What can we learn from this ?

[boulderjohn]

What can we learn from this?

To be honest, the list is so long that it is hard to get it all.

• As an instructor, don't take a tag along diver.
• Don't dive with compromised gear.
• If you have a 3 person team and two of them ascend, ascend yourself soon enough so that when you arrive at the surface and are in distress, they will still be in the water and near enough to you to be able to lend a hand. If not, you are a solo diver and must be equipped as such in terms of both skills and equipment.
• Don't dive so overweighted that when you reach the surface at the end of the dive you are able to stay there with minimal wing inflation.
• If your tanks are too heavy for you to swim to the surface, don't dive without redundant buoyancy.
• Learn to inflate your wing orally in case of a LP hose failure.
• When using doubles, make sure you can reach your valves in the event of an emergency.
• Learn to ditch gear in an emergency.

There may be more.

 

[lermontov]

well its a tragic scenario and one that we hope we all deal with differently but in a stress situation not everyone reacts with the same degree of clarity and speed- we all know the theory of what one should do - its not until were tested that we really know if were up to it- once again it seems to me to ba a case of a a casual approach to the 'easy dive' that has gone wrong the main thing I take from this is dont treat 'easy' dives with a she'll be right attitude

 

[Beau640]

A lot of people think double tanks are safer, and they are when you have been trained to use them safely and appropriately. However I see too many people throw on double tanks without any training because they want to be “tech” or think they are cool and in those situations they are definitely more dangerous than a single tank.

Two big heavy steel tanks if you don’t know how to configure your kit appropriately and are not trained properly are like tying cinder blocks to your feet and jumping off a bridge.

 

[Diver0001]

i was not sure where to post this. if there is a more appropriate forum for this pls move as you see fit. if this is a repeat posting of a known incident, i apologize. i only heard details on this recently.

i have no inside knowledge this event. i do not know anyone that was involved personally. i do not dive back mounted doubles. the information that was passed on to me sounded like the type that should to be shared and discussed. i will try to be brief.

diver enters the water wearing back mounted doubles. this diver is joining two other divers during their class. the two other divers are a student and instructor performing shallow water skills for some type of advanced training.
diver was wearing a dry suit but only had one lp hose on their rig.

This would likely indicate that the diver in question was not accustomed to diving with a drysuit. In places where diving with a drysuit is the norm it's more likely that the diver will have an *extra* LP hose if anything. Coming one too short is absolutely unheard of.

at some point near the end of the training the student and instr headed for the surface while the other was to follow. unfortunately the inlet fitting on the bcd power inflator came dislodged somehow.

This is highly unlikely without the diver having done something to that effect. I've personally made well over 2000 dives and I've NEVER heard of a correctly attached LP hose spontaneously coming uncoupled. uncoupling the hose is easy enough if the diver does it manually but this is not something that can just ... "happen".

seeing as the lp hose was attached at the time, the inlet fitting was still attached to the lp hose. this would obviously lead to a rapid loss of gas.

eh? if the LP hose comes uncoupled it's not going to lead to a rapid loss of gas. In fact, uncoupling the LP hose is something that every OW and every drysuit diver learns as a matter of course in order to *manage* issues with stuck inflators.

the belief is that due to excessive suit squeeze, (from not inflating the dry suit) the diver was not able to reach back and close the isolator valve on the manifold to stop the loss of gas.

Up until this point there is nothing in your story that made me think the diver would need to manipulate his isolator. Moreover, in a technical context, which is the only context in which redundancy needs to be employed, there is seldom (if ever) a need to isolate.

the divers computer showed they made it briefly to the surface. it seems the diver could not establish positive buoyancy and ended up on the bottom again and eventually ran out of gas.
the result was loss of life.

This is, alas, recognizable. Far too many accidents happen AFTER the diver has reached the surface. Nothing in your story, however, explains why this could have happened. I think we need to look further than the analysis you have offered.

R..

 

[rick00001967]

eh? if the LP hose comes uncoupled it's not going to lead to a rapid loss of gas. In fact, uncoupling the LP hose is something that every OW and every drysuit diver learns as a matter of course in order to *manage* issues with stuck inflators.

i think you misunderstood. the lp hose did not come disconnected. the fitting the lp hose attaches to (the nipple) came out of the power inflator (or so i am told). so with the "nipple" still attached to the lp hose there would be a loss of gas. for the record i have never heard of this happening. not to say it hasn't.

as people have discussed.....the diver could have released the "nipple" from the hose to stop gas loss.....the diver could have manipulated the manifold valves (remember i do not dive back mount doubles) to stop the loss of gas......they also could have manually inflated the bcd (assuming the power inflate valve was working properly and was closed......there were options. hence the discussion. i am only passing on what i have been told.

 

[Vicko]

Well there is pleanty of stuff the victim could have done, how about the people on the surface, it's hard to not notice a gas loss event when it's so close to the surface, the bubbling is usually quite violent, or have they already left the water? I'm not blaming the instructor at all if the victim was certified btw, just wondering.

 

[Diver0001]

i think you misunderstood. the lp hose did not come disconnected. the fitting the lp hose attaches to (the nipple) came out of the power inflator (or so i am told). so with the "nipple" still attached to the lp hose there would be a loss of gas. for the record i have never heard of this happening. not to say it hasn't.

as people have discussed.....the diver could have released the "nipple" from the hose to stop gas loss.....the diver could have manipulated the manifold valves (remember i do not dive back mount doubles) to stop the loss of gas......they also could have manually inflated the bcd (assuming the power inflate valve was working properly and was closed......there were options. hence the discussion. i am only passing on what i have been told.

Ah....I see.....

so what you are saying is that in addition to not having the correct gear for the dive, the diver experienced some kind of "unique" failure that complicated things.....

The image I'm getting here is that a diver tried to MacGyver some gear together and it broke during the dive..... That is (a) not overly surprising and (b) completely avoidable.

The question is what we can learn from this.... well I'm settling on the idea of not MacGyvering. There is a reason why we have "best" practices in diving.... and it is because they are "BEST" practices.

R..