Incident in St Andrews Lake - Regulator failed shut

[chillyinCanada]

This is the reason dip tubes are required on valves.

You have to get a buildup of more than 3" material/water before the valve inlet is blocked.

What if there's something wrong with the dip tube?

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

I don’t have more information than below:

• Apparently the set is new including the hoses
• At the surface the SPG showed 135 bar
• At the surface he could breathe from the regs
• He didn’t try to breathe from his octo when he ran OOA but he couldn’t suck any air from his primary
• There was no free flow
• At the surface, they checked the valve and it was open (my first guess was that it was maybe half closed)

The OOA diver is still in the hospital today as this happened less than 24h ago: he’s fine but they wanted to keep him under observation. I guess he will give his set to be checked at some point this week, if I get more info I’ll post it here.

Did they try to breathe on either second at the surface?

 

[BlueTrin]

Did they try to breathe on either second at the surface?

Sorry I should clarify, they could breathe from the regs after the incident, once at the surface. I edited my previous post to clarify.

Also, it was apparently a piston reg, not environmentally sealed.

One of the person working at the chamber theorised that maybe it could have gotten stuck since the lake is a chalk quarry with a lot of silt/material at the bottom and it was not environmentally sealed.

 

[divad]

and was he using miflex hoses?

Those bastards from hell?

 

[Still Kicking]

What if there's something wrong with the dip tube?

Not much to go wrong short of getting plugged by excessive material in the tank.

At one time some dip tubes were plastic and they would melt in a fire, plugging the valve and nullifying the burst disc. They have been outlawed for many years.

 

[BlueTrin]

I linked an article about the incident

Second diver airlifted to hospital in month

 

[lexvil]

Just wild guesses at this point without seeing the reg or even knowing which model, dip tube issue fits for a stoppage that clears itself.

 

[Esprise Me]

The same thing happened to a buddy of mine once. She had 700 psi as we started our ascent from 70 feet, then all of a sudden she signaled OOA. Once at the surface, her gauge still showed plenty of air and she was able to breathe from it again. Still not 100% sure what caused it, though several folks here thought maybe the tube was blocked or the valve wasn't all the way open.

 

[poseident]

The "valve partially closed" is the closest fit in my mind.... I've come across a few valves that didn't take that many turns to have significant impact.....

Hopefully more info will be forthcoming.....

 

[coldwaterglutton]

At 30 meters, the instructor should be carrying a redundant air source aka pony.