Overheard a guy at the dive shop say he never checks his own gas, had to speak up

I was at the fill station in Port Angeles last Tuesday picking up a couple of tanks for a bridge inspection job, and this younger diver was telling his buddy he just trusts whatever the compressor operator gives him, never looks at the analyzer. My old supervisor used to say, that's how you end up breathing something stupid, and I told him about the time I got a bad mix on a 100 foot wreck dive off Cape Cod back in 2015, felt off, checked the stick, it was 18% when I asked for 32%. He shrugged it off, but I walked away wondering if I'm too much of a nag or if some guys really just don't care about their own safety. Anyone else run into divers like that, or am I just the grumpy oldtimer now?

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nancy52412d ago

That line about "just trust whatever the compressor operator gives him" got me. I used to work more than 30 years with a guy who never once put his own oxygen analyzer to a tank, until the day he got a fill of straight air on a deco bottle, thought he could breathe it deep, and ended up with a nasty case of oxygen toxicity. After that he checked everything twice, even the banks at the shop. I figure you didn't nag that kid, you gave him a free lesson. Some folks just have to learn the hard way, but at least you said something.