SAFETY continued
They swam back to the boat with me, watched me ascend to the swim step, and went on their way. As soon as I reached the surface I asked for help. The crew assisted me up the dive ladder and I passed out on the swim step. The crew removed my gear and carried me into the salon. Roughly 40 minutes later I heard a crew member on the deck shout to the crewman that was assisting me that he needed help on the swim step. I immediately suspected that we had a ‘gas problem.’ In my brain fog, I told the crew to get everyone out of the water. I later learned that one of my dive buddies had to be rescued almost 50 minutes into his dive. The diver who rescued him dropped his weights and got him back to the boat. The rescued diver didn’t remember being rescued, but without help he almost certainly would have died. So, what happened? Only five divers made the last dive of the first trip. The diver who had to be rescued and I were in that group. I made a long dive on the last dive of the first trip. The diver who needed to be rescued only dived for 10 minutes or so due to the deteriorating conditions. All tanks except those used by the five divers who made the
last dive of the first trip got filled before we returned to port. In port, work was done on the compressor. After the work was completed, the five tanks used on the last dive were filled. Only two of those tanks, mine and the one used by the diver who got rescued, got used on the first dive of the second week. Our buoyancy compensators and regulators re- mained on our tanks, so we absolutely knew which tanks were ours. My tank needed a good fill. The tank used by the rescued diver only needed to be topped off. On the first dive of the second week, my problem occurred minutes after I entered the water, as my tank was almost completely filled after the work was done on the compressor. The diver who needed to be rescued did not experience his problem until almost 50 minutes into his dive. His tank had only been topped off after the compressor had been worked on. Both of us suffered CO poisoning. Improper compressor maintenance, overheating, and the use of the wrong filters were all determined to be contributing factors. Including so many details regarding why some CO hits oc- curred is to illustrate that understanding the causes and ad-
14 | SCUBA DIVING INDUSTRY
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