Three BC area divers sent to hospital on the same day

DiverDown · Post by **DiverDown** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:18 pm

This is why continuing education is so important!! A lot of divers get certified and that's it. It would be a good idea to take some sort of rescue/self rescue class from a qualified agency..

Read this

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:44 pm

I wonder if it was really an oxygen gauge. If it was, I assume they had more training than basic OW.

DiverDown · Post by **DiverDown** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:58 pm

It sure is funny, That every time you here in the media about a dive incident.. They always say something about there oxygen gauge.. Personally, I like to dive propane at depths below 200m. I don't like the way helium tastes, and it makes me talk funny?!?!

JDR · Post by **JDR** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 6:03 pm

Whytecliff is a popular training site, but 3 dive accidents in one day? Wow, that's tragic.

lamont · Post by **lamont** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 6:11 pm

Calvin Tang wrote:I wonder if it was really an oxygen gauge. If it was, I assume they had more training than basic OW.

I'm sure it was just a normal SPG... They have no business being around O2 at depth if they're losing weights...

I bet both of these were just simple OOAs at depth. And it sounds like the donating diver in the second incident may have gotten very mixed up in terms of responses to emergencies and attempted to ditch weights while doing an air-sharing ascent?

Lessons:

1. have a rockbottom gas plan, don't run out of gas completely
2. get larger tanks if you need more gas to stay down longer (or workout/dive more and improve your SAC rate)
3. practice OOAs/S-drills
4. dropping weights is to establish positive buoyancy at the surface, or to get off the bottom in the event of a major BCD failure/overweighting issue. students really need to be taught not just "ditch your weights in an emergency" but to realize that ditching their weights means a one-way ticket to the surface...

thelawgoddess · Post by **thelawgoddess** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:43 pm

DiverDown wrote:It sure is funny, That every time you here in the media about a dive incident.. They always say something about there oxygen gauge.. Personally, I like to dive propane at depths below 200m. I don't like the way helium tastes, and it makes me talk funny?!?!

i know you're just poking fun ... but i think most "normal" folks might tell you that people breathe in oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide. or is that just me?

DiverDown · Post by **DiverDown** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:32 pm

Humbled again...

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:50 pm

thelawgoddess wrote:
DiverDown wrote:It sure is funny, That every time you here in the media about a dive incident.. They always say something about there oxygen gauge.. Personally, I like to dive propane at depths below 200m. I don't like the way helium tastes, and it makes me talk funny?!?!
i know you're just poking fun ... but i think most "normal" folks might tell you that people breathe in oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide. or is that just me?

True, but what makes me crazy is when the media, who really should know better, perpetuate the general ignorance by not trying to get the facts straight. I sure knew that Scuba Divers didn't breathe 02 before I ever started diving-they breathe compressed air. It wasn't 'till after I started that I learned that they in fact did breathe pure 02 during deco dives at shallower stops. And I never went to college. You'd think that somebody with a journalism degree would know something like that.