Worst Rebreather Experience Ever

Mixaddict

Thought it might be interesting to hear about people's worst ever rebreather experience. Here's mine:

Had a very unpleasant experience in Truk Lagoon a couple of years ago. I was deep inside a wreck at about 140 feet diving on my old Inspiration Classic. Was squeezing between floors through a very tight hole. I got stuck halfway through. Both of my arms were stuck below the hole. The manual dil button was above the hole. The manual O2 button was below the hole.

As you can imagine, trying to get unstuck caused quite a bit of stress and effort. In the mess of it all, I managed to deplete much of the gas in my counterlungs. Because I had grown accustomed to diving my rig with the bypass valve shut off on my ADV, I really needed to add some more dil to my counterlungs manually. Unfortunately, my bailout was stuck above the hole as well as my manual dil button and the only thing I could reach in my current predicament was the manual O2 button. Not exactly what I had in mind at 140 feet! But alas, since my two dive buddies were already around the corner and down the hallway, I had to deal with it myself. It was either that or die!

I eventually got unstuck, got my breathing back under control and was able to complete the rest of the dive. Fortunately, it only took a couple of minutes to extract myself to the point where I could do a flush and get back on my dil. Learned an important lesson that day - Even though I rarely dive with my ADV on, if I am going in tight spaces, I open the bypass and have that available as an option!

Anybody else have anything interesting to share that would qualify as "worst rebreather experience ever"?

Regards,
Randy

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Randy Thornton (MixAddict)
Inspiration, Evolution,Hammerhead & Sentinel
CCR Instructor

Peter Piemonte

I had a caustic cocktail once, without adequate bailout to reach the surface. had to go on O2 at 80'. But, the WORST experience I had, was my (former) wife dicovering how much I had spent on dive gear, the year I got into CCR's. WOW! That was exciting! Peter

wizbang

My Worst Rebreather Experience Ever:
I had to do 2 hours of deco above several OC divers. The haze of exhaust gas was terrible and very uncomfortable, I thought of blowing off my deco but I hardened up and hung in there.

A situation I hope never to experience again.

jkromelow

...my wife backing over my 1st Dolphin as it was drying on the driveway. She was driving our pickup truck. Was she trying to give me a hint? The Dolphin was pretty much dead. Bright side, my spare parts collection grew a lot that day.

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Justin Kromelow
TDI Instructor
PADI MSDT

bendomatic

watching a rebreather diver friend convulse, stop breathing and turn blue right in front of me at 40m. the look of sheer terror on his face was the stuff of my nightmares. thankfully we can still talk to each other even tho he's now in canada.

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why deal with idiots on the net when you have to spend all day dealing with them at work.

koputai

Umm, this:

Deepdiving.net : Incident

Cheers,
Jason.

jhaaja

Mine must be the OxyPete

http://www.rebreatherworld.com/rebre...ighlight=oxtox

Have had a few smaller "bad" moments but nothing serious.

CharlieT

What a story and delighted to learn you're back diving.

A good number of lessons for many of us here.

Thank you, Jason, for sharing this with us.

Charlie

jradomski

Thinking a student passed out on me..

It was during the 6m stop after a 80m dive with a 30min bt.. We are on a hard bottom (it was a shore dive) so it was quite easy to relax.. I was facing one of the divers with the second a little off to the side and couldn't see his face.. at the same time the diver I was facing and myself realized dixer x is not moving at all (maybe 1 minute at most).. I think OH S H I T .. my heart starts pounding (I thought it was going to bust out of my chest) and I quickly get over to diver x, and he gives me this face like Why the F** are you bothering me... Turns out he was "meditating".. I gave him the riot act after the dive for scaring the 2 of us.. He understood his meditating wasn't a good idea with no external signs that he was ok..

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Joe Radomski
CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer
ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10

All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.

lizardland

Having my sidemount homebuild auto-inflate, sneak round the back of me and pin me to the roof of a cave while I was on my own then trying to give me a cocktail when I reached my 6m deco stop was entertaining.

Not a very exciting one but the event that taught me most about diving a manual rebreather... got in the water, spent some time fannying around in the shallows trying to get my fin on, felt a bit odd, checked my handset... 0.14, 0.14, 0.14. It's the most trivial (non) event but it shook me up more than anything else that has happened because it showed stupidity really is what does the most damage. As long as you are capable of bailing out then you don't have much to worry about on a Rebreather but it doesn't take much to take away that ability.

Cheers,

Stuart

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Can you imagine drifting along in the sea with your mouth open and a load of f***ing plankton going in? You'd like it, would you?

www.westons-cider.co.uk

Azerbaijani Association of Technical Divers Publicity Officer and Goat Wrangler