. A large area of the ocean suddenly effervesced, perhaps 20-30' across. This was from a first stage failure that vented someone's deco tank very quickly. Not long after that, the diver surfaced, having omitted 12-15 minutes of deco. It seems that the cloud of bubbles created a near-zero visibility situation and the sudden movements in reacting to the startlement caused by the failure and the bubble cloud caused the primary reg *and* the alternate to be hard to locate in turn.
The diver's buddy was close by when the failure occurred. In the ensuing rush by the first diver to get something breathable in hand under low-to-no viz, his mask was knocked completely off. He knew his deco obligation and had two more stops. He estimated depth with handwidths on the upline and counted down his stops ("one thousand one, one thousand two...").
Despite the omitted deco the diver with the reg failure was OK after agreeing (with some persuasion) to sit still and breathe some O2. The buddy surfaced sans mask and calmly swam to the boat, perfectly OK after completing deco.
I carry a spare mask in the pocket of my dry suit. If I did not dive in overheads and with a deco obligation on most dives I probably would not bother, but these real-life examples have adequately demonstrated to me that sh...er, "stuff" happens. YMMV.