Incident STONEY COVE

[Daz217]

Right this is what happened i don't know if i wasright or wrong but i got us out of it.
Classic example of the incident pit developing. Diving with a less experienced Diver so i am leading. Buddy checks and pre Dive brief reveal no problems. Plan to Dive to 20M look at the Helicopter ascend up the wall and bimble at 6M to off gas.
All is going to plan until 12 Mins in as we reach the Helicopter. Buddy signals Drysuit inflation hose has disconnected from suit and trys unsuccesfully to reconnect before asking for help.
I try to reconnect it and it locks/jams in the open position but is not back on the suit. The hose thrases about freeflowing dramatically. I can't see my buddy for the bubbles despite being within touching distance.
I offer my Octopus but it is restricted in length by it's placement in the hose router
on my BCD. Anyway Buddy has Octopus and is calm and breathing from it. Buddy's gas is rapidly depleting toward zero as i turn it off.
Once gas is off the viz returns so that i can see again. Attempt to pull Octopus from router to lenghten it but its stuck fast buddy can't get it out either.
We commence a Controlled Bouyant lift off my suit. All is well with the ascent but buddy is struggling to keep Otopus in due to shortened lenghth so at 11M i offer my Pony Reg but it is unbeknown to me flooded (See post Warning Dacor Eagle)
Buddy gets a lungful and starts to panic(Understandable) i manage to get the Octopus back into buddy's mouth but in the process we have redescended to 18M.
Manage to hold it together and get us to the surface albiet a bit quicker than ideal. Once on the Surface shout for help and dump buddies weight belt and very efficent Stoney Staff come out in RHIB and collect my buddy in next to no time.
Now i know this could have gone better but i'm telling it as it was. I am open to constructive critiscm and observations. I will be reconfiguring my Octopus that much is obvious. If i'm honest although calm during the incident thinking about it afterwards has brought up lots of what ifs and the constant memory burned into my brain of my buddies expression of "I'm going to die help me."

[Mark Chase]

You both lived so it was a good day. You know what went wrong and i am sure you know how to fix it.

Sometimes we go through the motions of puting kit on and clipping things off without realy knowing how they will perform in a poo fan interface. When it hapenes you lern realy fast what works and what dosent.

My2p. Long hose and a necklaced back up reg. I ran it with a jacket BC so no reasion why not.

Pony regs are as important, if not more so than primary regs.

Well done you both did well. In diving the saying what dosent kill you makes you stronger couldent be more apt.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Mick F]

What Mark said.

It's good to see you well and posting. Well done for keeping it together and getting you and your buddy out alive.

[David]

I did not believe in long hose until someone demonstrated how easy it was to donate. It was a quick jump to long hose and a necklaced backup. Every dive I test backup because its for me :-) I know the long hoses works because I am breathing it.

What happend to :-) well it gives you something to chat about :-) your both ok
as Mark says " it was a good day " and not in the Klingon way :-)

David

[Lou]

One observation - just check that your buddy doesn't have the very slightly different nipple from pushfit. Sounds like this might be a simialr case to what has been discussed on DIRx about the different version causing a freefow when the guys have tried using drysuit hoses with the DSMB and there has been a slight difference.

On the plus side ,you remembered to dump weights on the surface, which is often tragically forgotten, so well done!

[Daz217]

The longhose. How do you route it so the excess does not get in your way or fouled on something. Sounds a good idea but i don't know how to set it up. Could someone enlighten me as it sounds a solid principle and would have saved us some distress today..
P.S. On a lighter note if anyone finds a weight belt in the vicinity of the Helicopter give us a shout.
I found out post Dive that my Buddy had borrowed the LP Hose and that it was over 10 years old which may or may not have contributed to the problem. It seemed to be working fine pre dive although i confess i did not pull on it to check the connection merely tested that it was pumping ait into my buddies suit.
It's graet to be able to bounce this off over divers thanks for taking the time.

[GLOC]

Well done Daz for keeping a cool head in what could have been a bad situation. Nothing really to add to the comments above. This is the link which Lou alluded to above which talks about different hose fittings.

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by Daz217

The longhose. How do you route it so the excess does not get in your way or fouled on something. Sounds a good idea but i don't know how to set it up. Could someone enlighten me as it sounds a solid principle and would have saved us some distress today..
P.S. On a lighter note if anyone finds a weight belt in the vicinity of the Helicopter give us a shout.
I found out post Dive that my Buddy had borrowed the LP Hose and that it was over 10 years old which may or may not have contributed to the problem. It seemed to be working fine pre dive although i confess i did not pull on it to check the connection merely tested that it was pumping ait into my buddies suit.
It's graet to be able to bounce this off over divers thanks for taking the time.

No stop!

Dont even think about long hose and stick with what you know and have
trained with. Get it rigged right so that you know it can be pulled away
and donated quick. Go back to basics and practice what you have been
taught before, doing drills at 6m.

Once you are A1 and I mean A1, can deploy, deal with an OOA, then
maybe start thinking about other variants.

As for the hose, it's a Seatec LP and make sure that it's not just a
standard LP one. Ok they all fit, but the proper drysuit one has a large
ferule making it easy to disconnect etc. The standard inflator version has
a much smaller ferule as the drysuit one would rubb on the corrogated
hose/Inflator body.

T

[Daz217]

I had the Octopus on an Octiguard which was great with quick access but it kept falling out of the guard when i didn't want it so i put the octopus in the router which with hindsight was a mistake as the hose was held too securely in the house router. I know now it was a drastic mistake to make as it in effect shortened the Octopus hose to about 2/3rds of its full length which caused us problems we did not need.

[David]

Originally Posted by TerryH

No stop!

Dont even think about long hose and stick with what you know and have
trained with. Get it rigged right so that you know it can be pulled away
and donated quick. Go back to basics and practice what you have been
taught before, doing drills at 6m.

T

I realy dont know what makes you so good an instructor that you can give advice like that over the internet I do hope your insured :-) because his system has already let him down his buddy down but your advice is to stick with it.......
you must be a very good instructor to be able see if he is fit to dive with a failed rig.

but well you have done it now so I hope you right my friend....


Daz you do what your happy with but I would get some advice form a real person :-) someone you can trust your life too...

David