My instructor said to always double-check my bailout bottle myself, even if the tender says it's good

He told me this back in dive school in Jacksonville. Last month on a bridge piling job, my tender gave me the thumbs up on my bailout. Ngl, I almost didn't check it, but I did. The valve was only a quarter turn open. If I'd needed it in a hurry, I would've been sucking on nothing. Honestly, how common is it for you guys to find gear prepped wrong by the surface crew?

2 comments

2 Comments

xenarobinson2d ago

Man, your instructor was dead right. I had a tender hand me a comms unit once, swore up and down it was tested. I get down there and it's just static, the battery was totally dead. Another time my gas mix was off by like two percent, not enough to kill me but enough to make the deco computer freak out. You just can't trust a second pair of eyes with your own air.

the_uma2d ago

Ugh, that's the worst, @xenarobinson. Had a buddy set up my reg once and the mouthpiece was cracked. Took a test breath topside and got a face full of seawater. Never again.