When it rains it pours

[MikeS]

Multiple Problems

I have noticed that problems seem to come in batches, for instance this weekend. I went to NC and made four dives three of which were without incident. On the third dive things started going awry from the start. First, as I went to put on my fins, the last step before jumping in the water, the strap broke. So I had to take off my gloves and BC to get to the save a dive kit and replace the strap. My buddies (we were diving with a three-some) went ahead so as to not overheat and waited on the deco line. I fixed the strap got geared back up and jumped in the water and have an octo free flow. No big problem just another annoyance. As we are following the anchor line down and approach the bottom I start adding air with the power inflator only to here a “Psssst” as the low pressure inflator air hose shoots behind me (connector must not have been seated well). It worked fine to add air before I jumped in. So I add air orally to achieve neutral buoyancy and start searching for the low power inflator hose and can’t seem to find it. So my buddy hands it to me I reattach it and we complete the dive without further incident.

Observations:

Things can and will go wrong and for some reason they seem to come in batches, but if you prepare properly, stay calm, and think things through most any problem can be resolved safely.

There is no bigger confidence builder than having an unexpected problem happen and dealing with it calmly and effectively. Training is great but it doesn’t compare with descending to 100 fsw and having something go wrong.

 

[Padipro]

Mike,

I know exactly what you mean. I've been diving for about 15 years now and thank God I've never had an "incident" until last year. I was on a beautiful wreck here in South Florida called the Tracy. It sits in about 75 feet of water straight up and down with lots of marine life. My buddy that day was one of the dive shop employees that I know well. He decided that he wanted to swim to another wreck a short distance away to get away from the rest of the crowd. I was following right behind him as we swam into the light current, he must have had some stiff fins on because no matter how hard I swam I just couldn't keep up with him. Finally I just decided to stop and wait for him to notice I wasn't behind him anymore. As soon as I stopped I realized just how winded I really was. I felt like a marathon runner after the 25 mile mark. The first thought that came to my head was to go for the surface and get some more air but I was on the bottom at 75 feet in a light current so it was a long way to the top and I didn't know where I was going to end up with the current. I had plenty of air since I use 100 cuft tanks and it was the start of the dive so I knew I wasn't going to run out of air. Finally I just told myself to settle down, lift up off the bottom and drift back to the first wreck with as little movement as possible. By the time I had drifted the 50 yards or so back to the Tracy I was fine but I had scared the hell out of myself. I thought "You ideot! You're an Instructor you tell people all the time not to do this kind of thing you should know better." Just like you said there is no better confidence builder then having something unexpected happen and finding out you have the ability to handle it without panic.

Dive Safe

Scott

 

[O-ring]

Things can and will go wrong and for some reason they seem to come in batches, but if you prepare properly, stay calm, and think things through most any problem can be resolved safely.

You are so right...these chains of small problems snowballing into a big unsolveable problem that results in an accident or, god forbid, a fatality, are often precipitated by a small problem that should have been taken care of completely and calmly from the get go.

Good job!

 

[art.chick]

The worst mistake a diver can make IMHO, is to insist on acting like nothing is wrong when something is wrong. Stuborn people think in terms of: I drove X miles to get here, my buddies expect me to go along with them, I know I have a technical probelm, but it will probably be fine.

Some dives have to be aborted; some not ventured at all. And yes, instructors do things that they, themsleves would not allow students to try. I cringe to think of an instructor friend of mine shouting to the shore about how he ruptured his eardrum the previous night. A whole bevy of students & instructors heard him acting macho but sounding reckless. The important thing is to live to dive another day!

 

[Scubamedicjoe]

well this actuallyhappened to my dive partner but to me too since we wear ateam
first we ran through out dive check out ect we both had 3300 of air we wear diving the hermon off the coast not very deep think if i remember right 70 feet max
well we been down hun not long maybe 15 mins and he notice his air gauge not working well my cobra was working fine so we started to ascend and abort the dive well he seen a nice shark and wanted to take picture of it well first the strobe worked top side well it didnt work this dive so finally we made it to top and got on boat well he dang near fell of the ladder so as you see sometime things just happen no reason