Have you ever run out of gas, or been close?

[macado]

I thought I was going to get lynched for saying this but judging by the responses here I guess not.

I've never unintentionally run out of air however I have on a some planned occasions ran a tank down to nothing at the end of a dive when I was in 10-15ft on the top of a reef. Never felt like I was in danger as I was extremely close to the boat and well aware of my situation and the surrounding conditions.

 

[RoyN]

From 10 feet under the boat, my tank was down past 200 psi, the boat captain found out it was leaking a bit from the valve thread and I started with 2300 psi on an aluminum tank.

Last year, I sucked my deco bottle but this was on the surface down to 300 psi because it was time for a viz and don't wanna waste 50% O2. Otherwise, never ran the tank down to 500 psi for a while.

 

[FuzzyNutz]

I posted this a few months ago in another thread - this seems appropriate to also share here:

I was learning to use a DPV during my advanced course. I check my air regularly, and when I hit my ascending point, I let my instructor know. He signalled ok and to keep following him, so I did. We kept going for a while, and now my gauge was reading about half of what it did when I first let him know, so I let him know again that it was time to go up, now! He again signalled ok and to keep following... so I did. I was getting really nervous at this point, and was thinking to just head up by myself. A few moments later, a breath took a bit of effort to pull out of the reg. I looked down and my gauge read empty. I panicked. I tried finning faster to catch him (he was only about 10-15' in front of me), so I could use his octo. With both of us on DPV's, I was not going to catch him. I took the reg out of my mouth and tried to scream his name, a really moronic idea, but what can I say, I panicked. I realized the danger I was in and that I was panicking, so I got my head together, and started ascending. I kept the reg in my mouth, took large breaths, and slowly let bubbles out on my way to the surface. I think I only took 3-4 breaths on my way up, as I was deathly afraid of running out of air completely. It was very hard to draw those breaths.

When I reached the surface, I waited for a short few moments, then started swimming back to the beach where I waited for him. He finally surfaced and saw me standing on the shore, made it back, and explained that he was aware of my situation and he was just about to stop to give me his octo to finish out a safety stop, but when he turned to look for me, I was gone - so he circled around a few times to find me before surfacing. I'm glad I went up myself and I was mad we didn't go up sooner. I learned a valuable lesson that day, and I'm glad it happened early in my diving career. It made me a much wiser diver, and I pay critical attention to a lot more things now. If I need to end the dive and my team won't, well sorry to say, but I'm out, see ya! I like what is preached by cave divers and by people on this forum: When someone thumbs a dive, the dive is over. No ifs ands or buts about it. I don't care if it's a slight ear issue, air issue, spooked out for a second, whatever. The dive is over with no questions asked or explanations needed (although I would prefer an explanation so I could learn from the incident - but by no means would it ever be critcized... ever!) . The underworld is a deadly environment and things can go bad very quickly with horrible consequences.

 

[Blackwood]

Yes.

It was a stupid and preventable result of poor decisions and a singular lack of attention.

My buddy and I were doing a final 'skills' dive in prep for what would be my deepest. I'd done plenty of dives with multiple bottles, but never one where I actually needed the second for decompression purposes.

So we went out for some practice in shallow water. But due to either laziness or all of my doubled being full of trimix, I elected to do the dive in singles and without my argon bottle. My singles wing was leaking at the time, and the (borrowed) single wasn't full to begin with.

So we each strap on a bottle (one marked 70 and the other marked 20 OXYGEN), make our way through the surf, descend and swim to ~45 feet (if memory serves).

We shoot a bag and tie off, and one passes a bottle to the other, and that guy switches (backgas to 70 to backgas to O2). Then he passes the bottles, and the other guy does the same.

After that, we use the upline to practice in midwater, switching to 70 (at 40), back to backgas (at 30) to O2 (at 20) and then back to backgas before we descend, pass the bottles and repeat. I think we did that about 3 times each.

We then split the bottles between us and started pulling down the bag. I felt breathing resistance increase for about 3 breaths and then it was empty. I released the bag, sheepishly signaled, buddy donated, I handed him the spool and we went up rather than in.

The entire dive, I only checked my gas once (at the beginning). That was the obvious and most severe mistake. If I had been monitoring it rather than relying on my assumed SAC rate I would have caught it. But I didn't account for the fact that I was using a leaking wing while doing multiple descents (filling wing and DS), with a heavy load to boot.

Stupid.

I was trained long ago to check my gas every 5 minutes. As I dived more and became able to fairly accurately predict my consumption, I extended it to 10+ minute intervals.

This incident was a kick in the head: no matter how many times you've dives the site, you have no guarantees as to your SAC rate.

So I now check at 5 minute intervals again.

I told the punchline to the above story (i.e. "I ran out of gas once") on SB once before, and the response was something along the lines of "go seek remedial training." I disagreed then, and I still do.

It's not as if I forgot all of my instructors' admonishments to check my gas. I simply didn't do it. The value of being told to do so again would pale in comparison to the actual result of having not done it.

It remains the most embarrassing moment of my diving life.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I've never run out suddenly unexpected at depth.
But once I was diving on a wall and got involved with some game I was hunting/collecting. I lost all situational awareness to the point that while I was tied up trying to bag my game I had drifted from 75 feet down to 115 feet and ran my air down to 400 PSI. It was a very close call and I did have enough to finish my stops but the reg was breathing hard when I broke the surface. Everything ended fine but that scared the crap out of me.

I have purposely run tanks down to where I couldn't get any more air out of them just to see what happens (in a controlled setting - shallow).
It's not that big of a deal.
When I dive vintage with a double hose and no SPG it is a common thing to breath down the tank to where it starts breathing hard, then I reach back and pull the J lever down and I know I have 400 PSI left. By that time however I'm just about ready to end my dive because I have been keeping track of depth and time, you have to because that's all you got when there is no SPG.

The other day I was out diving with a MK5/109 balaced adjustable primary and a 109 non balanced adjustable on a necklace. I ran the tank down pretty low and on the way in I decided to get underweater to make a little better time. By the time I was almost to the beach in about 6 feet of water my gauge was down to zero and the balanced second stage breathed fine. I decided to switch to the non balanced to see the difference and I could hardly get any air out of it. I switched back to the balanced and it still breathed.
I could see from this how a high quality balanced second stage could get people in trouble if they spaced out their air monitoring.
Now it's got me curious to see how a balanced second will run out. I'll have to test it in the shallows.

 

[JoeBeach]

I ran low at 105 feet and started my ascent. I was able to get back to the surface and the boat safely but post-dive examination by the shop showed a empty tank. My air-integrated computer had died on me that week and I was diving with my pressure gauge console for the first time in years and that red area looked so big that I thought I had more time. Learned my lesson on that one!

 

[oldflounder]

I think every new diver should intentionally suck a tank dry just to see what happens and how running out isn't instantaneous.

I have always read that you should exit the dive with 500 in your tank. I learned my lesson early on when I was heading for my exit point [solo]. The seas were rough and I surfaced a couple hundred feet offshore to get a bearing to that point in the ledges [ocean]. I went down with 8 or 900 psi and navigated my way to the cove I wanted to get out in but I landed in the next cove a hundred feet to the right with 500 remaining. I had to go back down, go around the ledges and get into my exit cove. I still had a little air left, but I experienced one of the many reasons you should always keep a reserve of air in the tank when you exit.

I was in less than 30' the whole time and had plenty of land nearby so I was never in any real danger but it was an eyeopener.

 

[SDucotey]

Never in my 15 dives so far. Always had over 500psi left.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

3x, but always aware of the situation. Once was back in the airhog days. Other was OOA right as I am at the surface (perfect planning) and had to blow into the BC manually. Third was on the safety stop and misjudged the guage, it did not go to the center of the zero marker, but was OOA at the top of the tick. That reading should have been around 50psi if the gauge is accurate. I just ascended up. Guide asked what was the rush and I just said 'not enough weights' so instead of trying to fight it, decided to go up. Wife knew I was OOA.

Anyway, like to run low on the tank just to get a true reference on how much weight I really need, with no air in the bladder and not moving the fins, at what range of depth I can stay neutrally buoyant. Just have to make sure I am not diving with one of these ops that check your gauge when I come up.

 

[captndale]

In the early days of diving with 72's and no SPG's running out of air was our signal that it was time to go up. Since we started diving with SPG's, there has never been a time that I have run out of gas unless it was the result of an equipment malfunction or a conscious decision in order to deal with a problem of some sort. These days, there is simply no excuse for being surprised by an out of gas situation.