My lesson learned

[Akroedge540]

This came from a shearwater petrel manual. I believe this one warning is the most honest and intelligent advice a dive computer manufacturer can give.

A dive computer is a man made complex electronic object that is immersed in water.... What could go wrong???

Sure your computer went nuts, it sucks and it should be fixed. But relying solely on one electronic device on a dive is foolish IMHO. Backups may take up room or extra time to check, but you'll be thankful when you need to use them.

Next time take a second computer, or a watch, depth gauge and underwater tables. Better yet cut your own tables, plan the dive you think your going to do, and then plan an "oh s***t" scenario. Take them both with you. Adjust your turn point to what you need worse
Case (gas wise). You'll be much safer that way. When the computer decides to go crazy it will me a minor issue rather than a life threatening one.

This was taken from a wisdom manual. I don't know much about them but I'm assuming this is correct for what you have.

Did you purposely decide to take this computer on a 150ft dive on air?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

So do you still think that going to 150 on air was a good plan?

That is the very LEAST of the problems with this dive.

 

[ScubaSteve]

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

Awesome!

To the OP, you've been sufficiently beat up and deservedly. There was nothing resembling common sense or good judgement leading up to and including the described dive. I hope, in the end, you actually learn something from it.

---------- Post added March 4th, 2013 at 07:26 AM ----------

Did you purposely decide to take this computer on a 150ft dive on air?

That was the dive plan according to the first blog entry.

 

[Notso_Ken]

So, you intentionally did a deco dive to 150' on air, with a computer specifically instructing NOT to use it for deco diving? And you were physically not up to par for ANY diving that day, let alone a deco dive? Are you even trained for deco diving?

Well, you lived. Did you actually learn?

 

[lamarpaulski]

Racefern,


thanks for the lesson learned. It takes a lot of guts to admit a series of errors which may have been compounded by computer failure. You got a harsh reaction here when you ponder legal action. I hope that doesn't inhibit other "lessons Learned" as they are quite valuable to all divers.

OTOH, you paid good money for a critical piece of equipment and it appears to be knowingly defective and it may have contributed to your follies. If that is the case, then sometimes that's what it takes to get a manufacturers' recall or safety alert. As in almost all cases, human error, (Yours) played the major role imho.

Paul G.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Hey, at least now you have hopefully figured out that you should never expect any given piece of gear to actually work as intended the whole dive and that you need at least a plan B for anything required to get you back to the surface from a deep dive. If not, oh well.

 

[flots am]

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.

I'm not sure what you mean by "happen again"? A dive is something you "do" not something that "happens to you".

Your computer had nothing to do with any of this. Even without a computer, you should be able to tell the difference between a normal dive and "way the hell too deep".
Everything you listed happened because you made it happen.

flots.

 

[racerfern]

Racerfern,

thanks for the lesson learned. It takes a lot of guts to admit a series of errors which may have been compounded by computer failure. You got a harsh reaction here when you ponder legal action. I hope that doesn't inhibit other "lessons Learned" as they are quite valuable to all divers.

OTOH, you paid good money for a critical piece of equipment and it appears to be knowingly defective and it may have contributed to your follies. If that is the case, then sometimes that's what it takes to get a manufacturers' recall or safety alert. As in almost all cases, human error, (Yours) played the major role imho.

Paul G.

I wasn't going to comment further but I just want to be clear that I have learned a valuable lesson. The comments on here, while harsh, are driven by a common thread of safety, planning, backups and limitations.

As the saying says "It's all fun and games until you get poked in the eye with a sharp stick". It's easy to become complacent when you dive after dive without any issues. An incident like the one I had was a big wake up call to the potential for disaster and I'm indeed fortunate I'm here to have all of you rub some salt in my wounds.

 

[261311]

I think the major thing everyone is leaving out is the kijiji seller that he got all this amazing gear from :blinking:

Not that you need me adding onto the long train of people seriously pondering what the hell you were thinking but with "200-499" dives under your belt (If that's an accurate number and my computer isn't just going crazy), how did you get so far without out and out murdering yourself? Nice job dodging Darwin sir. Take a training course, learn something. Don't respond with "I did" because nothing of which you just outlined in your blog is proof that "you did". Terrifying dude, truly.

I hope you pursue Sherwood legally just so in the courtroom their legal team can be sitting down while an intern points out the safety precautions in the manual. Everything fails, it's up to you and your training and knowledge to define safe limits and proper redundant gear.

 

[racerfern]

I think the major thing everyone is leaving out is the kijiji seller that he got all this amazing gear from :blinking:

Not that you need me adding onto the long train of people seriously pondering what the hell you were thinking but with "200-499" dives under your belt (If that's an accurate number and my computer isn't just going crazy), how did you get so far without out and out murdering yourself? Nice job dodging Darwin sir. Take a training course, learn something. Don't respond with "I did" because nothing of which you just outlined in your blog is proof that "you did". Terrifying dude, truly.

I hope you pursue Sherwood legally just so in the courtroom their legal team can be sitting down while an intern points out the safety precautions in the manual. Everything fails, it's up to you and your training and knowledge to define safe limits and proper redundant gear.

Sheez, so much for flame free forum announcement when you enter the forum. The blog was written well before I posted about it here. I've certainly read all the posts here very carefully and clearly understand them. I did learn a lot and I will continue my training beyond its current level. My next dive will be #239, the number is correct. Some people dive or do whatever they enjoy all their lives without incident, some people can't get past the first couple times of trying a sport before they come across a major hurdle. They can either give up or learn to deal with challenges, failures, etc. I choose to learn, I don't give up.

I also learned more here than from all the casual observers that read my blog so inspite of the pounding I'm glad I posted here. I get it, I get it, I get it. OK.