Inflator Hose Blew

[Quero]

I can imagine a fully charged standard sized aluminum tank sinking a person the size of a skinny 10-year old, even if the child wasn't wearing a weight belt, as long as he wasn't wrapped in a significant amount of neoprene. If it was a steel tank, even more so. If he was wearing a lot of rubber, then maybe not. So in terms of the speculation on the weighting, can you recall what sort of exposure protection he had on? Did you notice the size/type of tank?

In terms of prevention (and without knowing the answers to the above), when working with kids, I always use the smaller aluminum tanks, not only because they really don't need any more air than that with their small lungs, but also because of the risk of overweighting them in the water, not to mention the potential for strains and injuries out of the water from carrying the weight of a heavy tank on a small body frame.

 

[tddfleming]

I can imagine a fully charged standard sized aluminum tank sinking a person the size of a skinny 10-year old, even if the child wasn't wearing a weight belt, as long as he wasn't wrapped in a significant amount of neoprene. If it was a steel tank, even more so. If he was wearing a lot of rubber, then maybe not. So in terms of the speculation on the weighting, can you recall what sort of exposure protection he had on? Did you notice the size/type of tank?

In terms of prevention (and without knowing the answers to the above), when working with kids, I always use the smaller aluminum tanks, not only because they really don't need any more air than that with their small lungs, but also because of the risk of overweighting them in the water, not to mention the potential for strains and injuries out of the water from carrying the weight of a heavy tank on a small body frame.

To the best of my memory, he was in a 5m full wetsuit and the tank was an al80. The reason I say 5m, is that I asked my daughter what she could remember and she said that another kid from that group who came up and started to talk to and bug her said he had a 5m on because they had to go below the thermocline. To answer someones elses question of sorts, the inst had just did his giant strip before the boy went in. The boy got a stern warning for not waiting for the inst to give the go ahead. When this was going on, my daughter was in the water swimming and screwing around she recalls them say something about first stage o ring blew, but we now know that was not it. As far as weighting goes, I did not pay attention. I saw the one boy that was talking to my daughter with his weight belt on, but I did not pay attention to the amount of weight he was carrying. These were kind of smaller kids, may be normal in size but I compare kids in relation to my kid, and my kid is big. 5'7" 140#. When we go to the Y and lift weights she out does me in most weights. Half the stuff I cannot even move and this is her normal weight for that exercise. I wish I could supply more info.