My lesson learned

[racerfern]

Rather than re-tell the story, I'm posting the link to my incident. There are three parts:

Part 1: Of Bikes and Bubbles: The Perfect Storm
Part 2: Of Bikes and Bubbles: The Storm Continues
Part 3: Of Bikes and Bubbles: It's Clearing, Somewhat

After further analysis, I was also given a great suggestion, should this ever happen again, keep going until you're at about 15' and just stay there until you run out of air.

Luckily, it's live and learn.

 

[wedivebc]

Wow, so you want to sue Sherwood because you have a bunch of health issues which may or may not be related to a dive where you screwed up and possibly went deeper than you should have and may or may not have had DCS as a result?
OK just so you know Johnnie Cochran passed away a few years ago but there may be another long shot lawyer out there that would take your case.
Better yet, try taking responsibilty for you own actions rather than looking for a "legal solution" to your own screw ups. People like you make me sick.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If I were the OP I'd give up diving. Obviously it's too much to carry back up gauges, properly plan a dive beyond recreational limits, get the training to do so, and learn not to tie up valuable medical rescources by doing stupid stunts that go wrong. 150 ft on air, dehydrated, saw nothing at 150 so violated the plan that was a cluster to begin with by going deeper, probably narced good as well, etc.. Then listen to the advice of an idiot who tells them to stay at 15 feet until they run out of air? Yeah that's a good plan. Won't have to look too deep for the body. Will save wear and tear on the recovery divers.

Not someone I'd want in the water anywhere near where I was diving.

 

[00wabbit]

Normally I wouldn't comment on a thread like this being an ow diver myself, but even I know of you are planning a dive below recreational limits special consideration needs to be made for gas management beyond turning at 700psi. Redundancy is important in air sources and gauges.

And to your point that a computer should not fail. Well they do, they always have an you should expect they always will. A redundant bottom timer, or depth gauge and watch should always be part of the plan.

Just because you have a plan doesn't mean it's the right plan.

 

[Peter_C]

Glad you came out of that okay!

Since it sounds like there was a class present I am amazed oxygen wasn't available.

Would you mind sharing what your tank(s) were (Size) and the gases you were using please?

 

[Tessunderwater]

If your going to be planning on doing dives past recreational limits, it may be a good idea to take some technical training so that not only are you certified to begin that type of diving but you will have the proper skills to safely execute them.

 

[vincent54]

Sherwood should be okay, http://www.hsdivers.com/Wisdom.pdf. The manual is very specific about it's warnings for it's computers and it's uses.

Invest in some advance dive training and learn from the incident. Or you can do what I do. Learn one dive plan and dive it over and over again. You'll be a simpleton diver , but at least not kill yourself or others. Glad it worked out . Cheers

 

[Doubler]

Are you sure the computer failed or did you faill to recognize what it was telling you. Going to 150 and then winding up at 220 indicates to me that you don't monitor or use your computer properly. The computer probably died from fright.

 

[divengolf]

This cannot be real. Somebody, PLEASE, keep this guy out of the gene pool. Although he tried real hard to do so.

 

[racerfern]

To be clear, I accept my responsibilities and the consequences of the decisions I made. I don't have any urge to sue Sherwood because the computer failed. But it certainly planted the seed of doubt when the rep said "We've seen this before". Other than that the onus is on me. I have read the manual carefully and in fact this is not my first Sherwood Wisdom. And I'm not being a wise guy here but nowhere in the manual does it say "We've seen these strange failures at times that we haven't fixed, so be extra careful."

I have never had any medical issues that have been compounded because of my diving and I don't blame the DCS for my subsequent kidney issues. I may never know if the significant drop in blood pressure or for that matter the subsequent kidney failure were a result of the deep dive, the DCS, the medication prescribed or a combination of all of the above. I have since had blood tests and all my indicators are back to normal both for blood pressure and kidney function. I am cleared to dive and will be doing a dive next weekend.

I have a LP125cf, I was on air and started the dive with 2542psi. When I turned around I had approximately 1500psi.

I did a dry run of the profile with the wisdom simulator function. The difference between the simulation and the actual dive was that the simulation was a slow drop to 150ft where the actual dive was a gradual descent along a sloping bottom that took longer than the "slow drop". I expected to have about fifteen minutes of ascent time including a one minute stop at 60', three minute stop at 20' and a ten minute stop at 10'. I'll never know if the actual dive would have matched what I expected but it was probably very close. Again, lessons learned as far as backup equipment, etc.

I was not narced, at least I clearly remember think of that as a possibility when I was at depth. Of course I suppose almost anyone is narced to a certain extent on a deep dive.

I don't plan on giving up diving, and I don't appreciate the remark about wasting valuable resources. With that kind of outlook many people would just sit in a corner and do nothing. I learn from my mistakes and I do my best not to have them happen again. I knew I was going to get flamed as that's part of the healing and learning process.

---------- Post added March 3rd, 2013 at 01:38 PM ----------

I did not go to 220. Take a look at the screenshot of the profile. You can see at the very beginning of the dive while I was doing the initial descent to 56 feet that it shows 150ft then right back up. That did not happen and I also never saw that on the computer screen as I was simply descending to what I expected to be 60ft. Had I gone as deep as the computer suggests I would have been sucking the tank down significantly quicker. I saw the computer jump from 220 to 330 back to 220 and suddenly show 40'.

Also, once I came up, the computer continued to show I was at about 22 ft for the next four hours as it thought I was at Level 02 elevation which for a Wisdom is from 3000' to 5000' in elevation.