Major screw up-mostly my fault

[diver 85]

Here are my brief thoughts-----> @ 45' @ the ~ 30+ minute mark, you were @ ~1000 psi---so far so good......At that time, it's time for both you and your buddy to turn the dive(being a new diver etc etc)---Forget about who else is on the dive UNLESS all 4 are making a 4 man divebuddy dive-which I'm assuming you were not, correct?.........IF your buddy 'says' no, then I'm a solo diver heading back in with a safety stop @ 15' for 3 minutes, btw, absolutely NOT required on this dive assuming the 1st dive was a 'good safe' NDL dive, correct??.............

In my book, whoever thought it was 'OK' to let the dive continue after 1000 psi was wrong---almost dead wrong, in fact paragraph 4 on would have never happened if the dive would have turned @ 1000 psi....Always remember, @ these shallower depths, a SS is not required and your ultimate job down there is to get home safe without stopping by a hospital in between the dive and home...In the end, everything tuned out OK which is what you wanted(think of a good landing in an aircraft-one you walk away from vs. a bad landing-hospital or body bag time)....

I try to not make diving very complicated ie never hold your breath, don't ascend to fast(I now try to stay @ the 60'/sec- was taught alot faster), plan a dive & dive that plan(that covers you on going too deep too long), and WATCH your pressure gauge ie TURN those dives, there's always tomorrow or next weekend-it's hard to make air down there, lol.....Thank goodness it's worked over 1100 times(& @ the beginning I felt like I was diving for 5- me and my wife, 16 yo daughter, 14 & 12 yo sons made many a dive together.)

Do exactly what you're doing now ie review everything and learn what you would do differently the next time something like this might happen,..Keep diving is my recommendation, you'll be fine.....

 

[stairman]

I would lay alot of blame on your instructor.The surface pre-dive plan was poor.He was diving with novices and should have checked all spg's at given intervals.While going over reg usage in class he should have warned of dangers breathing from an upsidedown reg.Did he forget to reveal this important information?Im sure he knew about it.Its my training to hand off my primary working reg from my mouth,to the ooa diver rightside up,and holding it by the hose[hand against the reg]so the ooa diver can see that its rightside up and can get to the purge if needed.I will not dive with a new buddy without signaling ooa underwater to be sure they dont stumble while Im in need.Then the signal ooa and the drill is reversed.If its not a fluid relaxed reflex then you now know a weekness that needs to be practiced until its automatic.I will say if diving on a boat where shallow water s-drill isnt possible I will do it with them on deck before we step in.Dont give up on diving.You got back on your bike as a kid when you crashed.Alot of Rec divers omitt safety drills in favor of more easy and fun diving.With practice,safety drills will become part of the fun as well.

 

[sskasser]

You've gotten a lot of good advice here. Once cleared medically, GET BACK IN THE WATER! Build up your confidence and dive, within your limits, as often as possible. And take your next class from a different instructor. Based on your post, he's not on his A-game as an instructor OR dive buddy.

 

[ChanceTLU]

Diver85, thanks for the info. This was actually the first dive of the day. I felt okay after a 45min SI so I went on a second dive later just for practice. While on the second dive, I practiced 5-10 times switching between my own primary and secondary just to get more comfortable.

Being a new diver, I blindly followed the instructor instead of doing what I know to do. I will never do that again.

The reason I did the safety stop is that I thought I had enough air to finish. Even after feeling the reg pull, I thought that I had at least another minute of air in it. I had no idea that the time between feeling it pull and running out of air would be a matter of a few breaths. Now I know.

Hopefully the asthma thing checks out and I will be able to continue diving. I am soon to be first time father (3 more months), which is one of the other reasons the dive really freaked me out afterwards.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

This past weekend I went on my 10th and 11th open water dives and major screwed up, and now have lost all confidence as I feel that I almost killed myself.

Just to give a little background - I just got my PADI OW about a month ago and had absolutely no problems. I then went to Maldives and participated in 5 boat dives down to 20m. Once again, absolutely no problems.

Points to ponder:
Exactly how much did you learn on your check-out dives and your Maldives trip? I'm not necessarily talking skills-wise but what did you learn about the real world of diving?

Exactly how much did you learn on this dive? What did you learn about your skills? What did you learn about the real world of diving?

My guess is you'll be able to come up with a lot more things you learned on this dive A good diver is always learning, we tend to learn more from the dives that don't go so right than we do from the ones that are near perfect.

This past weekend I went out with my instructor (not as a class, just a friendly dive) and another buddy just for fun and some practice. Well, his SPG was in 'bar' and mine and my buddies were in 'PSI x 10'. So basically, my buddy and I let him know when I was at 1000 PSI (guage showed 100x10, so we signaled 100). At this point, he just signaled okay and continued swimming along. After I got down to 500, I frantically begin signaling again to let him know that I was getting low. He finally got the hint and we began swimming back towards the beach to make our safety stop. By this time, my buddy had run out of air and was breathing on the instructor's octo.

The most important time for a diver to assert themselves in the dive planning process is when they are new. The tendency to "follow along" can be strong especially when diving with your instructor. Who led the dive planning process? Did you let the instructor do it? It's ok to step in and say "I'm planning the dive", it's good practice for you. Don't feel like you're stepping on a more advanced diver's toes when you do that, you're actually showing that you are a competent buddy rather than someone who needs to be babysat. Take charge if something isn't going right mid-dive, when he continued swimming along you could have signalled "up" instead of messing around with the air pressure communication which was clearly not being understood.

We discussed the incident afterwards and I learned a few things. The other diver I attempted to breath off of (this guy was another person diving with our group, but not my buddy) told me that I put the reg in my mouth upside down, thus causing the breaths of water I continued to get. I honestly didn't realize that this would happen.

Here's a technique question for you. Which hand did the diver use when he handed you the regulator? Which hand did you use when you took it from him? Handing off a regulator with your right hand and receiving it with your left hand helps make sure it's right side up when you get it. Taking that regulator from him with your right hand makes it relatively easy to flip it upside down as you put it in your mouth especially when you're stressed. Practice hand-offs until reaching out with your left hand to receive a regulator comes naturally.

The problem is that I have now lost all confidence in the water and am actually bit scared now, especially after reading all the incidence reports of people suffering overexpansion injuries in such shallow water.

And to top it all off, I had been having tightness in my chest for a few days after I dive. I went to a doctor and he wants me to get tested for exercise induced asthma and have a dive physical. I was actually diagnosed with EIA 10 years ago but had no problems since two-a-days (10 years ago) in high school football so I thought I had grown out of it.

Get yourself checked out for sure, I see that's your intention. Get back in the water and start slowly after you're cleared for diving. Guess what? You're not dead, that's a very good thing. You get another chance to make changes to your diving habits based on what you just learned and to increase your skill level through practicing and hopefully finding a mentor or at least taking some classes. Do your homework and find quality classes.

Being a new diver, I blindly followed the instructor instead of doing what I know to do. I will never do that again.

All new divers should read and heed this. Blindly following the instructor is called a "Trust Me" dive. ChanceTLU, whenever you see someone on the board who sounds like they are doing these sorts of dives please relate your story to them. You're new to diving but you too can make a difference by sharing your experience.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[diver 85]

Ber Rabbit, you mean we're not supposed to follow god??????........lol.......(IMO, very good advice to Chance).......

 

[TSandM]

As a couple of people have already observed, you had a very good learning experience here and didn't get hurt in the process. That's a very good thing.

One of the most difficult things for me as a new diver (and sometimes for me as a not-so-new diver!) is to be assertive. When you're new, it's easy to fall into the trap of being a "follower" -- Somebody else does the planning, does the navigation, does the decision-making for you. You just found out one of the things that can happen when you do this. And make no mistake -- This was a BIG problem. Running out of gas, even if you were to have a good buddy with lots of reserves, is not a minor issue.

What can you do? Be assertive! When you want to turn the dive, give the signal to turn the dive. Don't just signal, "I've got 1000 psi." Use whatever signal you have agreed up to indicate that you want to turn, and if you get ignored, swim over, grab your buddy's fins and shake them, or his arm, and put your hand up in his face and say, "WE'RE TURNING!!!" If somebody ignores you at that point, THEN you've got to make the decision about whether you want to return by yourself. But I'd rather return by myself than run out of gas. And I would at the very least have a spirited discussion with that buddy after the dive, if I indeed were ever to consider diving with him again.

One of the most basic rules of diving is that anybody can turn a dive, at any time, for any reason. It's important. There can be all kinds of reasons why somebody doesn't want to be in the water any more, and when they don't, they shouldn't be. Low gas supplies are an imperative reason to turn or end a dive.

I have little respect for the instructor who was down there with you guys, who was inattentive enough to allow two divers to run out of gas. Yes, he wasn't teaching, and you ARE responsible for your own gas, but as an experienced diver, he should have been asking you where you were on pressure often enough to have a sense for how long the dive could last.

Another point to offer -- I use a wrapped long hose setup, and donate my primary regulator. One of the benefits of that approach is that one does NOT give the reg to the OOA diver upside down. It's not that it's difficult to turn a reg over, but as you found out, the last thing someone who is out of air needs is any additional stress, or any need to stop and figure something out.

Don't give up diving. You got through this okay, and there are some major lessons that you learned. I have a feeling you'll be much more proactive on protecting yourself on future dives, starting with clear pre-dive planning, and going on through unambiguous underwater communications, and maybe even incorporating something like practicing OOA procedures with your buddy at the beginning of the dive.

As a final though, you might enjoy reading THIS article on gas management. It will give you some tools you can use to know ahead of time how long you can dive at a given depth -- That way, in the pre-dive discussion, you can set a maximum TIME, as well as a depth and distance parameter on the dive.

 

[don Francisco]

Neitzsche said it perfectly; "whatever doesn't kill you makes you a stronger diver". You did a number of things wrong, but you survived and grew (even if you don't know it yet) from the experience.

I know that your confidence is shaken, but you can and should continue diving.

Think of it this way. You are now a safer diver than you were beforehand. Unlike most divers who think they're OK because they think they know what they'll do in a crisis, you know firsthand of the cascade effect of things going wrong and where it leads to. You know how and why you reacted the way you did, and parts of it are burned into your brain permantly.

Take some time to analyze the chain of events, starting with getting your signals and dive plan straight before jumping in, and do what if's at each link to get the most out of this scary learning experience.

Like the winter driver who recovered a wild skid on black ice and slowed down afterwards, you'll be more conscious of what's going on around you and prepared to manage it.

There's lots of debate on this board about how to measure experience, number of dives, depth, length of dives, difficulty of dives, training, etc. In any real definition of experience your dive should count as at least 20 easy, clearwater dives on a reef.

Get back in the water, and if I were to be buddied with you on your very next dive, I'd have no problem with it.

 

[Brian Sharpe]

As a newbie diver I can't offer any advice but your thread did re-affirm my decision to go with an a side vented octo - it can be used right side up or upside down without having the problems you encountered with a mouthful of water. One less thing to worry about in an OOA situation.

 

[ChanceTLU]

Thanks again everyone for the kind words. I do plan to continue diving as long as I am cleared by a doc regarding the whole asthma thing. I set up an appt for early Sept in Houston with a group of docs that are supposed to be some of the best in the field. Luckily their practice is on my medical insurance. I will be sure to let everyone know what happens.

Once again, thanks for all the support....when I posted this morning, I didn't know if I would get crucified for making mistakes that could have killed me, or if the opposite would happen.

It really means a lot that even people on here with thousands of dives are supportive of such rookie mistakes and thanks again for all of the advice.