Out of air incident

[elan]

I see far too many divers "sip" their air during their pre-dive checks, afraid of using up too much of their precious air before diving. Any diver diving with me, I make sure they take a couple of deep full breaths off their reg while watching gauges.

One of the predive check items that I was taught in my technical course was to inflate the wing until it the valves pop and then push down on the inflated wing with full force to make sure it holds the gas. And we were doing it with Trimix A bit more expensive than air. I remember someone made a comment about how expensive it is to do that check blabla The instructor made some jokes about it at the time. During one of the following training dives my buddy got his wing "malfunctioned" - he "lost" (the instructor unscrewed it) the dump valve. And were watching us struggling with maintaining buoyancy - it was a total catastrophe on the bottom of 20ft lake.

Guess what, no one was asking any questions anymore and trying to save "precious" gas. Every dive onward I check all the valves and do the pop-check , how I call it, trimix or not.

 

[cerich]

One of the predive check items that I was taught in my technical course was to inflate the wing until it the valves pop and then push down on the inflated wing with full force to make sure it holds the gas. And we were doing it with Trimix A bit more expensive than air. I remember someone made a comment about how expensive it is to do that check blabla The instructor made some jokes about it at the time. During one of the following training dives my buddy got his wing "malfunctioned" - he "lost" (the instructor unscrewed it) the dump valve. And were watching us struggling with maintaining buoyancy - it was a total catastrophe on the bottom of 20ft lake.

Guess what, no one was asking any questions anymore and trying to save "precious" gas. Every dive onward I check all the valves and do the pop-check , how I call it, trimix or not.

avoid that instructor

 

[elan]

avoid that instructor

Why?

 

[cerich]

Why?

because removing a dump valve in a lake at 20 ft of depth is stupid. Teaching tech there is NEVER a good reason for an instructor to disable a students equipment that could snowball and kill them. You can meet the same learning objectives without putting the student at unnecessary risk.

 

[Wibble]

It's far better experience for the students. It's amazing how a dump "blowing off" is confusing until you finally deduce what's going on.

Scuba is dangerous. A 6m/20ft depth isn't deep and the instructor's there to sort things out.

 

[elan]

because removing a dump valve in a lake at 20 ft of depth is stupid. Teaching tech there is NEVER a good reason for an instructor to disable a students equipment that could snowball and kill them. You can meet the same learning objectives without putting the student at unnecessary risk.

I will politely disagree and will leave it at that.

 

[cerich]

I will politely disagree and will leave it at that.

What agency allows you to remove dump valve and disable your students BCD?

I have been a tech instructor a fair bit of time (since early 95) and teaching tech instructors for the last 20 years.

Beyond the additional risk to student, it is impossible to defend from a liability perspective.

 

[Wibble]

For the OP - @Lovestardust ... The important thing is to do a flow-check; breathing from each side, checking the pressures and checking the valves are fully open (and back off a gnats tadger).

Your incident's an interesting one and quite rare too. Normally the valves would be more closed or sufficiently open to breathe from at depth. In your case it was the "Cinderella" turn: not too much, not too little which resulted in your OOG.

Well done for dealing with it. It's extremely disconcerting when you take a breath and there's nothing there. It is training that arrests the panic. Training's all about practice; the fantastic thing about sidemount is you've two completely independent gas sources and the valves are easily accessible by your side so you can easily manipulate them in extremis.


Kudos for sharing your story. We all learn.

 

[cerich]

It's far better experience for the students. It's amazing how a dump "blowing off" is confusing until you finally deduce what's going on.

Scuba is dangerous. A 6m/20ft depth isn't deep and the instructor's there to sort things out.

see my reply above.

I can easily reach the same training outcome without removing the dump valve, disabling the BCD in a manner that can't be quickly rectified.

 

[Wibble]

What agency allows you to remove dump valve and disable your students BCD?

I have been a tech instructor a fair bit of time (since early 95) and teaching tech instructors for the last 20 years.

Beyond the additional risk to student, it is impossible to defend from a liability perspective.

We need to agree to disagree.

I want a real beasting from my courses. Pussyfooting around is of absolutely no use to me when I'm diving in that big cruel ocean that is more than happy to recycle my corpse to the animals.

see my reply above.

I can easily reach the same training outcome without removing the dump valve, disabling the BCD in a manner that can't be quickly rectified.

Then the student should bloody well sort their skills out. Use their alternate buoyancy -- drysuit or put up one of their SMBs.

Neptune is happy to claim another soul.