[malcolm smith]

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Having recently had an out of air situation, I was wondering if others on the list have been there, and how the problem was resolved.
Mine was in a training situation, but I was assured after the dive, the situation was not a deliberate part of the training/attempt to kill me!!  

--in case my emoticon handling is wrong, that is a joke!
Using manifold twins, just after having my long hose main reg returned after simulated buddy OOA, went to suck on it after blowing it clear of water, nothing there. Ha! part of the test----switched to backup on necklace and blew that clear with what little breath I had left. ARGHH no air from that either.
Quick scrabble to the left post valve brought no relief, and I really could do with some air.
Looked hastily round for a handy source of air, there it was below me with his back to me. Swam quickly down, span him round by his cylinders------and now finally for my point-----the only reg my low on air lungs could see, was, just as our trainers tell us, was the one in his mouth, soon to be mine!!
After a few frantic and wonderful gasps, the long hose kept me out of his face, he was on his necklaced backup and I had the leisure to have a good fiddle with the knobs, and after 1/2 a minute or so, all was working fine. He restowed his long hose and the dive continued-----not uneventfully , it was a training dive after all.
Lessons for me:
I guess if I had practised it regularly, which I don't, I could have tried for a breath from my wing inflate.
My need to breath would have been less urgent if I purged the reg by a brief freeflow, which I don't in cold water.
The standard dir style system of regs and hoses worked very well in a genuine although brief OOA.

A couple of friends had a genuine OOA a while ago, ie, one of them had breathed all his useable air. Same tunnel visioned grab for the reg in buddies mouth-----it was for sure the only one I could see-----standard short hose, shackled together in each others faces, and a rather hurried rapid emergency ascent, and much bad feeling afterwards.

Sorry for rambling on, but, should your buddy rush at you for air, you are likely to have a more stressful situation with the standard short hosed main reg and your pony/octopus in a place known only to yourself, in spite of the buddy check,  than if you long hosed it.

Any other OOA stories out there?
Cheers all, Malcolm.

 

[Davey Willo]

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Glad to see you survived a genuine OOA Malcolm, it also helps proves the fact that a diver on his last gasp will nearly always rip the one straight out of the mouth of another diver... IMVHO the long hose and the necklaced backup should be mandatory equipment.

Did you find out why both of your regs failed to give air, was it genuine or percieved? (easily done under stress) you say that afterwards you continued the dive, what was the problem?

BTW I believe the art of breathing from the wing inflate would require that your right post be still delivering air, you have to press both the inflate and purge buttons simultaneously for it to work

Best regards
Dave

 

[malcolm smith]

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Hi Dave, I still don’t know what the problem was, but the regs will be serviced ASAP. They have worked fine on a few dives since then.
Genuine or perceived? Amounts to the same thing when it happens
You are right regarding needing the right post 1st stage working for wing breathing. With the luxury of hindsight, I feel I should have had the presence of mind to at least try it, or at the very least to have blipped the purge buttons on the regs.
I guess this has made a really good course into an excellent one-------it’s made me think!!
I expect we all do hundreds of dives on autopilot and then one crops up every now and then that cranks the brain cells into action.
Cheers, Malcolm.

 

[Hobby]

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On page 3 of the Medical forum is a thread entitled"Wreck Salvage..." Toward the end is an account of an interesting OOA situation.
When you went to your back up reg did you check that someone had'nt turned your air off? Having dived with the people that I have that would have been my 1st thought!
In the event of a freeflow you should be able to manually turn your air on/off at will so you can obtain gas from the cylinder in question.
Same for your redundancy .Seems fortunate that there was someone else around.
Hope you get to the bottom of it!
Hobby.

 

[Davey Willo]

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Quote[/b] (malcolm smith @ April 06 2003,11:26)]Genuine or perceived? Amounts to the same thing when it happens

LOL!! too true mate, anyway I'm glad that your reaction was the correct one, too many could of bolted for the surface in a similar situation, nice to know you had the presence of mind to actually head away from the surface down to the diver below you... sounds obvious I know, but a gasping for air induced panic can prove fatal simply because logical thought process's go out of the window... it proves you controlled the situation and turned what could of been a serious incident into a spinchter loosinging lesson in survival.. well done that man

Best regards
Dave.

 

[Mark Chase]

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<font color='#000F22'>Good points above

You did well to think logicly enough to head down for your buddies air rather than the obvious up.

Have also to totaly endourse agree etc with the long hose from mouth of donar diver and kneckles rig should be standard idea, as mentioned above.

Yellow octo on short hose in chest triangle is a totaly rubbish idea and potentialy dangerious for donar and recipient in equal measure.

My wifes uses this system and I tolerate it coz she only dives with me and I am on a twin set. I use a flimsey plastic clip that will snap with a good pull in any direction or relese in the corect direction but I still dont like it and the hose is too short encouraging too close a contact with the buddy which IMHO induses further stress to the situation.

My wife often dives on my 2m hose

when she gets down to 70bar and we are still enjoying the dive and she is comfortable finning allong beside me. I encourage this practice as it gets her used to swaping regs and reducis the likley hood of panic in a real OOA situation.

Got slagged for doing it by the dive guides in the Red Sea they didnt like it at all.

I can only asume that the valves were only one turn on so the reduced tank presure caused the regs to offer greater resistance to the breathing. On manifolded twins this would obviouslt affect both regs at once.

A problem that dosent affect twin independant tank users.

Next thing is if you atempt to turn the air on and turn it the wrong way by mistake (very easily done) you just make things worse.

If you were able to eventualy sort it than that appears to be the probelm. The likley hood of a mechanical failure on both regs at the same time is not worth discussing so I doubt if servicing will gain you much.

Still well done and thanks for proveing that it CAN hapen,

ATB

Mark Chase

 

[darlodiver]

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The long primary hose and neclaced ochy makes good safe sense to me, is this the DIR config and is it used on singles as well. presumably not just a 'tekky' thing?.
A thought provoking read, thanks guys.

 

[Mark Chase]

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<font color='#000F22'>I use the long hose on singles as well but I have to confess that I dont have an occy on the main tank as I will always carry a pony so I just have the reg on the pony as back up. It can still be necklessed thow if you mount the pony on the wing too.

The ONLY reasion I do this is that I dont dive singles very often and dont like constantly striping and re configuring my 1st stage so I just use the long hose primery first stage and a deco reg on the omny swivel for the pony.

If I were to dive singles more often I would rig it with an octo.

ATB

Mark Chase

 

[Guest]

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This reminds me of an incident with my missus in the Red Sea on the Thistlegorm.
When we dived her I said at the beginning that I was emptying the tank to get the most time on the wreck. I led her round and arrived at the shot spot on with 20 bar and started up.By the time I was at 4m and had done a safety stop I was at 10 bar. She on the other hand had stopped at 8m and was looking down at the other divers on the wreck. She was quite happy hanging there while I waited for her to ascend so I could surface.
Eventually I completely ran out of air so I decided that I would be better off going down to her than popping up and leaving her. So I swam down, tapped her on the shoulder and signalled OOA. She gave me a blank look. I signalled again, another blank look! At this point I reched over and grabbed her octo and once it was in my mouth comprehension dawned in her eyes!  

 We both went up and onto the boat, the guide was unimpressed at 0bar and 10bar  

On my part i should have let her know I was getting so low and she needed to practise signals  

 

[Digger]

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Quote[/b] (Rubber Johnny @ April 14 2003,13:40)]When we dived her I said at the beginning that I was emptying the tank to get the most time on the wreck.

I hope you're joking, but I get the sneaking suspicion you're not. Great dive planning, resulted in an emergency. If i were the dive guide, that would be the last dive you did with my company...

Just think what would have happened if your wife's supply got knackered at the bottom. You're both in the shit, and neither of you have got enough air to safely get to the surface.

You shouldn't have needed to let her know you were that low, because you shouldn't have been there.

I hope you don't plan dives like that any more. Then again, Darwin has a theory. I'm told he does awards, too.

 

[Guest]

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Hands up anyone who hasn't had an incident......... anyone, anyone at all?
 Starting the holier than thou stuff is a waste of breath. Going from what you are saying I should have stopped diving with just about everyone as very few people I know have had a perfect record when it comes to diving.
 I don't feel this incident was dangerous in the prevailing circumstances and was pissing myself laughing at the time. what you think is irrelevant, you weren't asked for your opinion anyway!

 

[daz]

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<font color='#000080'>Depends what you mean by incident.

Accidental OOA

Deliberatly creating a potential incident

BTW (Thats as close as I can get to hands up for not having either of the above!)

Personally if you want to put yourself in this situation,  that's your call.

As for putting your buddy in this situation

Safe Diving.
Daz

 

[Guest]

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I have never met a diver yet that been "perfect" every dive. As far as I was concered this was just a humorous story, albeit completely true, that I tossed in for general amusement when prompted about OOA incidents.
 Unfortunately we always have the holier than thou divers that seem to be perfect

 I can add to this trip by saying that two divers did the same thing on the same dive as part of the same group except they both ran out of air with 20mins deco to do and had to be rescued by a cylinder being dropped down to them, or mention that several people did 75m dives on a single later in the week. I wasn't involved and my "incident" doesn't look as bad now does it? especially as I planned the dive and dived the plan I made

 
 I wasn't bothered what others got up to and I may disagree with what people will sometimes get up to but its a free country. I can look after myself and as long as they were experienced divers that can make their own decisions (ie not trainees) then why should I make their decisions for them. I would be just as pissed if people told me what to do and I am sure others here would be too.
 Now why don't you stop playing Daddy and go get a life?

 

[Digger]

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We all screw up, but you've not yet called it that. You seem proud of your "I can do whatever I want and everyone can piss off" attitude, which is, as you rightly point out, your business. You just won't be doing it on my boat, and if you ask me for help when I get a call to help recover a body from X depth because he did X, Y and Z, you're going to find me very reluctant to risk my ass for yours.

Just as a pointer, none of the other guys you mention would be on my boat again, either.

It' a dangerous company you keep, I just hope that you've seen sense. Would you plan the dive the same way again? If not, great. If you would, you're going to get burnt, and probably worse next time. Sorry to tempt fate, but there are guidelines for a reason. Like that they help to keep you alive.

On the holier than thou attitude, based on what you've said, I think I am. The only out of air situation I have ever had was based on the worst decision of my life after I'd done about 30 dives. I learnt my lesson, and now I always stick to the plan. That's how I hope to stay alive.

You planned your dive, and came up with an empty tank. It's a shame you endangered someone else, but again, it's a free country, and if you don't want to be of use to your buddy (which was your wife!!!) then go ahead. But not on my watch.

And I only play Daddy with people who behave like children.

 

[steve-k]

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Quote[/b] ]You planned your dive, and came up with an empty tank. It's a shame you endangered someone else, but again, it's a free country, and if you don't want to be of use to your buddy (which was your wife!!!) then go ahead. But not on my watch.

agree totally

rubber if your ooa was an accident then your amusing little story would not be so scary to here
to plan to drain your tank compleatley and rely on your buddy for air, who you know will be verry low is not just silly its fookin stupid, you tell digger to stop playing daddy but you are playing god with your wife

Quote[/b] ]I have never met a diver yet that been "perfect" every dive. As far as I was concered this was just a humorous story, albeit completely true

yes most of us have made mistakes, and a lot of times its down to our lack of experiance or incompitance, thankfully most of us learn from them, and become better divers for it

when you dive with a total selfish attitude, you are risking the lives of the people arround you, as with digger you would not be on my boat eather, furthermore if i was the buddy of someone like you who deliberatley planned to use all there air, then rely on mine on a 35m dive, i would guarantee that there would be more than just words spoken afterwords

your 1st post is not ammusing its scary
your 2nd and 3rd posts, fook me you actually think this is sound diving, and to actually use the argument that some people did more dangerouse diving to justify your actions?? wtf
and your wife, is she an inexperianced diver? (but then she used less air) i am amased that any diver would accept these diving practices from there buddy, pear pressure?? bullying??

 

[steve-k]

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oh yes
your a muppet

 

[daz]

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<font color='#000080'>Steve,

You should be ashamed of yourself.  

It is "you're" not "your"  

Either way, I get the gist of you're summary  

Daz  

 

[malcolm smith]

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Hi Rubber, don't you just hate it when your connection fails just as you finish a post???

Very briefly----do you think your choice of reg to grab was influenced by the planned nature of your out of air experience, ie, it was not a sudden surprise?
Nothing judgemental here, I am engrained in the standard go for the reg in the mouth, and configure for this. You did not, and I am genuinely interested in the lead up to your choice of reg to go for.
Cheers, Malcolm.

 

[steve-k]

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..............----------

lol there ate some dots and dashes so you can dot my i and cross my tees







you will have to excuse my lack of a decent education

 

[Guest]

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I am going to ignore the sanctimonious a**holes, I should have known better than to start arguing with them. It is one of the pitfalls of forums that people always know best without having been there or knowing who they are even talking about. I have never had a problem being invited on boats or booking them and filling them so I can't be as bad as I seem to be made out so why should I care what people who don't know me think?
   Anyway, to get back to why I posted the story. I always assume that people would go for the reg in the mouth but this assumes that you are diving with inexperienced people. very experienced people shouldn't panic and have to grab a reg as they should be properly equipped and most importantly, not panic if they had a problem. I would be less than impressed if most of my mates just grabbed my reg rather than coming over and asking for it. I normally configure for long hose for my diving in this country. In the red sea we were both on singles and normal octos.
 The Red Sea incident was in this vein, there was no panic and I only took the reg rather than being passed it cos she was taking so long to suss what I was asking but I took her octo.
 This is the onlt time I have been involved for real in an OOA and it wasn't really genuine so the above is more an opinion than experience but hopefully will help.