My scary C02 incident

[Minipinny]

I am a relatively new diver. I only have 10 dives under my belt. On my 9th dive I had gone boat diving. My buddy was my O/W instructor at the time. I had a bad experience where I ended up being overweighted with too much lead in my weight harness and in my BCD.

I went for my first dive that day. I felt myself kicking vigorously which was unusual and as I descended, I felt it was challenging for me to slow my descent. I carried on with my dive, struggling to move forward and keep my neutral boyancy. By the time 30 minutes was up, I was running really low on air.About 300 PSI.

I signalled my buddy that I was low on air. We headed back towards the boat and got to the descent line. As we ascented, I had to share air with my buddy. It was at that exact moment that I could feel a strong pressure against my lungs. We were at 20 feet from the surface. I tried calming down and breathing slowly. It wasn't possible. My buddy wanted to do a safety stop but at that point it was painful for me to breathe and I signalled her that I needed to go up NOW.

I started going up - I lost the alternate 2nd stage and for 1 sec I was taking in water. I grabbed the 2nd stage and dragged my buddy up to the surface where I started making my way towards the boat.

It was a good 8 hours before I was able to breathe normally again. I had asked the dive leader if I had decompression but he said that it didn't appear so so no medical intervention was needed. I mentioned my experience to my buddy and she said that she noticed my kicking and heavy breathing under water. She nor anyone else bother to look at the weights again and it wasn't until I took the rental babck to the dive shop where they came from that I was told that I had a total of 43 lbs! Nearly twice as many weight than I really needed.

I recollected everything that led up to the dive and have concluded that I had been pulling all the wrong stops. Starting from when I picked up my dive rental gear from the different dive shop.

What happened was that I had decided to go and do a rental package from a different dive shop than where I was normally used to. The equipment was packed and ready for me to take to the dive. I did not do a inventory check like I was told to do when I rent equipment from a dive shop. I did not test or try out the equipment to see what was functioning or how much weight I was given. I knew that I told the person at the shop not to give me more than 30 lbs. and that I didn't need weights in the BCD. Nor did I check the air in the tanks . I was told that they would give me extra weights. How much, I didn't pay attention.

The day of my dive, I dawned my drysuit and the scuba rental equipment on. I put in a portion of the lead weights in my harness I didn't calculate how much because I thought there were just 30 lbs of lead all together. apparently I didn't know there were 6 lbs of lead in my BCD as well. My buddy proceeded to put more weight in my harness and while I knew she was my instructor, I just trusted she knew what she was doing.

The only thing I did right that day was not to continue on with my second dive. I had recognized that my complacency to let others take care of me had been or could have dire consequences. Hence what I had learned was, take care of everything yourself - you cannot rely on others for your safety - not even your instructor. Use proper buddy check systems to ensure last minute checks.

I did ask my buddy to do a predive plan with me but she said until we know where were headed and how deep the dive was that there was no point. I had left it at that. I also noted that on all my dives, the majority of the divers also didn't do buddy checks in the open water. What I learned here was that just because no one else does it or they do an inadequate job of buddy checkoing that I have to follow suit.

What an ordeal! I will never take a backseat approach to my diving ever again!:no

 

[Jeremy Bouwman]

Check your stuff is the moral of the story. And buy your own gear it will solve a lot of headaches for you.

 

[ClayJar]

Sounds like you got a lesson out of it that you'll not soon forget. Learn well (after all, who wants to learn the same thing twice, eh?).

I'm just wondering one little thing:

I went for my first dive that day. I felt myself kicking vigorously which was unusual and as I descended, I felt it was challenging for me to slow my descent. I carried on with my dive, struggling to move forward and keep my neutral boyancy.

So, you did get yourself neutrally buoyant, then?

Many new divers I've seen mistakenly believe that "neutral buoyancy" and "not presently descending" are the same thing. They spend their entire dive "swimming upward", as they are not horizontal. If you're not horizontal, to stay at constant depth, you *must* be negative in order to offset the vertical component of fin thrust. When someone finally helps them get trimmed out properly, they have to dive truly neutrally buoyant, as they're not swimming up anymore, and their air consumption drops significantly (hey, it's a lot less work to float along!).

Anyway, dive often, dive well.

 

[TSandM]

Good for you, for recognizing a lesson here and sharing it.

One of the things that bothered me a great deal after I got certified was that NOBODY around me seemed to do buddy checks or much of a dive plan, either. I did my AOW dives with my instructor as my buddy, and we never did buddy checks, and it bewildered me. I didn't want to push my instructor (he was the instructor, after all) so I just tried to check my own gear as best I could.

Nowadays, I dive with a group of people who uncompromisingly do full equipment checks before diving, and you'd be amazed how often we find something isn't right. There are just a lot of things to putting gear together and getting yourself dressed, and it's only human to forget something now and again. The couple of minutes spent checking gear beats a long surface swim back to shore because you forgot your weight belt . . .

One final note: I'd recommend spending the time to do a formal weight check on your next dive, so you have a more accurate idea of exactly how much weight you actually need to carry. Although it may vary by a pound or two, depending on the brand of gear you rent and how new the wetsuit is, you will at least have a much better ballpark figure.

Oh, and an afterthought . . . I started a thread on dive planning in the New Divers forum a while back that a number of other people contributed to, and it's worth reading, I think.

 

[Gilldiver]

You may have had a panic attack with a little CO2 involment. A full CO2 hit will give you a Headache like a bad migraine that can take hours to go away.

The best thing to do, is just what you are doing, slow down, check your gear and take your time.

It is all supposed to be fun.

 

[Minipinny]

Thanks everybody for your input. I wondered about the lack of buddy checks with the new divers I dove with. Whether or not it was common or not that is.

Also, do a lot of divers experience some form of scary moment in their diving that becomes a life-changing experience in the way they dive? Just curious as all. After I returned the same dive gear rental to the shop that weekend, they refused to continue with my package and returned my money and automatically assumed that I was a bad diver. I have mild cerebral palsy but I have dove before with no incident so I think it was discriminatory. Is prejudice normal as well in the dive industry? I enjoy my new sport and just because I made a boo boo I don't think I should be penalized for it.

 

[LAJim]

Record your weighting (amount and distribution) along with factors that affect weighting (steel vs. Al tank, etc.) in your log book on every dive.

 

[pupdiver]

The thing I find a little startling is that your instructor (buddy) loaded 6 more pounds of weight into your BC without knowing how much weight you were already carrying. What prompted this? It sounds like you have dived in a similar set up before, though. So, you should have an idea (within a few pounds) of how much weight you need. It should have felt unusually heavy.

I agree with LAJim, as a new diver, it is important to log details of your dives such as weight, exposure protection, steel or aluminum tank, starting and finsihing air pressure, etc. so you can develop a good sense of the amount of weight you need for different conditions.

 

[almitywife]

Thanks everybody for your input. I wondered about the lack of buddy checks with the new divers I dove with. Whether or not it was common or not that is.......

i was asking this same question on another thread last week as buddy checks dont exist with the people i dive with (and trust)

thanks for sharing..... we are always learning

i hope you enjoy and further your diving

 

[Minipinny]

In my original message I mentioned that I had started a dive rental package from a different dive shop. Being new and inexperienced at the time I did not properly check out my gear at the time at the shop. I did mention to the dive person at that particular shop not to give me more than 30 lbs in total. And that I didn't want any weights in the BCD either. I guess he didn't hear me and I didn't count the weights at that time. All I knew was that I was told that I would be given extra weights. My problem back then was that I had become too trusting of others to do the right thing for me.

When I was doing my open waters I had 3 people dressing me up. In my personal opinion I think was a mistake. It made me a little complacent when it came down to diving after the course.


I am not sure what my buddy instructor was doing when she was loading me up with more weights. Oh and guess what! There were 6 lbs in my BCD which I did not know at the time of my 9th dive.

I have been recording my weights with each logged dive I have made. Right now I am diving with 26 lbs now. I have begun the process of buying the rest of my dive gear. I find that the BCD's from my usual dive shop (the one I go to for all my dive lessons) not really right for me. If I am going to learn to properly put together my dive gear as independently as possibly then I need to make it as easy as possible.