Kennedydive
Contributor
Hey everyone
Seldom do we ever make a serious mistake and get the chance to go back and learn from it. In the summer of 2006 I made a real bone head mistake and managed through my situation and came out unscathed. On this Diving Accidents and Incidents topic we hear of accidents where the outcome was death and it leaves the diving community with questions that the diver can not answer.
I've never hide from the local community my mistake and in fact it was the first thing I discussed upon surfacing on the boat with my fellow divers. Im very open to discuss my mistake so hopefully someone learns from it.
My Story.
I was out with a group of divers, diving a wreck that we have dived many many times. When the boat arrived to the dive site the mooring line was gone. We did not have any shot line setup as we were expecting the line to be there. We geared up a shot line but had to use the boats replacement zinc anodes. The guy using the boat wanted them back after we tied into the wreck. No problem. My dive buddy and I were the first in. The plan was he'd cut the line to the weights and then tie it into the wreck. I was then to retie the weight line and place a lift bag on them and bring it to the tie in point where we would inflate it at the end of the dive. Everything went as planned. My buddy cut the weight line and swam off to tie the mooring line into the preferred location on the wreck. I tied the line and got my lift bag out and attached it. I then opened the bag and tried to direct my exhaust bubbles into the bag. This just was not working. I then proceeded to take the second stage out of my mouth and inflate the lift bag controlling how much air was going in. This is where the Bone Head move came in. I took a breath without the reg in my mouth. As soon as I started I realized what I had done but by that time it was too late. I slammed the reg back into my mouth as the lungful of seawater made me gag. Your body is an amazing thing. I tried to take a breath and my body said NOPE! Youre drowning stupid. I'm not allowing you to breath. I was not able to inhale an ounce of air. I gagged a bit more and tried again and got only a very small breath. Not enough. I tried repeatedly and the panic started to set in. I needed air and I wasnt getting it from my reg. The surface was where I needed to go and in a hurray. I was at that time sitting in 200fsw. The thought to bolt to the surface was there but I knew that solution although appealing was the wrong one. I simply sat on the bottom with my eyes closed trying to calm down as I slowly with each breath got a bit more air. After a couple of minutes my breathing was back to normal and I was then able to realize what a stupid thing I did. I finished inflating the bag with my secondary in my mouth and completed my dive.
Jason
Seldom do we ever make a serious mistake and get the chance to go back and learn from it. In the summer of 2006 I made a real bone head mistake and managed through my situation and came out unscathed. On this Diving Accidents and Incidents topic we hear of accidents where the outcome was death and it leaves the diving community with questions that the diver can not answer.
I've never hide from the local community my mistake and in fact it was the first thing I discussed upon surfacing on the boat with my fellow divers. Im very open to discuss my mistake so hopefully someone learns from it.
My Story.
I was out with a group of divers, diving a wreck that we have dived many many times. When the boat arrived to the dive site the mooring line was gone. We did not have any shot line setup as we were expecting the line to be there. We geared up a shot line but had to use the boats replacement zinc anodes. The guy using the boat wanted them back after we tied into the wreck. No problem. My dive buddy and I were the first in. The plan was he'd cut the line to the weights and then tie it into the wreck. I was then to retie the weight line and place a lift bag on them and bring it to the tie in point where we would inflate it at the end of the dive. Everything went as planned. My buddy cut the weight line and swam off to tie the mooring line into the preferred location on the wreck. I tied the line and got my lift bag out and attached it. I then opened the bag and tried to direct my exhaust bubbles into the bag. This just was not working. I then proceeded to take the second stage out of my mouth and inflate the lift bag controlling how much air was going in. This is where the Bone Head move came in. I took a breath without the reg in my mouth. As soon as I started I realized what I had done but by that time it was too late. I slammed the reg back into my mouth as the lungful of seawater made me gag. Your body is an amazing thing. I tried to take a breath and my body said NOPE! Youre drowning stupid. I'm not allowing you to breath. I was not able to inhale an ounce of air. I gagged a bit more and tried again and got only a very small breath. Not enough. I tried repeatedly and the panic started to set in. I needed air and I wasnt getting it from my reg. The surface was where I needed to go and in a hurray. I was at that time sitting in 200fsw. The thought to bolt to the surface was there but I knew that solution although appealing was the wrong one. I simply sat on the bottom with my eyes closed trying to calm down as I slowly with each breath got a bit more air. After a couple of minutes my breathing was back to normal and I was then able to realize what a stupid thing I did. I finished inflating the bag with my secondary in my mouth and completed my dive.
Jason