minor incident in st. sauveur / st. severe on inspo

gallathan

Went for a few days cave diving in france recently. It was suggested to me to check the weather,
but I wanted to go, so off we set, keen as mustard, full fo naivety. Mistake one in the incident pit.

On arrival on site, conditions were marginal/not good for cave diving, but
we were determined, and attempted a couple of dives in a cave called St. Sauveur.
Before setting off for France, to save time/be prepared etc etc, I though it would be a good idea to thoroughly
clean / prep the unit. As we were looking at
a couple of bigger dives, I even linearity checked my cells, replaced the batteries etc, +ve/-ve pressure check,
the whole works. When we arrived at the dive site, we were keen to dive, but experience had taught us, that due to
conditions a check out dive was a good idea, because we weren't sure of conditions (still think this was a GOOD idea), but perhaps becuase I thought it was a check out dive and was getting lazy / complacent / because I was uber confident in the checks I'd already done, I didn't do a thorough pre dive check on the kit. I thought, because I'd been careful to transport the kit intact, and hadn't modified it,
the pre-breathe would be enough. Mistake no 2.

Now, because the check out dive was shallower than we expected, we didn't have the optimum diluent.
No problem, plug in a stage of air/nitrox we had with us. This shoudldn't have been an issue, but because I was
carring some other stages that I'd recently re-rigged (made the tails shorter to get them to ride close to my body)
Mistake number 3, hadn't done enough check out dives with the re-configured stages to realise they would be a major stress/hassle to put on. Worse, I had done a practice dive in Vobster with a couple to try it out, and had found it a little awkward, but thought I could handle that Mistake number 4).

I found getting the kit on and connecting the lp inflator hose to my diluent inflator button a little difficult / it took several attempts, including having to reposition the diluent inflator's quick connect/disconnect fitting. Mistake 5, being too task loaded/exceeding my skill/experience limit by carrying 2 many stages/being 2 ambitious. Anyway either as the result of movement/vibration/ whatever during tansport, or during my attempts at connection, the diluent inflator button had become unscrewed. Not totally loose, but loose enough to let copious amounts of water into my inhale counterlung, unbeknownst to me at the time.

Mistake number 5 involved not doing a bubble check. ON aborting the dive later, and re-surfacing, I did do a bubble check, that clearly revealed bubbles coming from the fitting. Had a 'word' with my buddy about doing bubble checks in the future, but realised, if I want a bubble check done on my kit, then perhaps its MY responsibility to make sure that happens.

When I left the surface, I had hip clipped one of the stages, instead of mounting it properly, because of the hassle of clipping them on / due to MY percieved peer pressure to get on with the dive. My buddy was acutally very good at being calm / waiting for met, it was MY perception (Mistake no 6).

About one min after leaving the surface, I noticed something not quite right, the loop was gurgling a LOT, and I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but the breathing didn't feel quite right. Because I was doing manual dil addition, and had a hip clipped stage, I felt quite task loaded, I was pre-occupied with getting a little deeper / sorting out buoyancy / trim when I first descended. Mistake no 7, should have listened to these more 'subtle' warning signs earlier, maybe got confused and mistook my discomfort on the loop for buoyancy/trim discomfort. Anyway, I didn't feel particularily stressed, but was now concentrating on the loop/gurgling more than on a normal dive. Theres a minor restriction in the cave entrance, at the end of the cavern zone, at about 24m. Due to conditions/rainfall, a great deal of water was flowing out through the restriction, meaning the current was STRONG ;-). About this point I got a couple of intermittent lung fulls of water instead of breathable gas, which raised the stress level, and prompted me to abort the dive. Issue was, my buddy had taken the lead, and had just negotiated the restriction with great difficulty due to the current, and I didn't want to abandon him. That meant I was stationed right by the restriction a couple of metres away. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the current was forcing water/ pushing the unscrewed dil inflator off/ filling the loop with water! I had decided already that I wouldn't attempt the restriction, because I felt something was wrong, even before the mouthfulls of water. Looking back I'm glad I made this call! Lesson, if you think somethings wrong, it IS wrong, abort your dive and dive another day. The minor issue I was having would potentially have been a MAJOR issue in the restriction/current. Its a mistake to ignore a problem / assume it will go away/get better. This is easy to do if you feel peer pressure to do the dive. So, I signalled my buddy, and gave him a somethings not right, followed by lets exit the dive signals. (Waving hand next to ear, followed by thumbs up). I knew I had lots of bailout (helps keeps me calm), but I managed the problem by keeping upright and slowly breathing which minimised water coming into my mouth. What water did come in got hurriedly deposited in the exhale counterlung! Exit was uneventful, because I'd had a similar past experience with a punctured loop, which meant I was calmer than if it was the first time something like this had happened (LESSON experience is a great help here, but I wish I could learn to deal with new incidents better, the first time they appear).I remember reading in the inspration manual, (and being taught) that if you suspect water in the canister to not let the unit go head down, this also sprang to mind when I decided to stay uproght. Due to depth / time, I knew that returning to surace was the right thing for me to do. Out of the Stop, breathe think, act school of dealing with issues, I think I did the Stop, Breathe, Act part, but I wish I had perhaps done the think part in terms of diagnosing the problem. Perhaps experience (hopefully) will teach me this, but its much easier to diagnose a problem at the surface where you have th luxury of time, than when you are a little stressed/underwater. Wonder if theres a lesson about having enough bailout so that you can just bailout safely and figure it out later? Maybe if I'd been deep/beyond the restrictioninto deco, this woudl NOT have been the right call? I'm perhaps annoyed that I didn't go for bailout immediately/sooner, although the ascent was fine. Thats a lesson to me to keep practicing the OC bailout till they're second nature/routine.

Anyway, thought I'd share, and I'm surprised that in writing this up, its made me think about things a bit more, and what I can learn/improve in the future, so I can definitely recommend the process for fellow divers!

jkaterenchuk

Wow....glad you are OK.

Thanks for sharing in such detail. I suspect many of us have checked the unit before leaving for a dive and then done a less than complete check at the sight thinking it was done earlier.

John

DrJM

Thanks for sharing.

St sauveur is like a women, never force her to go in ; - )

Jerome

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lizardland

Like a few I've known, unable to touch the sides and in need of a good clear out before I'd go near them

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