Quote:
| Originally Posted by Mal Bridgeman
In a DIR team though they are going to be looking at each other so there's not a great deal of time for panic between a buddy going OOG and someone offering a reg.
Mal
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I think if you guys reckon you are that tight and watching each other that much that you can have a reg in someone's mouth that fast then you are probably either not seeing where you're going/diving or deluded.
Having gone from losing all gas on an exhale there's not many people can go more than 10 seconds before panic starts kicking in. Try it sometime in Stoney or similar, and exhale all the way out. Then take reg out. Then get someone to swim away from you. It's hard, and your lungs will be burning by the time they're spun around and donating gas. Then try getting the reg off them that's clipped to their chest.
Actually, a nice test might be donate your deco reg, then switch to your backup. As the backup is on the left post (prone to roll off) then you just had a reg stolen out of your mouth by a diver who needed it in a hurry. So you have just exhaled. Now get the panicking diver out of your way and stick your backup in. And nothing. Here are your choices at this point - breathe off the reg clipped to your chest, or reach back and turn on the valve. You don't know whether the reg has failed closed because the valve is off, so to make life last a bit longer you go for the primary reg you were breathing off a minute ago. But it's tied using unbreakable line to your chest.
It's not all that convoluted. It only requires one failure and one piece of gear not to work quite as expected. and you could find yourself drowned by someone else's failure. Because you're sure not getting that reg off a diver who has just lost gas for a few more seconds than you probably need it.
Digs.