Accident on Southern Cal Oil Rigs Dive

[raftingtigger]

One trick some SM divers do to tell their regs apart is to put a nick in the mouthpiece. Nick on right side = right reg, left side = left reg. I have not done this myself, but my right reg has no 90 swivel, and my left reg does. Quick sweep of the hand tells me which I am on.

 

[Marie13]

One trick some SM divers do to tell their regs apart is to put a nick in the mouthpiece. Nick on right side = right reg, left side = left reg. I have not done this myself, but my right reg has no 90 swivel, and my left reg does. Quick sweep of the hand tells me which I am on.

What I’ve done is that short hose is on a necklace and long hose is not.

 

[sunshower]

Where it all went wrong was when he looked at his SPG and didn't notice that it wasn't going down with each breath. If he had a digital SPG, he should have caught that error on the boat. If he had a mechanial spg, he should have at least noticed on his way down.

I think the point at which it all went wrong was on the boat. Not blaming him or the buddy, we've all been there - done a few dives, feeling good, feeling confident, and we gear up and go in for the next dive without doing a proper check. We know better but we cut corners anyway; we're experienced, know what we're doing. This tragedy should be a powerful warning for skipping those checks in the future, even for relatively easy dives in simple configurations. Are hoses routed cleanly? Is the air really on???

My condolences to the diver's family and to his buddy. I've not dived the oil rigs but want to. When the time comes I'll do so with a healthy respect for conditions and remembrance of the deceased diver based on this thread.

 

[pepperbelly]

I don’t use a pony-yet, but a bright yellow mouthpiece on it seems to be a very good idea.

 

[Hatul]

That's the same reason I carry a pony - a pull-the-cord-and-go bailout in case the primary reg/tank suffers a catastrophic malfunction and nobody else is around to donate gas.



Just as a note, Power Scuba did post a photo of the victim on the FB announcement for his memorial service back in November; while it was not the photo in the account of him making his entry it was him on the day of the accident gearing up. In light of the posted account, I did notice a couple items. His pony bottle was mounted to his main tank on the right side, and the reg appeared to be a similar if not identical model to his primary second stage. Both hoses (I presume, since the picture was taken from the right front at close range) were over the right arm and secured with the same hose keeper to his left chest D-ring. It appears he also had an air-integrated BC inflator as an alternate air source.

Personally, I keep my primary second stage on a necklace and my alternate on the left chest D-ring (I'd prefer to have the primary on a long hose and the alternate on a necklace, but it's a pain to find a 5-ft hose that works with my primary reg set), while the pony second is on the right chest D-ring. More importantly, both my main primary and alternate second stages are Poseidon Cyklons while the pony is a Scubapro R190 - hard to confuse those two models even blind.

I also dive with the primary on a short hose and on a necklace, so it’s always in front of my mouth and impossible to confuse with anything else. Some of my dive buddies use the DIR primary on long hose and octo on necklace, which is also an excellent configuration.