What's the worst mistake you've ever made and walked away from?

My stupidest near miss is one that is totally unimpressive, nothing happened and it utterly scared the shit out of me.

I was diving a KISS classic, standing in about a foot of water while putting my fins on, DSV in my mouth. I felt weird, like the walls were closing in, spat the loop out and took a big breath. Saved my life. When I looked at the displays they were reading low, cant recall what but <0.10. I saw it all play out in front of me, I was ready to pass out quietly, right in front of everyone. I'd be face down in a foot of water and I know it would've been a good few minutes before someone did something. It's human nature, face down diver fully kitted up... people assume it's alright, few assume the worst.

Like I said, nothing happened, it was a non-event. But it really scared me and after that I ran my loop on pure oxygen anywhere near the surface, both manual and eccr.

Other than that, my worst oc stupid moment was a solo cave dive. Didnt bother clipping my stages to the line on the way in as there was nowhere convenient at the drop point. Doing so would've pulled the line in an awkward spot so I just ditched them on a nice shelf of rock.

Had a good dive, turned and began the long swim out. And had a triple light failure. Murphy smiled on me that day, as my last backup was flickering and dying I saw something green on the floor of the cave... a dropped SL4. God knows how long it had been there, picked it up as my backup sputtered out. I felt for the switch, flicked it on and it gave out the weakest and most wonderful faint brown glow. It was enough to find the stage bottles, I had nowhere near enough backgas to exit without them, and got me close enough to the entrance I could exit by the ambient light.

This was in France. I dropped my kit, took off my suit and walked into the next village without saying a word to anyone. I bought the best bottle of wine I could afford, walked back to the cave and sat by the river and drank it. Nothing has ever tasted better.

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Sadly I beg to differ

HPIM0019.jpg






Thats one in use on my clasic, one in transit to be repaired and one on its way back from repair :D

ATB

Mark

I know several people that were forced to resort to having an entire extra head to keep their JM powered stuff in the water. You Sir, have taken it to the next level and I am convinced that you must have been playing with your home lobotomy kit again, with success I might add. :clap:
 
I know several people that were forced to resort to having an entire extra head to keep their JM powered stuff in the water. You Sir, have taken it to the next level and I am convinced that you must have been playing with your home lobotomy kit again, with success I might add. :clap:

Three is one, two is none?
 
I know this one guy that quickly assembled his unit at home, went out to the dive site and geared up. Started the pre-breathe, and after 3-4 min he felt a bit strange/fatigue, went of the loop, fumbled around and then did the last 1-2 min on the pre-breathe. Oh well, lets dive... He went into the water and descended, after a couple of min I....err...HE got this strange feeling again of fatigue. Bailed out and surfaced. Back on land I.. err HE was really fatigue and after chilling out, he disassembled his unit only to find that the top lid of the scrubber was missing....

I told him how stupid he was, not doing a proper assembly following the checklist that I KNOW he has... :amstupid:
 
On a more serious note


I think my PP02 hit 0.15 on a blind exit drill on my CCR cave course

One hand on the buddy, one on the line and a lot of task loading can make you forget to manualy inject on a KISS. It took 19 mins for the KISS to hit critical I reckon I was about 2mins from passing out.

Hypoxic1.jpg
 
No HUD on that KISS Mark? Or was this more than just in the dark and with a blacked out mask?

Did your instructor stop and inject for you or terminate the drill to remind you to inject?
 
No HUD on that KISS Mark? Or was this more than just in the dark and with a blacked out mask?

Did your instructor stop and inject for you or terminate the drill to remind you to inject?


I rather stupidly did what I was told and kept my eyes closed throughout the drill.


Patric tapped me on the head and I opened my eyes instantly saw the HUD and injected.

Patric thaught it rather amusing that I gave him an OK closed my eyes again and carried on.

I console my self that in real life i would always be able to see the HUD and If I couldn't id bailout

A training course is actualy a prety odd environment where task loading seems to me to be way above anything i have ever experianced on an actual dive.

And I have done a few

ATB

Mark
 
On a more serious note


I think my PP02 hit 0.15 on a blind exit drill on my CCR cave course

One hand on the buddy, one on the line and a lot of task loading can make you forget to manualy inject on a KISS. It took 19 mins for the KISS to hit critical I reckon I was about 2mins from passing out.

Hypoxic1.jpg

I know I have mentioned this before and I don't want to beat a dead horse but for any new readers reading this. This is a terrible way to perform this drill. Using a mask cover that you can stick your HUD in allows you to follow the number one rule of CCR diving "Always Know Your PO2". I hope no CCR Cave instructors teach this way and if you practice this drill please find a way to still see your HUD.

The SANTI Mask covers work great but you can also tape everything on your mask except a small hole to see your HUD. The light will block out everything else and all you will be able to see is your HUD.
 
I can confirm the santi mask will work with a hammerhead to see the HUD. I had an eCCR and didn't have any issues with PPO2 but was monitoring it the whole time.


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That is a prestigious award that only Mark can call his own. I love it. Even Don Six is the Chief DOE! :-D


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Issued to Mark Chase after he drilled HUGE holes in the HH Wrist Units, which then leaked...

:hail:

Kevin.


And its still on my wall as I find it highly amusing but tell the truth Kevin


I didnt drill any holes in any hammerheads and you know that.

I baught it like that of the bloke that did and imediatly sent it to you for repair

Note the return tags on the two heads I sent in to you one of which was the buggered hand set the bloke stripped the threads in and re drilled it and re tapped it. The head was working on Air only and you replaced the hand set and repaired it.

I never had a flood on any hammerhead hand set

I had:

  • Constant rebooting issue (multiple events)
  • Depth sensor failure
  • Hud failure
  • Bi metal corosion on the nickle plated version



You keep accusing me of this and seeing as its a total lie id apreciate it if you stoped now.

FOr the perminent record. I never made any alterations or did any work on any Hammer head I owned with the exception of replaceing a depth sensor you sent me which was a plug in conection.

Mark Chase
 
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I guess I'll share my tunnel vision story while in my CCR Cave course because it was such a huge learning experience I had for both myself and my dive buddy.

Location was Manatee for the first dive in the system but not the first dive in a cave. This was a training dive that I had the pleasure of leading. I tied into a tree branch and then to a rock and down and towards the entrance of the cave. I was coming along and wam! the flow hit me hard and I thought to myself, holy crap this is cave diving.. i better go home and start working out more. But it gets better...

So I was finding tie offs attempting to reach the gold line to tie in although I had no idea where it was. I saw a nice rock to tie and moved my way closer to the floor of the cave and the flow was ripping. I was tying on another rock when I see a light flash at me. I turn around slightly while still kicking my ass off to find Randy perched on a rock just looking at me not hardly kicking so I went back to what I was doing. No one appeared to be in distress and I was working my ass off. The light flashed again so I look again to find my dive buddy perched on another rock not hardly kicking so I go back to doing what I was doing. He wasn't giving me any signals.

This went on a few times and I was getting really pissed because "couldn't they see I was working my ass off??" So after the next time I decided to say screw it and turn all the way around which i knew was going to send me flying out of the cave.

I let go and turned around as the cave flow threw me back into my buddy with a nice rebreather collision but just as his head flew past my face I hear.."The line is up there stupid!" It had to be the funniest thing that has ever pissed me off that bad because that moment was in like slow mo. I turned my head to see the gold line about 10 feet above where I was... Apparently my dive buddy was shining his light on it... We later determined that a hand signal would have been stupendous as all I could see is him not moving looking at me. If he had pointed his finger towards the line i may have understood him. Beginner cave divers typically don't know how to read the cave and I was certainly not reading the cave appropriately... "not even a smidgen."

The rest of the dive was fine but I was sure that i sucked and would never be good enough to be a cave diver. Being aware of how much you suck when your stressed may be half the battle and may be your fighting chance at not sucking the next time you are stressed. :-)

Garth
 
I guess I'll share my tunnel vision story while in my CCR Cave course because it was such a huge learning experience I had for both myself and my dive buddy.

Location was Manatee for the first dive in the system but not the first dive in a cave. This was a training dive that I had the pleasure of leading. I tied into a tree branch and then to a rock and down and towards the entrance of the cave. I was coming along and wam! the flow hit me hard and I thought to myself, holy crap this is cave diving.. i better go home and start working out more. But it gets better...

So I was finding tie offs attempting to reach the gold line to tie in although I had no idea where it was. I saw a nice rock to tie and moved my way closer to the floor of the cave and the flow was ripping. I was tying on another rock when I see a light flash at me. I turn around slightly while still kicking my ass off to find Randy perched on a rock just looking at me not hardly kicking so I went back to what I was doing. No one appeared to be in distress and I was working my ass off. The light flashed again so I look again to find my dive buddy perched on another rock not hardly kicking so I go back to doing what I was doing. He wasn't giving me any signals.

This went on a few times and I was getting really pissed because "couldn't they see I was working my ass off??" So after the next time I decided to say screw it and turn all the way around which i knew was going to send me flying out of the cave.

I let go and turned around as the cave flow threw me back into my buddy with a nice rebreather collision but just as his head flew past my face I hear.."The line is up there stupid!" It had to be the funniest thing that has ever pissed me off that bad because that moment was in like slow mo. I turned my head to see the gold line about 10 feet above where I was... Apparently my dive buddy was shining his light on it... We later determined that a hand signal would have been stupendous as all I could see is him not moving looking at me. If he had pointed his finger towards the line i may have understood him. Beginner cave divers typically don't know how to read the cave and I was certainly not reading the cave appropriately... "not even a smidgen."

The rest of the dive was fine but I was sure that i sucked and would never be good enough to be a cave diver. Being aware of how much you suck when your stressed may be half the battle and may be your fighting chance at not sucking the next time you are stressed. :-)

Garth

No need to fret this little incident. You will have many more since you will obviously suck forever. :-)

I say this in humor since I am probably the only diver that is worse than Garth. :-(
 
Watching Garth and Don beat the crap out of each other is the true value I get from CCRX.

Its actually better in person... we collided at the mainline in Ginnie by Hill400. I was laughing and he was pulling a reel. oops. I was in a class and he wasn't. I just thought it was ironic the whole thing and all..

I would like to consider my skill level to be second to my ability to keep an open mind and hear the various ways of doing things. Being present and nonjudgemental I get from nursing. Believe it or not in real life I actually connect with people well. On the internet, however, its a mess. :-)

I would really like to be in cave country right now.

Does this post mean i have ADD?

Garth
 
Michael it is my belief that ADD, when used in conjunction with Garth, actually stands for Another Dumb Diver.
 
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