My First Catastrophic Failure

[Seaduced]

Well, I had my first "catastrophic" failure Sunday. During my initial descent, at about 25', my o-ring blew. The load "pop" and rush of air left little doubt as to what happened. I took a couple of "test" breaths, to make sure I was still getting air, in case it was my regulator hose and not the o-ring. Checked my pressure gauge, yep, dropping like a rock. I waved 'bye-bye' to my wife/buddy, signaled "I'm OK" and began a CESA. Reaching the surface, I inflated my BC and started a sprint surface swim to the boat. I doffed my gear and the boat crew pulled it out, closed the valve and swapped the tank. They dropped the gear in, I did a quick check, donned the gear and descended to finish a great dive.

During my second descent, I replayed the events and was amazed at my clarity of thought during the CESA. 1) Surface is calm - no problem there. 2) On the surface, get buoyant - try to inflate BC, if the air is gone, manually inflate, maybe ditch weights, plenty of people around to recover them (yea, I was worried about losing them). 3) Get back to the boat - I surfaced 25' or so from the boat, a short swim. I considered turning off the air myself, after surfacing, but I was so close to the boat the crew was able to do it faster.

I believe this was a "non-event" because, I've been snorkeling since I was a wee lad, I took Stress and Rescue a while back, this was dive number 122 and especially, because I read in SB about someone else have this malfunction and their actions. The 'pop' and rush of air was exactly what was described.

I want to thank those that post their incidents and make the following analysis. It gave me a sense of Been-There-Done-That, that resulted in a calm, thoughtful response. Thank you, Darell.

 

[Seanpaul]

Seaduced, glad you successfully managed this and you feel good about the outcome! Not to take away from you but gotta ask, where was your wife/buddy? How far away were you from her at the time of incident? She stayed down alone or were you with a bigger group? I think we can still learn a little something here from this - your buddy should have been at your side - even after she realized you were doing a CESA. Why didn't she abort her dive?

 

[Seaduced]

We were in a threesome and the third is older DM friend, who has been bent. I signaled for her to stay with him, since I wasn't going to be doing a safety stop, which he really should do. If the situation had been more of a challenge I would have signaled a group ascent.

 

[TSandM]

Why did you choose to do a CESA, when you still had gas? From your description, the tank was still hissing when you got to the surface, so there was no need to do a CESA. In our (PADI) training, the CESA is the third choice, after ascending on your own gas or sharing with your buddy. In this case, since you were extremely shallow at 25 feet, and doing your initial descent, I think it would have been perfectly reasonable for your buddies to have accompanied you to the surface. You could have breathed off your tank, or ascended on the octo of one of the others, if you were too worried about running out of gas before you got to the surface.

Your concern about your previously bent buddy is not relevant in this circumstance, as you were on initial descent, and still very shallow, and had no nitrogen loading to speak of at all. You are much safer, especially when you have a gas loss problem, with your buddies around you. (Imagine if you had been in an area of heavy kelp, and had gotten tangled on ascent.)

In this kind of situation, going on your buddy's gas takes virtually all the stress out of the situation. You don't have to worry about when your supply runs out, and you don't have to exceed a desirable ascent rate.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Of the options available to you, you chose a CESA (emphasis added). I might have chosen a different solution... however... nothing supports a decision like success - especially success that allows you to continue the dive
I will add this: a solo solution keeps things simple; when it is clear and you are confident that a solo solution will work, it is often the best choice as it eliminates variables over which you have little or no control.
Good job.
Rick

 

[Randy43068]

Good job. I'm glad you were clear thinking enough to do something which worked.

 

[Deefstes]

Glad you're OK and well done for staying level headed. I'm also curious as to why you chose to do CESA. I'm not as experienced as most of you guys but the situation you described didn't quite sound like an emergency in the true sense of the word. Like TSandM pointed out there were at least two other options open to you, provided your buddy was, well a buddy. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not judging, I'm merely curious.

I've been on a dive once where the DM's o-ring blew on descent. Actually it blew pretty much as we reached the bottom at around 20m. He calmly turned to his buddy (his wife and also a DM), started breathing off her octo, then proceeded to doff his gear, closed the valve, removed the reg and tried fixing the problem right there. When he realised that it wasn't going to help, he rigged everything up again, appointed a new DM for the dive (his wife) and did a slow ascent to the surface, all the while breathing off his own gear with a gush of bubbles coming from his tank valve. His wife stayed with the group but waited until he reached the surface before the dive continued.

I was quite shocked at first but rather impressed afterwards. They dealt with the issue in a cool unfrenzied way and our dive wasn't even affected much, other than it being a bit shorter having spent a few minutes waiting for this to be resolved.

Come to think of it, this is probably a skill that should be taught in OW considering how many divers dive with A-clamp first stages where there is always the chance of an o-ring blowing. I've seen it happen under water only this once but surely it's a possibility that divers should anticipate and be ready for.

 

[Randy43068]

I can't speak for the guy, but he probably didn't take the time to sort out all of the options. My guess is he picked one he knew would work and used that. Can't fault him for it...
At least that's how my mind works..

He was only 25 feet so it was a good choice. The best choice? It worked so I'd say yeah, a good choice.

 

[dwhthediver]

Congratulations on keeping a level head, and getting out of the situation with an acceptable method. While a CESA would not have been my first choice, and as you were just descending, I would have taken both buddies up with me, continuing to breathe of my regulator, but having at least one buddy close to get an alternate if needed, but not pointing fingers, or saying you did it wrong, you didn't! Just would not have been my first choice.

 

[drbill]

One of the best things you can discover about yourself as a diver is how you react under emergencies. From your description you reacted to the situation calmly and employed your training. IMHO this is critical to determining whether you can handle diving conditions that would be considered more demanding. A clear head in the face of a situation is a prerequisite to considering whether you would be able to solo dive, etc. I'm certainly not recommending this, but it helps to know how you respond.