For anyone who wants to skip the BORING part of this video, go to ~1:38 remaining.
At the beginning of my 2nd dive of the day (09/16/2012) in beautiful Roatan, Honduras, I experienced a rather spectacular equipment failure as the low pressure hose to my octo (back-up second stage regulator) failed. Training kicked in and the emergency was managed without incident. And for anyone who wonders… I lost 2000 PSI of my air in ~ 37 seconds. If you’re a diver watching this, remember the mantra of STOP-BREATHE-THINK-ACT will get you through ANY emergency. PANIC (a sudden, overwhelming fear in the face of real or fancied danger) will be of no use to you… so don’t do it. This is a life safety sport… TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN! Your life really could depend on it.
I happen to be very happy that, upon turning off my bottle, my 1st words are a matter of fact “well…THAT was exciting.”
See you on the bottom. Because a little thing like this isn’t going to make me think twice about getting back in the water. 🙂
Rating: 3.57
Crazy. A small problem that can be solved by the buddy donating and going up quietly can be transformed into a decompression sickness because to ascend 15-20 m in less than 30 seconds. These divers must learn to dive.
Did you find out what caused it? Im guessing the burst happened neared teh 1st stage where the hose starts its bends. Thats a very common fatigue point. Was that rental gear?
Same thing happened to me .. connector and sleeve blew off low pressure BC inflator hose ..
Very loud indeed – and very scary … couldn't see anything with all the bubbles ..
Fortunately, was only 30 ft down .. had started heading back up slowly when first (slow) bubbles appeared ..but then the whole thing blew off and all hell broke loose . made it to surface okay with divemaster's calming hand, but only had 40 PSI left when I hit the surface.
To add injury to insult, my manual BC inflator wasn't working either, so I couldn't inflate my BC at the surface – even as the DM kept telling me to do so .. embarassing and hairy day .. just glad to be alive.
Believe me: now I know why all these near-miss tutorials exhort divers to Not Panic .. I pretty much did just that to a mild degree .. any more and I wouldn't be here to talk about it.
Good lesson.
And I made sure I learned everything I could about hoses and the problems that can occur after that. PADI should really teach a lot more about the technical aspects of scuba equipment during certification.
CESA from 45 feet isn't that a big deal; Didn't we have to do it to get open water certified? I checked both my primary & octo before starting for the surface and, even with my shredded hose, both of them provided air. But getting to the surface sooner rather than later seemed the smart move. You're absolutely correct though: sharing air and shutting down the tank is a good alternate action. My brother-in-law said the bubbles produced prevented him from being able to clearly see where they were coming from. Another reason I was motivated to get to the surface sooner rather than later was I was unsure if I'd sustained ear trauma. From the standpoint of the gopro, you hear small "pop" when the hose failed. It actually sounded like someone had fired a .45 next to my head. Keep diving too! See you down there.
emergency ascent is a bit risky, but it is the easiest option in lp hose failure. You could have borrowed your friendly buddy's octo and closed your valve and did a chill ascent while gas sharing 🙂 that being said , I'm not judging you in any way. Keep diving and be safe 🙂
why did u surface? there should hv been time for safetystop…
MY REGULATOR STUCK OPEN THIS PAST WEEKEND I COULDNT GET IT TO STOP I HAD TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY ASCENT FROM 70 FEET ABOUT 25 MIN DOWN IM LUCKY TO BE OK SAME SITUATION I LOST OVER A 1000 LBS. IN A MATTER OF SECONDS
I'd just dropped, was in about 45 ft when the hose burst, waiting for the rest of the group to drop before going to explore the reef. I was still able to get air via my octo but could have breathed of my brother-in-law's octo if that hadn't worked. No safety stop: I'd been down for less than two minutes when the incident occurred. As it was, my tank wouldn't have supported a 3 minute safety stop: I lost better than 2/3 of the contents rather quickly.
Did you share air ? How deep ! 9mtr ? What about a safety stop ?
Thanks Ed. Now that you mention it, me too!
John, I'm really glad that you came out OK.