Accidents and Incidents:What mistakes have you made?

[Mike Boswell]

It must have been about 1980 or so. I was out diving with two friends on my 18' boat. We had anchored over one of my favorite spots near Moku Manu, off the Kaneohe Marine Air base on Oahu. Bill Haskell, my regular buddy, was about 20 years older than me and a great diver, and "Jim" was a good friend from work but we had not done much diving together.

I was diving in swim trunks, with a homemade backplate, a single steel 72, a Calypso J regulator, an SPG and a depth gauge. We didn't use wetsuits or BCD's. We didn't have any real concept of "buddy diving".

The table said we had 5 minutes bottom time. As we geared up I took note of the strong current heading out to sea, which was usual for that area, and I told Jim to make sure he swam directly to the anchor rope and then down.

I went over the side and headed straight for the bottom as fast as I could, cocking my speargun on the way down. Halfway to the bottom I glanced up and saw Bill heading down, and Jim's silhouette spreadeagled near the surface next to the boat. I headed up-current towards my favorite spot, and when I got there two minutes later a 45-lb ulua swam out of the cave to investigate. My spear took him right between the eyes and he froze, killed instantly by a lucky brain shot.

I turned with the fish and swam back towards the anchor line, checked the anchor, and swam up the rope. At about forty feet, the rope ended, tied off to an empty red 6-gallon gas can. The rope hummed in the current. I couldn't just stay there, and there was no boat above me, so I just slowly rose to the surface (we didn't do safety stops). When I got to the surface there was nothing but ocean, and as I looked around, the boat magically arrived.

It turned out that Jim had not followed my advice about swimming to the anchor line, but tried to follow me, and at 10 feet could not clear his ears and floated back to the surface behind the boat. Fortunately, Bill looked back and saw him, went back up, got back in the boat, untied the anchor line, tied the end to a gas can and threw it over the side, and rescued him before he ended up on Kauai.

It all ended well, thanks to Bill's quick thinking. But it could have gone very badly. Thanks to Bill, "Jim" went on to have two children and now has several grandchildren.

 

[Teamcasa]

Jumping in knowing I was underweight. (Charter was short on lead) I figured I could just grab a rock or two when it was time to surface. The problem was I was in Hawaii and all the rocks were not actual rock but very porous, lava hunks.
Hmmmm - I was thinking, must find the mooring line before this rented AL80 got too light. Luckly, I saw it as I was kicking damn near upside down, sucking air, making the problem worse. - Stupid.

 

[JohnB47]

I was wearing a new 2XL 7mm hooded step-in shorty that I had recently bought online, over my 7/6 fullsuit. The 2XL size was right for my chest size and plenty large at the hips, but I didn't actually measure my "waist" size. I don't actually have a waist - I have a belly. When I put on the shorty, I looked great! It didn't feel too bad, either. But when I had to swim 50 yards or so on the surface, I got a little out of breath, and could not catch my breath again! I was exhausted by the time I got back to the boat, and needed help getting up the ladder. It took a while to understand why I could not catch my breath until I had removed the shorty. I finally realized that, although I could expand my chest normally, the tightness around my belly kept me from being able to breath with my diaphragm to catch my breath. Next dive, I just used the 7/6 fullsuit, a very stretchy one, and had no more breathing problems.

 

[orm]

- As a new instructor, in the first day of my job, I shadowed the long time resident instructor on Dive one with some students. We arrived at the dive site and got ready to kit up only to discover I'd left my weight belt and wetsuit in the shop!

I did the dive in my shorts (we were i the Caribbean) and after forty minutes was freezing! Luckily they were poor on air.

 

[k374]

When my full three minutes were up I ascended slowly to the surface and ended up with a huge 50 psi (about ten breaths) in reserve.

Looks like you got all your money's worth from that air fill

 

[highdesert]

Thankfully, nothing life-threatening ... just the embarrassment of doing a negative entry off a boat then discovering that little not-turning-on-the-air thing ...

 

[ff1diver]

I finally was blessed with my instructor certification and assigned my first group of students. The week before I had a cold and ran to the doctor to get a quick fix because I was not going to miss my first weekend of open water instruction...
I felt great several days prior to the dives...went to the quarry...my ears would not clear on the first dive so I pushed it because I was not going to miss out...second dive same thing...third dive of the day had to have another instructor finish because my ears were throbbing...go back to the hotel...to some medicine slept for over 12 hours...and let the other instructor finish the students certs the next day. Luckily I did not blow an ear drum or two...I really strive to my students to be kind to their ears while underwater...do not overly force your ears to clear...and not to be STUPID...STUPID...STUPID like me.

 

[TMHeimer]

120 foot dive. Couldn't locate anchor line with air reserve needed. Looked for 2 more minutes knowing I had my pony. Wound up using the pony to finish the safety stop. Won't do THAT again-just ascend without the line. Felt like an idiot, but at least got a legit use of my pony investment.

 

[Splitlip]

First dive Saturday, I got to 15ft and realized I did not lock my inflater hose behind the small bungee loop on my left shoulder d-ring. It was flopping in the breeze (current).

But..I'm BatMan...I also put a large loop there and simply tucked the lp hose, corrugated hose and inflater behind that.

 

[peterbj7]

I don't know where to start here - I've made so many mistakes! One of the most irritating was travelling out to a remote island in Scapa Flow and then discovering I had left my mask behind. The most dangerous I have experienced was a feet-first ascent when I was new to a dry suit, with my SMB line tangled round my legs - that one took me to the chamber. The worst I have seen was a friend losing her weight belt on a wreck - her rapid ascent took her directly into the path of a speeding boat in the English Channel, which extraordinarily and very fortunately saw her at the very last moment. A friend doing a trimix dive and hence wearing a lot of gear entered swiftly moving water quite negative and only realised after he was well submerged that his air wasn't on. Another friend jumped in in similar circumstances and only realised he still had his snorkel in his mouth went he took a deep breath. Another friend waded alone into a current for a shore dive, only realising when the current picked him up that he'd forgotten his fins. A while ago I forgot my weights on a warm water dive, but managed with difficulty to do the dive without them. The safety stop was fun!

And so it goes on.....

Oh yes - my most uncomfortable mistake was when on a 55 mtr dive in Scapa Flow I was the last in a stick of divers going down the shot line in a strong current, hanging on and going down hand-over-hand. I hadn't gone down 10ft when my drysuit inflator popped off and went over the back of my shoulder. I couldn't reach it and with one thickly gloved hand couldn't have pushed it back on, nor could I attract the attention of the next diver down, so I continued down to the wreck at 55 mtr in some discomfort and had some one put it back on for me. The relief when I was at last able to put air in my suit!