I'm never sure the best category to post things as I don't do many original posts, hopefully this is a good place. In my opinion this is an incident and a good learning tool (at least is was for me).
I'm a PADI-DM AND IANTD cert diver with over 500 dives. Towards the end of a dive I noticed a diver in the group had less than 500psi and I had not seen him signal the DM leading the dive that he was less than 1000 as was requested during the dive briefing. Earlier in the dive I thought he was trying to share air with one of his family members but their hoses seemed too short to do so while trying to continue the dive.
We were ascending and were probably in 40 FSW. I offered him my 7 ft hose and primary reg he accepted. When I switched to my necklace, a standard HOG reg with the small purge button, and pressed the purge to clear it, it free-flowed. My first thought was, "This is where all that training comes in and I'll just breath from this until we come up with something better". My second thought was, "I'm really going to want my primary reg back out of this guy's mouth". The DM leading the dive (a really good friend of mine) came over and gave his 7 ft hose to the guy, I got my primary back and still had a free-flowing octo. The only thing I could think to do was kink the hose in hopes it would stop or slow the flow. I did and it stopped. I held it until we surfaced. Sallye Martin, PalegicSal on here, was diving with me also and I signaled for her to turn off my tank when we surfaced which she did.
On the boat I disassembled the reg and found about 6 grains of sand that prevented the purge button from releasing. I have no idea how they got there as I always have it on my necklace and never dragging around the bottom, but this was day 15 of a 22 day dive trip so during the previous 40 or so dives and gear rinses the sand had gotten in there somehow.
THINGS TO LEARN FROM THIS (for me at least).
I replaced the stock small purge with the full-front purge. The smaller one is designed for less free-flowing in high current (like narrowing in hi-flow caves).
I always test breathe from my regs before entering the water, but seldom use the purge. I will from now on.
All that STOP-THINK-ACT stuff we talk and read about actually is a good thing.
When on multi-day diving trips I'll open them up and have a look every once in a while.
I feel like the guy could probably have made the rest of the ascent and SS with his remaining air, but he was stressed about being that low already, so I thought it best not to push it. Although all the reg swapping and free-flow bubbles probably didn't help him calm down much.
It all worked out fine and was a good "real-life drill" with everyone thinking and acting "off the same page" I just thought it was something others might be able to use at some point. I had never had anything like this happen before in my diving career.
Todd
I'm a PADI-DM AND IANTD cert diver with over 500 dives. Towards the end of a dive I noticed a diver in the group had less than 500psi and I had not seen him signal the DM leading the dive that he was less than 1000 as was requested during the dive briefing. Earlier in the dive I thought he was trying to share air with one of his family members but their hoses seemed too short to do so while trying to continue the dive.
We were ascending and were probably in 40 FSW. I offered him my 7 ft hose and primary reg he accepted. When I switched to my necklace, a standard HOG reg with the small purge button, and pressed the purge to clear it, it free-flowed. My first thought was, "This is where all that training comes in and I'll just breath from this until we come up with something better". My second thought was, "I'm really going to want my primary reg back out of this guy's mouth". The DM leading the dive (a really good friend of mine) came over and gave his 7 ft hose to the guy, I got my primary back and still had a free-flowing octo. The only thing I could think to do was kink the hose in hopes it would stop or slow the flow. I did and it stopped. I held it until we surfaced. Sallye Martin, PalegicSal on here, was diving with me also and I signaled for her to turn off my tank when we surfaced which she did.
On the boat I disassembled the reg and found about 6 grains of sand that prevented the purge button from releasing. I have no idea how they got there as I always have it on my necklace and never dragging around the bottom, but this was day 15 of a 22 day dive trip so during the previous 40 or so dives and gear rinses the sand had gotten in there somehow.
THINGS TO LEARN FROM THIS (for me at least).
I replaced the stock small purge with the full-front purge. The smaller one is designed for less free-flowing in high current (like narrowing in hi-flow caves).
I always test breathe from my regs before entering the water, but seldom use the purge. I will from now on.
All that STOP-THINK-ACT stuff we talk and read about actually is a good thing.
When on multi-day diving trips I'll open them up and have a look every once in a while.
I feel like the guy could probably have made the rest of the ascent and SS with his remaining air, but he was stressed about being that low already, so I thought it best not to push it. Although all the reg swapping and free-flow bubbles probably didn't help him calm down much.
It all worked out fine and was a good "real-life drill" with everyone thinking and acting "off the same page" I just thought it was something others might be able to use at some point. I had never had anything like this happen before in my diving career.
Todd
