That one time a rigging supervisor scared me straight about lift bags

I was working on a pipeline job off the coast of Louisiana and this old supervisor walked up, grabbed my lift bag hose and said 'son, if you ever forget to clip your dump valve, that bag will turn into a rocket and kill someone.' He showed me a photo of a bag that tore a hole through a boat hull near Grand Isle. Has anyone else gotten that specific safety talk from a salty older diver?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilya766d ago

That "if you forget to clip your dump valve, that bag will turn into a rocket" part hits hard because it's true. I had a buddy who was diving on a salvage job in the Gulf and saw a bag shoot up from like 80 feet. It blew past his head so fast he felt the water pressure change. The old salts are right, if you don't have that dump valve locked open or a reliable way to vent it, you're basically strapping a bomb to your lift. I also got shown a picture of a bag that went through a deck plate on a supply boat. That stuff sticks with you because one mistake and you're not just hurting yourself, you're taking out the whole boat crew too.

the_diana6d ago

I read a piece in an old diving accident report that said a lift bag coming up from 100 feet can hit the surface at over 40 miles per hour. That's like getting hit by a car from underwater. The report had a case where a bag punched straight through a fiberglass hull on a skiff and went right out the other side. The diver who misrigged it got fired and blacklisted by every outfit on the Gulf coast. Those old timers aren't just trying to scare you, they've seen what happens when that dump valve isn't secured. One second you're trying to save time, the next you're explaining to a coast guard investigator why someone died.

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