I Nearly Drowned at Stoney

[Scuba_Bob]

This is an incident which happened to me at a recent training dive at Stoney. I was completing the final day of a (doesn’t matter which course) We had just completed around 40mins at the Box and surfaced on 62mins as per the plan. After a 2hr SI we descended to the Staingarth to complete skills. OOA swims, shutdowns etc.. all went well, so a we swam around the wreck and penetrated from the bow to the stern, removing stages inside as needed. After 25minutes we decided to head back to the bus stop. My buddy blobs up and we ascend to 12meters for the one minute stop. Here we prep our stages. After 1 min we start our ascent to 9 meters. At 10meters I switch to my stage ready to arrive at 9 meters for our 2 minute stop.

After about 1 – 1.5 mins of the stop I get a sudden and full lung full of water. SH!T. Check stage is fully open (I don’t know why??). It is. Try to blow out to purge reg then inhale, NOTHING, just water in and water out!! Grab my back gas and hit the B.O. plan, sh!t can’t purge it, just lung fulls of water, grab my buddies reg from his mouth, this has to be working right? Wrong too much water in my lungs to inhale air (or so it seems). Final thought, Miss the remainder of my stops and hit the surface.

I looked up and swam for the surface pulling/chasing up the SMB line. I clearly remember thinking ‘..I don’t want to be a statistic....... I don’t want to be a statistic.......’ I couldn’t exhale on the way up, there was no air to exhale! I hit the surface inflated my wing and managed to clear my lungs. There must have been some expansion on the way up to allow me to exhale the water??

I lay on the surface out of breath but ok. So I gave the OK signal to the surface cover and contemplated going back down to finish my missed stops. I decided a trip to the pot was potentially better than a trip to the morgue, after all they are quite good at treating DCI aren’t they, much better at that, than drowning anyway.

So what went wrong, I still do not fully understand why the reg flooded they were no bubbles from the hoses or the first or second stage indicating a leak, and the reg breathed fine on the surface (after surfacing)? My only criticism of my actions was I had forgotten Scuba #1 use the purge button, maybe, just maybe that would have sorted out the problem?
What would you guys have done?

[Naomi S]

That sounds scarey. Glad you got out ok and learned something. Thanks for sharing.

[GLOC]

Glad you made it up okay.

Seems weird that you got 1-1.5mins worth of gas and then the stage failed.

Was there gas in the stage?
Did it work on the surface afterwards?

All I can think of was the diaphram failed for whatever reason and you were just breathing water in and not gas.

Whenever I take a reg (albeit never had to take one in real panic), I have always remembered to purge it as I put it in my mouth.

Thanks for posting this.

[Sparky750]

You made it out that's all that counts, Diaphram is all i can think of too, I always purge before putting into my mouth after a similar but no where near as bad experience on my first dive with my octo

[Scuba_Bob]

Cheers guys, My thoughts too were the diaphram, but i seemed to discount that as it worked on the surface afterwards (there was around 80bar in the stage), (kept on the O2) just incase ;-)

[Mal Bridgeman]

Cheers guys, My thoughts too were the diaphram, but i seemed to discount that as it worked on the surface afterwards, (kept on the O2) just incase ;-)

Well it would do cos there's no water to get in on the surface

Seriously, it's not a widely taught skill, but I was always advised to "dry-breathe" a reg before turning the gas on...i.e. attempt to breathe from the reg once you have fitted it on the post, .... if you can breathe then something is wrong....normally just take off the face plate, and reseat the diaphragm. If the diaphragm has a hole in it, then use your spare reg
HTH
Mal

[Kev]

Well it would do cos there's no water to get in on the surface

Seriously, it's not a widely taught skill, but I was always advised to "dry-breathe" a reg before turning the gas on...i.e. attempt to breathe from the reg once you have fitted it on the post, .... if you can breathe then something is wrong....normally just take off the face plate, and reseat the diaphragm. If the diaphragm has a hole in it, then use your spare reg
HTH
Mal

That is a really good idea and I am pinching it. I need to spread it around before I can Green you Mr Bridgeman.

Best

Kev

[Scuba_Bob]

Well it would do cos there's no water to get in on the surface

Seriously, it's not a widely taught skill, but I was always advised to "dry-breathe" a reg before turning the gas on...i.e. attempt to breathe from the reg once you have fitted it on the post, .... if you can breathe then something is wrong....normally just take off the face plate, and reseat the diaphragm. If the diaphragm has a hole in it, then use your spare reg
HTH
Mal

Should have made it clearer, sorry. Also worked fine on surface with my head under the water keeping an eye on my buddy as Iwaited for him to finish his stops. No wet breathing prior on any of the other course dives. my first thoughts were that something lodged in the Diaphragm and cleared on the way up to the surface, also I do dry breathe!??!

[Kev]

Should have made it clearer, sorry. Also worked fine on surface with my head under the water keeping an eye on my buddy as Iwaited for him to finish his stops. No wet breathing prior on any of the other course dives. my first thoughts were that something lodged in the Diaphragm and cleared on the way up to the surface, also I do dry breathe!??!

Glad you were OK mate, sounds horrific. I have no thoughts to spare as to the cause though I am afraid.

[GLOC]

No wet breathing prior on any of the other course dives. my first thoughts were that something lodged in the Diaphragm and cleared on the way up to the surface, also I do dry breathe!??!

I had something similar when doing blind line drills and dislodged a whole bunch of the freshwater mussels which lodged in the diaphram. It wasn't a major wet breath but I knew something was wrong, switched to other reg, took the faceplate off the reg, cleaned the offending item out and went back to breathing it again!

Regards