Yeason
Registered
This happened about a month ago, I have started this post probably 5 times but needed time to become a little less emotional about it. The first few days I bounced between being really mad at myself and disappointed I got myself here and ecstatic that I'd passed the 48 hour window for DCS, so here goes.
My near miss started in one of the most common ways, complacent "I know what I'm doing" ego. I went on a dive with a group which has a tendency to push limits, and decided to try out a new dry suit undergarment at the same time. This turned into a perfect storm of almost getting myself bent.
The major error in judgement was the idea that I was switching from multiple layers under my dry suit to a single but heavier layer. I figured I would add weights and be at least close to a good weighting. I meant to do a weight check, but ended up being slow getting in the water and felt rushed, and ultimately forgot. On top of this I was already carrying 2kg more than usual so figured I should be fine. I should have aborted the second we started the descent... it was slow... it didn't feel right... but hey I've been a little buoyant before, I'll be fine... lesson learned there, never be afraid to admit your mistake even if it messes up the dive for the group.
We go down, dive is intended to be 40m as we're in recreational setup. I will admit in hindsight I got a bit of narcosis because we'd descended to 45m instead, and then went even further. I didn't realize until I looked at my computer after but I hit 53m on a single 15L tank. I was at least using H valve with redundant 1st/2nd stages and redundant buoyancy, I was basically in tec setup but failed to properly plan the dive as such. So we start our ascent and I realize I have 15-20 minutes of deco, not normally a major issue as I have plenty of air, but I'm having trouble controlling my ascent. At about 20m I realize I'm in serious trouble, I did a stupid... I now have a half a tank with left, 20 min of deco, and I can barely hold my depth, I signaled my group lead about my situation .
My decompression turned into floating up as close to my ceiling as I felt comfortable while dumping as much air as possible, then swimming a couple meters down, the whole time trying to balance my breathing. During this the group lead helped pull me down a couple times, and was able to donate 2kg to me later on which made the situation more manageable. I also realized at one point that often when trying to squeeze air our of my dry suit I was hitting my BCD inflator. Of course because of my extra exertion I used more air and became even more buoyant. At one point I needed to maintain about 3-5m but it felt almost impossible. Unfortunately looking at my computer I realized I was flirting with the line between offgassing the necessary compartments and on gassing others (my deco clock stopped a few times). During all of this I was about as close to panic as I've ever come but knew that losing my calm would kill me. So I moved up to and managed to maintain 6m long enough to finish my decompression.
Eventually I successfully finish my decompression and surfaced without any issue, but I did so with only about 20bar left. I was incredibly close to running out of air and broke my deco ceiling multiple times. Luckily never by a lot or for long, so knowing my computer is set conservatively (GF High of 70) I stayed calm and just kept trying to stick to my deco profile.
Rules I can think of that I broke:
Do a weight check when you change equipment.
Don't do a deep dive with new equipment, build slowly.
Dive your plan. Don't go into deco without planning for it (we had planned for it but I still think this applies as I was really I'll prepared for a 53m dive).
Call the dive at the first sign of a problem.
If anyone sees other rules that we're broken feel free to point them out. While I'm disappointed in myself I'm doing my best to learn from it and hoping to jump back in when I can!
My near miss started in one of the most common ways, complacent "I know what I'm doing" ego. I went on a dive with a group which has a tendency to push limits, and decided to try out a new dry suit undergarment at the same time. This turned into a perfect storm of almost getting myself bent.
The major error in judgement was the idea that I was switching from multiple layers under my dry suit to a single but heavier layer. I figured I would add weights and be at least close to a good weighting. I meant to do a weight check, but ended up being slow getting in the water and felt rushed, and ultimately forgot. On top of this I was already carrying 2kg more than usual so figured I should be fine. I should have aborted the second we started the descent... it was slow... it didn't feel right... but hey I've been a little buoyant before, I'll be fine... lesson learned there, never be afraid to admit your mistake even if it messes up the dive for the group.
We go down, dive is intended to be 40m as we're in recreational setup. I will admit in hindsight I got a bit of narcosis because we'd descended to 45m instead, and then went even further. I didn't realize until I looked at my computer after but I hit 53m on a single 15L tank. I was at least using H valve with redundant 1st/2nd stages and redundant buoyancy, I was basically in tec setup but failed to properly plan the dive as such. So we start our ascent and I realize I have 15-20 minutes of deco, not normally a major issue as I have plenty of air, but I'm having trouble controlling my ascent. At about 20m I realize I'm in serious trouble, I did a stupid... I now have a half a tank with left, 20 min of deco, and I can barely hold my depth, I signaled my group lead about my situation .
My decompression turned into floating up as close to my ceiling as I felt comfortable while dumping as much air as possible, then swimming a couple meters down, the whole time trying to balance my breathing. During this the group lead helped pull me down a couple times, and was able to donate 2kg to me later on which made the situation more manageable. I also realized at one point that often when trying to squeeze air our of my dry suit I was hitting my BCD inflator. Of course because of my extra exertion I used more air and became even more buoyant. At one point I needed to maintain about 3-5m but it felt almost impossible. Unfortunately looking at my computer I realized I was flirting with the line between offgassing the necessary compartments and on gassing others (my deco clock stopped a few times). During all of this I was about as close to panic as I've ever come but knew that losing my calm would kill me. So I moved up to and managed to maintain 6m long enough to finish my decompression.
Eventually I successfully finish my decompression and surfaced without any issue, but I did so with only about 20bar left. I was incredibly close to running out of air and broke my deco ceiling multiple times. Luckily never by a lot or for long, so knowing my computer is set conservatively (GF High of 70) I stayed calm and just kept trying to stick to my deco profile.
Rules I can think of that I broke:
Do a weight check when you change equipment.
Don't do a deep dive with new equipment, build slowly.
Dive your plan. Don't go into deco without planning for it (we had planned for it but I still think this applies as I was really I'll prepared for a 53m dive).
Call the dive at the first sign of a problem.
If anyone sees other rules that we're broken feel free to point them out. While I'm disappointed in myself I'm doing my best to learn from it and hoping to jump back in when I can!
