This Diver Should Have Died: Undercurrent 10/2026

Subscriber Content Preview
Only active subscribers can view the whole article here

There was an old joke told by stoic British para-troopers about a fellow jumper whose parachute failed to open. "I bet the folding bicycle won't work either," he sighed as he hurtled downward.

I've experienced many "faulty folding bikes" but never a "failed parachute." During the years I worked as Chief Correspondent for the UK's Diver Magazine, I made one or two dive trips to different locations every month where also I reviewed diving equipment sent to me to test. I never saw myself as an expert, merely a witness who reported what happened.

These gave me two opportunities to get in trouble, either through unexpected equipment failure or my own stupidity through user error. Readers delighted in reading about what went wrong each month.

Nowadays, I'm not so cool-headed and am sure I'd suffer more dire consequences, but then I always felt that if I was able to continue breathing underwater, I would find a solution to any predicament in which I found myself.

Funnily enough, my report of a sudden failure of a rented upstream regulator to provide any air during an Indonesian trip provided me with an entrée to the world of diving journalism. After being abandoned by an assigned buddy who refused to share air, I made the free ascent that taught me also to be self reliant. I'd often make my first dive of a trip with equipment sent for testing. The only bit of kit familiar to me was my mask.

One of my earliest diving incidents came when comparing different masks for an article. On the same dive, I was also trying a new quick release weight belt. In the midst of mask switching, my weight belt came off. I swam about maskless, trying to locate the lost weights on the bottom, while other divers tried to hand me the masks I had dropped -- a funny sight, though not to me.

Equipment Surprises

Surprises came in many different forms, like the BC with the corrugated hose that operated the shoulder dump valve. When on the surface I pulled it to let out the air, it came unattached, emptying all, and I plunged to the shallow bottom. I could have dumped my weights, but the liveaboard I was staying in had a full complement of guests and was short of lead. I took off my fins and walked on the seabed to a nearby island, where I waited to be picked up....

Subscribers: Read the full article here

;