Divingblueberry
Contributor
(I decided to post it here, but I'll let the mods decide if there's a better section...)
Ok... I debated with myself for a while before deciding posting my incident on the internet. I, however, value the input of all the divers on SB and know I can learn a lot from what you have to say about all this.
I’ll be brief because there are a lot of details (but lots of them aren’t pertinent)
Cozumel. Great diving day. First dive : Colombia Deep. Pedro (Great DM. More than 10,000 dives. It’s my second trip to Cozumel so I’d say my 7th dive this DM) gives us the usual briefing and off we go! Very good start, 95 feet, I feel calm, love the scenery and remember thinking to myself « Jeez.. I am calm, in a great mental place. I am so lucky to be here to admire all this ».
Fast forward 15 minutes... I am ahead of the group and being on the cautious side, I decide to stay at 75 feet in a « no current » area and wait for Pedro and the group. I turned my head to look at where he was and, all of a sudden, I hear a crazy noise : the regulator is in my mouth but the hose is now unscrewed and blowing the air away !
(Technical aside : I have a 5 feet hose with a 90 degree elbow on my primary and a necklace. The regulator unscrewed not below the 90 degree elbow, but at the joint. I know what happened is my mistake since I should have checked my gear. The thing slowly unscrewed without me noticing it- I took it for granted... I am the only one to blame for this.)
Back at 75 feet...
Everything happened so fast (with all the noise and the blindness...) and my primary hose is making a hell of a noise, I cannot see anything because of all the bubbles around. I felt I was in a dire situation. Fortunately, just before it happened, I knew where Pedro was and headed for him.
Of course he heard the noise and headed for me. He got to me and turned off my cylinder’s valve off but, at the same time, I reached to my necklace and there was no air... ! That wasn’t good... panic was kicking in. Pedro put his secondary in my mouth and I finally started to breathe.
After few seconds, I was much more relaxed (but not quite there). I showed him my primary hose (with no regulator at the end and we started looking for it. We found it at the bottom, ( I have to admit, the Deep 6’s orange top helped a lot. I saw it 35 feet away at the bottom!) He screwed it back and I continued the dive.
Prologue :
The DM did a great job. I think he handled it perfectly.
I thought the dive would be over but when Pedro turned the air back on, I had 1600 psi. So 15 minutes after, I was enjoying my dive as if nothing happened. It was weird because I felt I should have been more « shocked » but I wasn’t. Overall, it was a good thing because when I got on the boat, a bit shaken up, I was ready for the next dive.
What is killing me is that I cannot stop kicking myself in the ass for not handling it better. I panicked and I shouldn’t have... I wish I could have been more « on top of things » and I am questioning my ability to handle stress underwater.
Your advice and comments are welcome.
Ok... I debated with myself for a while before deciding posting my incident on the internet. I, however, value the input of all the divers on SB and know I can learn a lot from what you have to say about all this.
I’ll be brief because there are a lot of details (but lots of them aren’t pertinent)
Cozumel. Great diving day. First dive : Colombia Deep. Pedro (Great DM. More than 10,000 dives. It’s my second trip to Cozumel so I’d say my 7th dive this DM) gives us the usual briefing and off we go! Very good start, 95 feet, I feel calm, love the scenery and remember thinking to myself « Jeez.. I am calm, in a great mental place. I am so lucky to be here to admire all this ».
Fast forward 15 minutes... I am ahead of the group and being on the cautious side, I decide to stay at 75 feet in a « no current » area and wait for Pedro and the group. I turned my head to look at where he was and, all of a sudden, I hear a crazy noise : the regulator is in my mouth but the hose is now unscrewed and blowing the air away !
(Technical aside : I have a 5 feet hose with a 90 degree elbow on my primary and a necklace. The regulator unscrewed not below the 90 degree elbow, but at the joint. I know what happened is my mistake since I should have checked my gear. The thing slowly unscrewed without me noticing it- I took it for granted... I am the only one to blame for this.)
Back at 75 feet...
Everything happened so fast (with all the noise and the blindness...) and my primary hose is making a hell of a noise, I cannot see anything because of all the bubbles around. I felt I was in a dire situation. Fortunately, just before it happened, I knew where Pedro was and headed for him.
Of course he heard the noise and headed for me. He got to me and turned off my cylinder’s valve off but, at the same time, I reached to my necklace and there was no air... ! That wasn’t good... panic was kicking in. Pedro put his secondary in my mouth and I finally started to breathe.
After few seconds, I was much more relaxed (but not quite there). I showed him my primary hose (with no regulator at the end and we started looking for it. We found it at the bottom, ( I have to admit, the Deep 6’s orange top helped a lot. I saw it 35 feet away at the bottom!) He screwed it back and I continued the dive.
Prologue :
The DM did a great job. I think he handled it perfectly.
I thought the dive would be over but when Pedro turned the air back on, I had 1600 psi. So 15 minutes after, I was enjoying my dive as if nothing happened. It was weird because I felt I should have been more « shocked » but I wasn’t. Overall, it was a good thing because when I got on the boat, a bit shaken up, I was ready for the next dive.
What is killing me is that I cannot stop kicking myself in the ass for not handling it better. I panicked and I shouldn’t have... I wish I could have been more « on top of things » and I am questioning my ability to handle stress underwater.
Your advice and comments are welcome.