Fatality at Jersey Island

[victorzamora]

2. If it were a rebreather (we know it was a Hollis Prism 2), why should it be any different from a perspective of somebody who is sold a rebreather which is safe, and EN14143, and cannot be misassembled?

Here you go again, assuming the product should be 100% incapable of being misassembled. Just 5 posts ago you claimed that nobody would expect or demand that.

As an OC diver, I DON'T let my wife assemble my gear without triple checking it....and I rarely let her assemble my gear, anyway. I'm a MUCH more experience diver than she is, and I don't assemble her gear without her double-checking it and without there being extenuating circumstances. Also, OC gear is MUCH more simple to set up and test than CC gear.

 

[gianaameri]

Here you go again, assuming the product should be 100% incapable of being misassembled. Just 5 posts ago you claimed that nobody would expect or demand that.

As an OC diver, I DON'T let my wife assemble my gear without triple checking it....and I rarely let her assemble my gear, anyway. I'm a MUCH more experience diver than she is, and I don't assemble her gear without her double-checking it and without there being extenuating circumstances. Also, OC gear is MUCH more simple to set up and test than CC gear.

Again and to be clear, it is the manufacturers (not me or my contention) that the rebreather be 100% incapable of being misassembled:

• clause 5.1 of BS EN 14143: 2013 or BS EN 14143: 2003, states:

“It shall not be possible to assemble or combine the components or parts in such a way that it can affect the safe operation and safe use of the apparatus, e.g. by incorrect connection of the hoses to the breathing circuit.”

In the specifics of this accident a simple left-hand and right-hand thread on the rebreather and DSV hoses would have prevented this specific fatality.

Generally, I see no problem with user re-packable scrubber as in the Hollis Prism 2, although this may lead to user error in packing the scrubber (this is where good training can mitigate the error).

However, to be clear, scrubber packing had nothing to do with this fatality.

It was the design of the Hollis Prism 2 which did not prevent the user from reversing the breathing loop, something which by design was easily preventable at little to no increase in unit production cost (much more expensive to deal with the consequences now of a fatality and possibly the costs and the reputational consequences of a product recall or lack thereof).

 

[Dr. Lecter]

In the specifics of this accident a simple left-hand and right-hand thread on the rebreather and DSV hoses would have prevented this specific fatality.

You keep saying this, but have provided no evidence that it is true in the kind of absolute way you're claiming. Some idiot screwed the DSV and lower loop hoses together in a particularly ham-handed and obtuse way, and you've brought out not one single explanation for why that same idiot couldn't have done the same thing while cross threading your magic left/right threads.

 

[gianaameri]

You keep saying this, but have provided no evidence that it is true in the kind of absolute way you're claiming. Some idiot screwed the DSV and lower loop hoses together in a particularly ham-handed and obtuse way, and you've brought out not one single explanation for why that same idiot couldn't have done the same thing while cross threading your magic left/right threads.

Well, if the thread pitch is of a particular type, it makes it impossible to screw it in left on right.

If the thread pitch is very narrow, then and the thread fine, you can probably force left on right.

I can tell you on my rebreather (please somebody with a Meg handy go and try and report), you cannot cross-thread it.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Well, if the thread pitch is of a particular type, it makes it impossible to screw it in left on right.

If the thread pitch is very narrow, then and the thread fine, you can probably force left on right.

I can tell you on my rebreather (please somebody with a Meg handy go and try and report), you cannot cross-thread it.

Bull - work at it hard enough, and you can cross thread pretty much anything of that size and relatively soft material. It might take a lot of force, and it'll surely wreck the threads, but I very much doubt you're going to get hard/big enough threads on parts of this size that it's physically impossible to cross thread them by hand.

Now, it's surely more of a deterrent than nothing and maybe it would have been enough to stop whatever person managed to so totally screw up the build on this victim's P2. But to claim it (or anything else) would satisfy the absolute 'cannot be miss-assembled' standard you're harping on...nope.

 

[gianaameri]

Bull - work at it hard enough, and you can cross thread pretty much anything of that size and relatively soft material. It might take a lot of force, and it'll surely wreck the threads, but I very much doubt you're going to get hard/big enough threads on parts of this size that it's physically impossible to cross thread them by hand.

Now, it's surely more of a deterrent than nothing and maybe it would have been enough to stop whatever person managed to so totally screw up the build on this victim's P2. But to claim it (or anything else) would satisfy the absolute 'cannot be miss-assembled' standard you're harping on...nope.

You don't even have a Meg or tried to assemble one and come with these absolutist statements about something you do not have a clue about.

Because I make mistakes, I can tell you on a Meg you just basically keep on turning one part on the other and the threads don't lock at all, if u get it wrong. Been there, done that.

BUT equally I do not have a Meg handy to try and investigate the specific possibility in detail.

I am merely talking from experience.

 

[wedivebc]

Well, if the thread pitch is of a particular type, it makes it impossible to screw it in left on right.

If the thread pitch is very narrow, then and the thread fine, you can probably force left on right.

I can tell you on my rebreather (please somebody with a Meg handy go and try and report), you cannot cross-thread it.

That is true

 

[Omisson]

It is purely speculation at this stage that the husband had set-up the deceased rebreather.

However, on the theme you introduce again and again:

1. If it were an OC dive with OC equipment of a recreational nature (14 meters...), what is wrong with the husband setting up the equipment for the wife (or a father setting up the equipment for a son)?
2. If it were a rebreather (we know it was a Hollis Prism 2), why should it be any different from a perspective of somebody who is sold a rebreather which is safe, and EN14143, and cannot be misassembled?

My point is, you do have to look at it from the perspective of the newly certified user (the deceased was), including a married couple (they were married), being sold a finished and certified product (not a homebuilt or prototype) in the way which is marketed nowadays (i.e. a "Hollis" product, Hollis being synonymous with quality and integrity and not the garden shed rebreather companies we were accustomed to in the early days).

Would she still have died if a COMPLETELY En compliant rebreather was used but she failed to do the checks? Or failed to see the oxygen sensors were expired and thus giving wrong O2 levels?

 

[gianaameri]

Would she still have died if a COMPLETELY En compliant rebreather was used but she failed to do the checks? Or failed to see the oxygen sensors were expired and thus giving wrong O2 levels?

I do not think a COMPLETELY compliant rebreather exist that she could have used, so it is highly hypothetical.

BUT even if you do not do the checks, on a good rebreather in the first instance (i.e. simple and dependable), it is not an automatic death sentence. More often than not, you may get away with it. Still it is highly imprudent not to do the checks because eventually, you will not get away with it, and the price is life.

She failed to see the O2 sensors were expired, and yet they were shown by HSL to be working. Again, it is imprudent (highly) to use expired O2 Sensors, but this is also not an automatic death sentence ("fresh" O2 sensors regularly fail before their expiration date while older or expired ones continue to work flawlessly).

I ran a few checks and in Jersey there is no Dive Center and local rebreather instructor.

So, where did this rebreather with expired O2 sensors she did not know about come from?

Did she train on this rebreather with expired O2 Sensors (hope not)?

Who put them there?

...and of course, why is it she did not spot expired O2 Sensors?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

You don't even have a Meg or tried to assemble one and come with these absolutist statements about something you do not have a clue about.

Assumption is the mother of all ups, champ. Keep digging.