Forgot to hook up inflator - near miss

[AfterDark]

If the OP thought it was a near miss for them based on the circumstances and how they reacted, well it was a near miss for them. It may never happen to you, but the OP was posting about their experience and what they have learnt. They've got some additional advice from others, so it likely this will never happen to them again.
Good for the OP to post with the view to learn from this.

Like beauty, a near miss is the eye of the beholder? OK. Good for the OP for posting I agree, I just would have have posted else where but that's just me I guess.

Here's a Near Miss: new diver - first dive problems

 

[Esprise Me]

I've read the entire thread. Excuse me but, I don't understand what makes this incident a near miss. I oral inflate my wing when I use my double hose reg. It's also one of ways I extend my breathing gas. I wouldn't even call it an inconvenience.
IMO the OP needs to re-evaluate their diving practices. Lots of good advise has been posted, IMO the OP should heed it..

But you realize the OP doesn't dive the way you do. For his buddy, this was a piece of equipment that suddenly didn't work as expected (albeit as a result of his own error), and that was scary. Your comment is similar to shrugging and saying you always dive wet, what's the big deal, to someone whose drysuit leaked. If there's a forum for "didn't really have to stare death in the face but had a scary experience we could learn from" that's separate from Near Misses, maybe you could suggest moving this thread there. Otherwise, I don't see what your post accomplishes, other than shaming the OP for being honest about a common error that many new divers could benefit from hearing about.

 

[AfterDark]

But you realize the OP doesn't dive the way you do. For his buddy, this was a piece of equipment that suddenly didn't work as expected (albeit as a result of his own error), and that was scary. Your comment is similar to shrugging and saying you always dive wet, what's the big deal, to someone whose drysuit leaked. If there's a forum for "didn't really have to stare death in the face but had a scary experience we could learn from" that's separate from Near Misses, maybe you could suggest moving this thread there. Otherwise, I don't see what your post accomplishes, other than shaming the OP for being honest about a common error that many new divers could benefit from hearing about.

I hope it reinforced the idea of re-evaluated his diving and using some of the good ideas posted previously. What shame?

From my post "IMO the OP needs to re-evaluate their diving practices. Lots of good advise has been posted, IMO the OP should heed it."

We dive in an unforgiving environment, better to be harsh on land then be taught by the sea.

 

[happy-diver]

Ok for every dive I dive or jump in negative no air in bc, adjust the displaced stuff as I go and keep diving

 

[chillyinCanada]

Ok for every dive I dive or jump in negative no air in bc, adjust the displaced stuff as I go and keep diving

That's probably OK for you happy-diver, but our friends in this thread haven't reached that level of ability yet.

Let's help by encouraging them in other practices first, before telling them of your amazing feats of derring do.

 

[CT-Rich]

I hope it reinforced the idea of re-evaluated his diving and using some of the good ideas posted previously. What shame?

From my post "IMO the OP needs to re-evaluate their diving practices. Lots of good advise has been posted, IMO the OP should heed it."

We dive in an unforgiving environment, better to be harsh on land then be taught by the sea.

I do recall a dive once where my buddy noticed the air on his tank was off after 10 minute surface swim. We all get caught off guard sometimes. It’s a bigger deal to a newbie than it is for someone with 40 years of diving.

The OP shared his experience and got some valuable feedback and perspective from people with more experience. He had dive buddy going bug-eyed, that can get worse pretty quickly. It didn’t, but it could have...

 

[Storker]

He had dive buddy going bug-eyed, that can get worse pretty quickly. It didn’t, but it could have...

Yup. Panic kills. I've had a couple situations which could have become rather sticky if they had happened when I was an apprehensive n00b without the reflexes I have now. By being able to keep my cool, those situations were nothing more than small to moderate annoyances.

 

[DBPacific]

You can't underestimate panic, especially from a new problem that someone hasn't heard of or run into before. I've had my BCD inflate itself when I was 30 feet under. I'd never had that problem before but had an instructor who would share extensive and descriptive stories of accidents, injuries, and equipment failures. I managed to remove my inflator hose from the power inflator and get back to depth before I rose too far, but if visibility had been worse, if it had taken me more time to fix the issue or held my breath, the current more intense, or I not been exposed to many varied possibilities of equipment failure, things could've gone a lot worse in even 30 feet of water. I'm glad no one was hurt.

 

[chillyinCanada]

The time or two, I've had a bit of a scare were on the surface. Otherwise, I've no recollection of getting a scare underwater, so makes sense to me that the dad was getting there.

None of us can afford to get too cocky.

 

[Matt Spear]

I just had my first dive last weekend after my cert and got ripped to shreds for obvious dive mistakes for vet divers. But deciding to dive after a known leak....maybe that's normal for all the experts here - but I just wouldn't do it. But, I'm a noob. Just seems like if you're leaking air you need to survive underwater - you'd cancel the dive. But no one is really bashing you like they did on my first post the other day - so maybe that's just standard practice in diving.

Been meaning to post this for a while, it happened back in August.
My buddy and I were diving a lake during a family function. On the first day we cut a dive short and left our gear mostly set up at the dock. My buddies tank had a leak from the LP inflator hose where it connects to the first stage. We fiddled with it a bit then left it to the next day.

Next day arrives and we fiddled with the hose a bit more trying to see if we could stop the leak. Eventually we decided it wasn't a significant enough leak to affect the dive and got in the water. We descended and after a couple minutes I shoulder checked to locate my buddy and realized he had surfaced. I rose up to meet him and found him in distress on the surface - his inflator hose never got hooked back up after we fiddled with it. He was really struggling to swim at the surface and took his reg out, head was bobbing in and out of the water. I finally got him to put his reg back in and we descended a couple feet where I was able to connect the inflator.

Needless to say that was the end of the dive. After we got back to the beach via surface swim our mistakes were pretty clear. 1) didn't reconnect the hose 2) didn't do pre-dive safety check which would have discovered mistake #1.

It was a pretty scary incident, everything they say about a panicking diver on the surface was true - he grabbed me, tried to climb on top, etc. Luckily once he got his reg back in he calmed down, but it was a pretty serious event maybe one step from being a critical event.

Anyways, just wanted to share. I know we fu*ked up on this dive and I'm grateful it wasn't a worse situation, maybe it's a good reminder for someone else!