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I Survived My Most Terrifying dive!
6K views
Apr 22, 2025
Join me as I relive my most terrifying dive. As a seasoned tec CCR diver, I've had my fair share of close calls, but this dive was something else. I was seconds from disaster, and it was all because of a malfunctioning scooter, also known as a diver propulsion vehicle or DPV. The horror story that unfolded underwater was a nightmare come true, and I'm lucky to have made it out alive. From the depths of the ocean to the surface, this dive was a frightening experience that I'll never forget. So, if you're ready for a deep dive horror story, then strap yourselves in and get ready to experience the terror with me. *Competition* To win an Orcatorch D710 then please join the Deep Wreck Diving Group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1699048204345081/ *Highlights* 00:00 The most terrifying moment of my diving career 03:16 Bad drills? 05:59 The incident begins! 12:53 Where were you when I needed you! 16:00 My lessons from the incident 18:42 Back on the surface - phew! *Kit I Use* Note, some of these are affiliate links so help support making my videos: - Gloves are Ansell Alphatec 87-063 - https://amzn.to/4jDHhX4 - Main torch is an Orcatorch D630 - https://amzn.to/4jlT4tA - Backup torch is an Orcatorch D710 - https://amzn.to/4jhddRk - Drysuit is an O-Three Ri200 - https://www.othree.co.uk/drysuit-range/ri-2-100-drysuit/ - CCR is an AP Diving Inspiration (XPD) - https://www.apdiving.com/
View Video Transcript
0:00
this looks totally innocuous but I'm
0:03
about to have the most terrifying moment
0:05
of my diving career
0:11
the reason I'm screaming for help is
0:13
because I'm being dragged uncontrollably
0:16
backwards through the water by this
0:18
scooter that's attached to the rear of
0:20
my rebreather not only is it a horrible
0:23
feeling but it's also really dangerous
0:25
i've got over an hour of decompression
0:27
to do and if I get dragged to the
0:29
surface then I'm going to be in a lot of
0:32
trouble so the good news is it all ended
0:34
up well but it absolutely didn't feel
0:37
like that at the time so if you want to
0:39
know what happened why it happened what
0:42
I did next and why this was my most
0:45
expensive dive ever then this is the
0:48
video for you i'm Dom Robinson welcome
0:51
to my Deep Wreck Diver channel i think
0:53
you're going to love this video but a
0:55
big plea from me can you please try hard
0:59
not to laugh too much at my misfortune
1:01
you find me here on our club rib as we
1:04
prepare to dive the wreck of the Lord
1:06
Stonehaven it's a lovely alarmed troller
1:09
sunk in 1942 sitting upright in about 62
1:13
m of water it's a beautiful wreck and
1:17
although it's been dived loads no one
1:19
has ever found the bell so our aim for
1:22
this dive was to take a pair of scooters
1:24
down and do a search off the side of the
1:26
wreck and you never know perhaps we
1:29
might come across it now unusually for
1:32
me I'm not going to show you the full
1:34
video of the dive not least because 40
1:37
minutes of us doing a circular search on
1:39
the seabed is not the greatest viewing
1:42
and as a bit of a spoiler we never found
1:45
the bell but there you go so there's two
1:47
of us here scott my buddy he's got a SUX
1:50
VR7 and here you can see I've got my
1:53
brand new well new to me anyway Dive
1:55
Extras Piranha it cost me £3,000
1:58
secondhand and this is the first dive
2:01
I've used it on i think that's going to
2:03
become significant in a bit so one of
2:05
the things I hadn't really thought very
2:07
much about is that most of the other
2:09
scooters that I'd used before had two
2:12
switches one to turn them on and off and
2:14
the other one the trigger to uh to make
2:16
it go now the Piranha doesn't have that
2:19
it just has a single trigger to make it
2:21
go the other thing it's got is a lock on
2:25
it so that you can lock it off to
2:27
prevent the trigger operation or if you
2:30
want to I guess to put it when you've
2:32
when you've activated it to put it in
2:34
like a cruise so it if you're doing long
2:37
distance scootering you just lock it on
2:40
and then you can take your finger off
2:41
the trigger and obviously it just
2:44
reduces a bit of stress on your finger
2:46
you don't have to hold the trigger on
2:48
the whole time and I guess makes it
2:49
easier so it's a nice little feature for
2:52
that particular use case now what I'm
2:56
going to talk to you is about a practice
2:58
that we'd got into the habit of doing
3:00
when Scott and me were in Croatia when
3:02
we were out there we were diving on BonX
3:04
scooters and we're doing a lot of diving
3:06
on planes so when we dived on the plane
3:09
we would clip the scooter on behind us
3:12
and the scooter would float above us and
3:14
it meant that we could swim around on
3:16
the plane and everything was fine we
3:18
also got into the habit of doing that on
3:20
deco stops as well so once again you get
3:23
onto your deco stop you would uh turn
3:26
the bonex scooter off you would clip it
3:29
onto the rear of your frame and then it
3:31
was just out of the way for your deco
3:33
now of course you can argue about
3:34
whether that's a good thing or a bad
3:36
thing or not but it's what we did and
3:38
actually it worked really well so it was
3:41
something that I had ingrained in my
3:43
head as a really good idea to do on deco
3:45
stops to get your scooter out of the way
3:48
turn it off clip it on the back of your
3:50
unit and then it floats above you now
3:52
I've already said that I'm not going to
3:54
share the full dive with you mainly
3:55
because it's dull as you like and we
3:57
don't find anything but you will see one
4:00
of my really early videos on the channel
4:02
is a dive on the Stone Haven i'm going
4:04
to put a link to it in the description
4:06
so it's a lovely dive the Stone Haven
4:08
really nice uh lots and lots to see and
4:12
fascinating history as well uh so if you
4:14
haven't seen it I'd say go and have a
4:16
look at it but what we're going to do
4:18
now is we're going to cut straight to
4:20
the chase which is we've come back to
4:22
the shot line and we're starting the
4:25
ascent back up so for anyone who's seen
4:27
any of my other videos you'll know that
4:30
obviously I've just taken my strobe off
4:32
and once again if you've not seen my
4:33
strobe videos you should definitely do
4:35
that and I'm scootering up all is
4:38
seeming pretty good at this moment in
4:40
time really happy the one thing I've
4:42
realized I'm going to need to shorten
4:43
the leash on the scooter it's just a bit
4:46
long so it's it's it's pain uh when I'm
4:48
using it but hey you know what other
4:50
than that it's all pretty good we've had
4:52
a really nice dive or even if we've not
4:55
managed to achieve our aim it's
4:57
otherwise pretty good so there I am
4:59
scootering up and I think one of the
5:00
nice things about this video you don't
5:02
get to see very often is for some reason
5:04
my handsets appear quite nicely in the
5:07
videos so people are often interested in
5:10
that kind of thing so if you keep an eye
5:11
out you will see them scott's coming up
5:13
behind me you'll have seen that there
5:15
was still two strobes left at the bottom
5:17
of the shot line so there's still some
5:19
divers on the wreck and that means when
5:22
we get to the lazy shot the lazy shot
5:24
won't need to be pulled by us that's
5:26
someone's else's job so all pretty good
5:30
see the uh ascent rate on the computer
5:32
there is sort of three or four yellow
5:34
bars so that's me coming up at 10 m a
5:37
minute 10 12 m a minute there or
5:39
thereabouts which is a good rate of
5:41
ascent on a deep dive you don't want to
5:43
be coming up slowly it's uh it's not a
5:46
good idea you just increase your deco
5:48
for no particularly good reason and I
5:51
think very shortly there it is in fact
5:53
there is the lazy shot you can see
5:55
there's not too much strain on it so the
5:57
current hasn't built up in fact this
5:59
part of Plymouth is not particularly t
6:02
there isn't particularly strong currents
6:04
so you do get quite long periods of
6:06
slack so there you go see I'm coming in
6:08
I'm going to take my uh tag off it's the
6:11
sort of slightly transparent yellow one
6:13
I've used those for a long period of
6:14
time so you'll have seen them on many of
6:16
my videos so yeah this dive is going
6:19
absolutely beautifully and I have no
6:22
idea that in a few short moments things
6:26
are going to go horrendously wrong and
6:28
I'm going to be the most terrified I've
6:31
ever been on a dive and I think it's
6:33
probably worth considering why I was
6:35
terrified and it's that thing about
6:38
control uh for those of you who've seen
6:40
my bail out video and I do hope you have
6:43
if you've not there's a link in the
6:45
bottom in the description section and
6:47
also on one of those card things so the
6:51
difference with this dive to the bailout
6:53
one is this sense of control i c I was
6:56
completely or I felt that I'd completely
6:59
lost control when my scooter started
7:02
going and I was being dragged backwards
7:05
so that is something I found
7:08
particularly difficult to cope with now
7:10
by my background for those who don't
7:12
know I'm ex-military i used to fly
7:15
helicopters so I'm used to kind of
7:17
dealing I guess through situations where
7:20
the unexpected things are happening i've
7:22
spent a lot of time in simulators i've
7:24
spent a lot of time practicing emergency
7:25
situations all those kind of things so I
7:29
guess I'm quite used to dealing with the
7:31
unexpected so what's happening here at
7:33
the moment you can see I've got to 32ish
7:36
meters and you've probably just seen
7:39
I've taken off my scooter and this is me
7:41
clipping my scooter on the back of my
7:44
rebreather obviously I've decided I
7:46
don't need it anymore i'm getting to
7:48
that phase of the dive where I'm about
7:49
to start doing my decompression so it's
7:52
sorting all the bits and pieces out for
7:54
decompression so there you go turning
7:56
the if I haven't done I'm going to turn
7:58
the torch off very shortly i There you
8:01
go you can see my handset quite a nice
8:02
thing this is me changing the high set
8:04
point to 1.5 so that's accelerating the
8:07
decompress deco that's doing it on the
8:10
rebreather so that controls the actual
8:12
P2 of the unit you can also see I've
8:15
come off the shot line so I'm not
8:17
holding on the shot line anymore i'm
8:19
happy with my buoyancy there isn't loads
8:21
of current so I don't need to hold on to
8:23
it and I guess the next thing I'm going
8:25
to do is change on my offboard computer
8:29
if I Yeah there we go so you can see I
8:32
am changing that and I'll be putting 1.5
8:35
on there so that both my computers the
8:38
one that's controlling the P2 and the
8:40
offboard which I use to control my
8:42
decompression is at
8:44
1.5 so slight segue there people often
8:48
go why do you use your offboard computer
8:49
to control your decompression well the
8:53
uh what I have on my main computer oh
8:56
sorry on the controller for the
8:58
rebreather is I have uh 9095 set as
9:01
gradient factors that means uh if I ever
9:04
need to get out the water I can do it
9:06
really quickly but I control the
9:08
decompression so I build in a bit of
9:09
safety by having 6080 gradient factors
9:12
on my offboard computer that's just the
9:16
strategy I like to adopt and I might
9:18
expand on that in a future video I think
9:21
so I can talk about why I do that but
9:24
anyway onto this dive so you can see I
9:27
think I'm actually back holding on to
9:29
the line there with me and Scott we're
9:31
all uh we're all sorted things are
9:34
looking good there's two divers still
9:36
below us so the lazy hasn't been
9:38
released but there's no current so there
9:40
you go i've just uh I've let go of the
9:42
lazy shot just having a quick look at my
9:45
computers again you can see there 63
9:46
minutes TTS so that's time to surface so
9:49
I've got at least an hour of of decco to
9:52
do and that's all quite nice i am just
9:56
I'm just chilling out it's nice
9:58
conditions everything has gone well uh
10:01
I've sorted out all my bits and pieces
10:03
so it's just it's just a good moment
10:06
just to kind of you know be nice and
10:08
relaxed because that's what you want to
10:09
be when you're decompressing
10:11
unfortunately this isn't going to last
10:13
too long as you're gonna well you've
10:15
already seen so what I'm doing now is
10:18
similar to Scott there i'm getting into
10:20
a kind of horizontal trim
10:22
position so uh if you think about it
10:24
I've got my
10:27
uh my rebreather on my back i've got my
10:30
cylinders in front of me i've clipped my
10:32
scooter off unlike Scott I've clipped my
10:34
scooter off on the back of my rebreather
10:36
so it is floating above me which is
10:39
unfortunately where my fins also are as
10:42
well now just before the scooter started
10:46
working I felt my fins brush against
10:49
something and therefore the only thing I
10:51
can think is what happened is I had
10:54
locked off the that little nurled nut
10:56
that you saw earlier on i'd locked it
10:58
off i thought I'd locked it off all the
11:00
way so the trigger couldn't be operated
11:02
clearly I'd not locked it off enough and
11:05
the force of my fin hitting the trigger
11:08
must have been enough just to activate
11:11
it and that is why the the scooter
11:14
started but it was in that odd position
11:16
it was it it was enough to allow the
11:18
trigger to go past the stop but it
11:20
wasn't enough to let this trigger go
11:22
back the other way so I've actually
11:24
tried to do that since on on on my
11:27
scooter and it's actually there's only a
11:29
really really small bit where you can
11:31
actually do that so really frustrating
11:34
but hey uh there you go that's that's
11:36
what happened and there's a lesson
11:38
there's Scott in front of me there I am
11:40
all nice and relaxed just chilling out
11:43
and very very shortly I am going to kick
11:47
the scooter kicking the scooter is going
11:50
to turn it on and I'm going to start to
11:51
be dragged backwards and you're going to
11:53
start to hear me uh scream scooter is
11:57
about to go and there it is it's going
12:00
now you can see me being pulled away
12:02
being pulled back it's really really
12:04
upsetting
12:10
i'm quite a long way from Scott he can't
12:12
see me uh he's looking the wrong way he
12:14
can't hear me so the scooter is flying
12:18
around all over the place dragging me
12:19
round i am really concerned about going
12:22
up so what I do is I ditch a bit of air
12:25
out of my dry suit you'll see me
12:26
starting to go back down again that's
12:29
not a permanent solution i'm going down
12:31
quite quickly meanwhile what I'm doing
12:32
is I'm reaching around behind me i'm
12:35
just trying to grab uh the scooter
12:37
trying to get it under control actually
12:40
I can't I can't get it i can't grab hold
12:42
of it it's in a really difficult
12:44
position of course it's going all over
12:45
the place so in the end what I decide to
12:49
do I think it's the only thing I could
12:50
do is I actually uncip it from the back
12:54
of my rebreather and I do that and then
12:56
all of a sudden this guy appears and
12:59
it's like wow what happened and you
13:02
probably just seen that he's just
13:04
pointed down uh because obviously that's
13:07
where the scooter is so Paul later told
13:11
me that he was above me on the uh lazy
13:14
shot he saw it all happen he dropped
13:17
down to try and help me and there's
13:19
Scott as well he's just appeared he must
13:21
have realized something was wrong they
13:23
all sort of reacted really quickly
13:26
unfortunately I also reacted really
13:28
quickly paul says he was about a meter
13:30
away from me when uh I ditched the
13:33
scooter and the scooter has obviously
13:35
gone it's It's completely lost that's
13:39
£3,000 that's my most expensive dive
13:42
ever um it took me about 2 years before
13:44
I told my wife that I'd uh I'd lost a
13:46
scooter i actually hadn't told her I'd
13:48
bought it so it it wasn't really um that
13:50
much of an issue that I'd lost something
13:52
she didn't know I had but the really
13:55
important bit from this whole incident
13:57
and it's the bit that I uh often talk to
14:00
people about is okay £3,000 is an awful
14:04
lot of money and frankly I could have
14:06
really done without losing that scooter
14:09
but the fact is when I was being dragged
14:12
backwards in the water when I thought I
14:15
was all alone and it seems like a tiny
14:17
amount of time when you look at my video
14:19
but believe me when it was going on it
14:21
seemed like it went was going on for
14:23
pretty much forever ever so at that
14:25
moment in time I would have taken been
14:28
in the position that I currently am now
14:30
which is all being well not getting
14:33
dragged to the surface um and the quid
14:36
proquo for that is to lose my scooter so
14:40
I would have taken that and therefore
14:42
I'm very pleased to be where we are now
14:45
so what are we all doing well clearly
14:46
we've all come off the Lazy Shot now uh
14:49
Paul and Scott are both with me lazy
14:51
Shot is long gone so and obviously
14:54
hasn't been released because there's
14:55
still some divers down there so we're
14:58
now separated from the lazy shot but
14:59
we're together as a three which is which
15:01
is a pretty good place to be so we're
15:03
all taking out our delayed SMBs as you
15:05
can see there and we're all bagging uh
15:07
you know sending them up to the surface
15:09
so the boat knows where we are and the
15:11
boat will now have the challenge of
15:13
having to follow both the lazy shot and
15:14
this group of three delayed SMBs it's uh
15:18
all part of the protocol it's all
15:20
perfectly fine obviously internally I am
15:24
absolutely
15:26
uh well a few things I guess first thing
15:28
is I'm really relieved that I'm okay
15:32
because there was a moment in time when
15:34
I didn't think I was going to be okay oh
15:36
so probably just worth interesting what
15:38
am I doing there this is a um a nipple
15:40
feed delayed SMB so you probably saw
15:43
there was a hose that comes off one of
15:45
my bailout cylinders that I can attach
15:47
via a nipple onto the delayed SMB and it
15:50
just makes filling filling them up uh
15:52
relatively easy so that's gone up there
15:54
so we're all under our delayed SMBs
15:56
there's Scott myself and Paul and we are
15:59
going to carry on with the rest of the
16:01
dive so I guess probably worth
16:03
reflecting on some lessons you know what
16:06
do I think are the learning points from
16:08
this well I guess probably the first
16:11
learning point is the obvious one which
16:13
is that you should always try out dive
16:16
gear somewhere relatively shallow so
16:19
that you can get used to the nuances and
16:20
all that kind of stuff um yeah guilty
16:23
absolutely guilty on that one i should
16:26
have done that do I think it would have
16:27
changed the price of fish with this no I
16:29
don't think it would have done but it
16:31
would have meant that I'd have sorted
16:32
out my leash problem which which was the
16:34
other problem that I mentioned other
16:36
learning points well I guess uh a good
16:40
learning point is that even when I'm
16:42
really terrified and you know I was
16:45
absolutely bricking myself when this was
16:47
happening is that I feel I can make
16:50
decisions that have good outcomes so
16:52
that's uh you know go me well done Dom
16:55
i'm very pleased about that one another
16:57
thing is that diving uh with a team
17:01
absolutely helps now if I'd have been
17:04
slightly slower I am absolutely certain
17:07
that Paul would have sorted me out and
17:09
that would have probably been a good
17:11
outcome probably a better outcome than
17:12
this but you know it's really nice for
17:15
me to know that other people in my dive
17:17
team are paying attention and are able
17:19
to support me and that is that is a
17:22
really nice place to be so there's
17:24
another lesson I guess and the last
17:26
lesson I'm going to take away from this
17:28
is probably about the particular scooter
17:30
now I've obviously lost that DiveX
17:33
scooter that Piranha i do have a new one
17:35
i bought exactly the same type of
17:37
scooter uh I really like them do I clip
17:40
it on behind me on deco stops no I do
17:43
not it always gets clipped to the front
17:44
of me on deco stops um and the reason is
17:47
obviously because of this incident do I
17:49
think it would probably be okay to clip
17:50
it on behind me yeah I think it probably
17:53
would although I am always nervous about
17:56
uh activating the trigger i don't use
17:58
that nurled knot thing at all now it's
18:00
as open as it can be on my current
18:03
scooter so I don't use a nut but I have
18:05
occasionally activated the scooter even
18:07
on the front of me maybe a cylinder's
18:09
bang the trigger or or something like
18:11
that so it that is uh I guess a
18:14
limitation if I was to buy another
18:16
scooter um and I'm hoping I don't need
18:18
to do that for a while i think one of
18:20
the things I would really look for is a
18:22
separate onoff switch so I think that is
18:26
a really important safety feature on a
18:28
scooter so if you're a scooter
18:29
manufacturer and you're making a new
18:31
model of scooter and you want me to
18:32
consider buying it then please stick an
18:34
onoff switch on there and that would be
18:37
uh something I'd really
18:39
appreciate so that's the dive over this
18:43
is me back on the surface safely uh and
18:46
very relieved guys on the boat helping
18:48
me get my rebreather off uh if you've
18:50
never done rib diving like this uh
18:52
getting your CCR up is always a bit
18:54
emotional particularly for the person on
18:56
the boat they weigh obviously quite a
18:57
lot but I'm back on the surface all is
19:00
well i'm not bent i get to dive another
19:03
day okay I'm 3,000 pounds lighter than I
19:06
was at the start of the day but do you
19:08
know what taking that when I was being
19:10
dragged backwards through the water it
19:12
was absolutely terrifying even if it
19:14
even for such a short period of time it
19:17
was a horrendous horrendous experience i
19:19
can't describe how bad it was anyway I
19:22
hope you've enjoyed this video i hope
19:24
you found it useful i hope maybe you've
19:26
turned some taken some lessons from from
19:28
it as always with my videos look it' be
19:30
really appreciated if you could leave a
19:32
comment if you could like if you could
19:34
turn on your
19:35
notifications and um obviously I guess a
19:38
new thing I've got my Facebook deep
19:40
diving group you know feel free to come
19:41
and join that possibility of winning a
19:43
torch if you do and other than that
19:46
obviously look at you know watch some
19:48
more of my videos i hope you enjoy them
19:50
and I will see you all next time thank
19:53
you
#Diving & Underwater Activities
#Water Activities