Oxygen almost oops

[Bill Greenwood]

We don't have a title just for safety on the forum, ( wish we did) so I will post it here.

I was flying east going to cross the Continental Divide at Corona Pass west of Boulder. I was about 11,500 under the clouds and getting bumpy so past Eagle I decided to try to go on top of a broken layer. I put on oxygen, climbed up and still was not on top at 15,500 so I went back under clouds.
As I neared the ridge top that I know to be 12,000 I could see it was obscured, no room to get through under the clouds. So I went back into climb and was ready to go to 17,500 if needed even though I would be coming right back down to 6,000 on the other side.
I had a small headache and had a lot on my mind that morning. Weather was fine, and lots of fuel if I needed to turn back, but it was annoying to have to try to get through it in front of me. I had a weather briefing, but it wasn't as through as it could have been, I didn't have any pireps of the tops in front of me.

So as I climbed through 15,000 I thought I had better adjust my O2 flow for how high I was going. When I picked up the adjustable flow regulator, THERE WAS NO FLOW, it showed ZERO. Here I was, headed up to 17,000 and I was getting NO oxygen. I looked at the supply gauge, and had plenty. Then I looked down and found the O2 line had popped off the fitting. How long ago had this happened? No wonder I had a bit of a headache. I put the line back on, finally topped the clouds at 17,200 and found good vmc to descend into Boulder, and my headache was gone.

What if I had gotten in a hurry, if I had not remembered to increase the O2 as I went higher? I could well have passed out up there and that would have been the end.

The motto, think about what you are doing, and try to focus on the fundamentals even in good weather. Try to leave the distractions behind, and learn from an experience.