Have You (or Your Buddy) Ever Run Out Of Air?

[graham_s]

I've never had an OOA incident.
I've been close, or at least closer to empty than I'd like, surfacing with 30 bar in a 15l, rather than the 50 I'd planned for, but a stronger current than I'd expected pushed up my consumption a little.
I had a stage cylinder available if I needed it though.

 

[NYCNaiad]

I have never unintentionally run out of air but have seen a diver (part of a group dive) run out and go into passive panic. She just stayed glued to the line and watched the SPG go to 0 in her hand - no signal no nothing.

That's interesting. I haven't really thought about passive panic in depth before & I'm happy you included the story so I can keep an eye out for it as well.

I've never seen someone run out of air & I've never run out either, but I came a bit close after being caught in a bad down current in the Maldives.

Side note: It's weird to me when people say they're willing to share air to extend a dive. I would never do it as I personally find it risky. If that 1 air source has a problem, then you both have a problem. To each their own, I guess.

 

[Ninelinegoby]

Yes on my 5th dive after being open water certified. I was diving with a good friend who is a dive master, we where at 35 ft, my gauge said 900psi. Went to take a breath and felt the resistance and knew what it was. I was completely out. Turns out there was sand in the spg I had rented. But I signaled my friend she calmly swam over and offered her octo and everything was good.
That was the last time I dove on rented gear.

 

[tursiops]

During my AOW training, dive shop unmentioned, my instructor had me breath my tank dry on 4 dives, insisting it was standard and necessary practice. So, it was catch his fins when the reg breathed hard and spend with the last 10-15 minutes of the dive, including deco, on his reg. In hindsight I needed to take ownership of my own safety. He was spear fishing on an al100 with another diver as a charter, I was along for the ride.

What a bunch of crap. You didn't get an AOW class, I hope you didn't get a card. Breath tanks dry? Deco? Jeez.

 

[lerpy]

I was doing a very shallow dive, 30 feet, and about 25 minutes into the dive I took a breath and got nothing, switched to octo, got nothing, grabbed buddy for back up, then checked guage, showed totally gone, weird. He checked my valve, it was turn off, bizarre. Once back on shore played with valve wheel, seemed really loose, no tension, may have rolled off some how but to this day not sure how that happened.

Another occasion, I was diving with a couple of people. I told the people I was with that I turn my dives at 1000psi. At 90 feet on a wreck I signaled the guys I was with to report on their air. One guy shows back two fingers, I go with he has 2000psi. A minute or two later I think, that's not right given how long we have been down unless this guy is a fish. Sure enough he had 200psi, back to the mooring line, he ran out, put him on my reg and we surfaced. His buddy was freaked out, as was he. He tried to blame me indicating that I said I would turn my dive at 1000psi, and he was waiting for me to turn. I politely indicated he would have drown before I hit 1000psi. He was diving an AL80, I was diving a steel 150.

 

[rongoodman]

I had a guy approach me OOA on a dive off of Playa a few years back. He was pretty mellow about it. The DM was surprised when she looked back and saw the guy on my long hose.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I've run my tank down to where it was getting hard to suck...hundreds of times. Mostly while commercial golf ball diving where it was shallow (5-15 ft deep) and often too dirty to see a pressure gage. In the Ocean, I have run out twice, once in Maine while solo and without a pony bottle in 60 feet and another time in 125 feet while spearfishing solo chasing a fish, but i had a 6 cu-ft pony bottle.

I've had 3 occasions where i can remember divers needing air on the bottom. On one occasion, years ago, I had no power inflator, no octopus, a bag of heavy lobsters, a pole spear, little air (maybe 350 psi) and my roomate/buddy signals share air at 90 feet. I grabbed him and we took off kicking and i was not really excited about buddy breeathing, so I did not give him my only reg,,, I figured he still had bubbles coming out and he would take it when he needed it. We went directly to the surface without any stops and he never took my reg. The other two occasions, i donated a secondary and we had an uneventful ascent.
Oh yeah once on a 190 ft wreck dive , I had my tank valve barely open and it got hard to breath on the bottom.. does that count?

 

[laikabear]

Yeah there is a story like that in DiverDown. I've also read lots of stories/reports about people jumping in with way ("weigh") too much weight and experiencing varying degrees of stress/misfortune.

I have heard from more than one tech instructor that most people who are "out of air" are not: the valve rolled partially shut, they sucked some water from a damaged mouthpiece, overbreathed the regulator, stuck their pony's reg in their mouth, closed the venturi because they don't know what a venturi is, etc. etc. but they were not OOA.

That is interesting, my regulator has a venturi but I haven't adjusted it all, it seemed perfect for me right out of the box. I will have to remember to check that knob if I'm unexpectedly having trouble drawing a breath at the beginning of a dive. I don't use a pony but if I ever do I'm going to make sure the regulator is not the same as my primary 2nd stage just because of stories like that.

During my AOW training, dive shop unmentioned, my instructor had me breath my tank dry on 4 dives, insisting it was standard and necessary practice. So, it was catch his fins when the reg breathed hard and spend with the last 10-15 minutes of the dive, including deco, on his reg. In hindsight I needed to take ownership of my own safety. He was spear fishing on an al100 with another diver as a charter, I was along for the ride.

That is awful! I am sure plenty of people would never dive again after taking that "class." Glad you stuck with it, you probably learned a lot even though that was not a good way to learn.

Three occasions in 45+ years of diving. First time was under the ice at full length of the line. My buddy's reg froze up - free-flowing - so we started buddy breathing.

OK that is terrifying. Every time I think about ice diving I think about that scene in Damien, Omen II where the guy falls under the ice playing hockey and drowns. I think ice diving might even be more scary than cave diving. All the risks of regulators free flowing plus it's freezing and dark and possibly losing your way to the hole in the ice... Nope, nope, nope.

Have had to rescue a diver instabuddy who had just jumped in and was sinking like a stone. Instead of adding air to the BC he was venting - caught up to him at 75 feet. Took the BC valve from his hand and added air. First cold water dive in a while and I suspect it was panic - the dive got worse.

I have never unintentionally run out of air but have seen a diver (part of a group dive) run out and go into passive panic. She just stayed glued to the line and watched the SPG go to 0 in her hand - no signal no nothing. Fortunately the DM saw the situation and managed to push an octo into her face and managed to get her to the surface. I only saw the rescue part when the DM I was with took off like a shot toward the diver hanging on the line. No idea how he knew what was going on but it was a real education on what passive panic looks like. Diver was a wreck when she got to the surface and did not do the next dive. I suspect she never did dive again.

That happened to me on my first dive after OW, which was a tropical water dive (sinking). The weights were unmarked and I wasn't familiar with using hard weights and a weight belt, nor did I know how much weight I'd need. The DM told me to use 4 blocks. We dove off an inflatable and there was no time for a weight check in the current, just drop in and see what happens. Well I began to sink so quickly that I got scared and for a few seconds could not inflate my BCD because I still had my finger on the dump. I sorted it out and was fine but those dives convinced me to get my own equipment.

Passive panic, that is a good term. I had not thought about that before.

I've run my tank down to where it was getting hard to suck...hundreds of times. Mostly while commercial golf ball diving where it was shallow (5-15 ft deep) and often too dirty to see a pressure gage. In the Ocean, I have run out twice, once in Maine while solo and without a pony bottle in 60 feet and another time in 125 feet while spearfishing solo chasing a fish, but i had a 6 cu-ft pony bottle.

I've had 3 occasions where i can remember divers needing air on the bottom. On one occasion, years ago, I had no power inflator, no octopus, a bag of heavy lobsters, a pole spear, little air (maybe 350 psi) and my roomate/buddy signals share air at 90 feet. I grabbed him and we took off kicking and i was not really excited about buddy breeathing, so I did not give him my only reg,,, I figured he still had bubbles coming out and he would take it when he needed it. We went directly to the surface without any stops and he never took my reg. The other two occasions, i donated a secondary and we had an uneventful ascent.
Oh yeah once on a 190 ft wreck dive , I had my tank valve barely open and it got hard to breath on the bottom.. does that count?

Aaaaa, you are a cowboy!

I have noticed that the DMs here on some of our SoCal boats like to check if your air is on for you before you dive. I don't like that. So far I have been polite about it but they come up behind you while you are geared up and turn your valve off a little (that 1/4 turn back) often without you noticing. I haven't found a way to politely speak up about that yet but I will. I am going to wait until I am a little better known on each boat and then ask the DM not to do that.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I check people's valves myself often. As long as you return it to the location you found it, you have done no harm... and you can then ask the diver if they want their air on or not..

I always thought it kinda funny that some divers will trust a stranger to deliver life saving air at 100 ft in an emergency, but the same buddy is not qualified to double check a valve position on the boat ??? weird...

 

[Bratface]

This happened when my buddy didn't get his tank changed over and didn't check his air before a second dive. He was carrying his camera and we were diving in a group. He swam up to me and gave me the out of air signal. I thought he was kidding as we had only been in the water for about 15 minutes. When I realized he wan't joking, I gave him my primary and I switched to my secondary. I banged on my tank to signal to the group that we were going up but they didn't hear us. Finally when we were beginning to ascend, a few of them came over and we signaled we were ok and went to the surface. It went well and my buddy learned an important lesson to always check his own air, not rely on dive crew to do it before taking that giant stride. I also realized that I need to stick closer to my camera toting buddy. He says he wished he had a picture of me when I realized he really was out of air. He said my eyes were a big as saucers.