Equipment My first out of air situation

[ispasov]

You've got 30 dives, and all your own gear, yet you consider yourself a newbie and you act like one.

Not monitoring your air, not taking the DM's octo when you were already breathing hard were huge mistakes, offering your primary reg to the DM to see if you were doing something "wrong" when you were obviously OOA, completing your safety stop when you AND the DM are BOTH out of air were others, although that last one is on the DM although it's hard to believe there is such a level of incompetence in a supposedly trained professional that would require both of you to make an emergency ascent from safety stop depth and risk an AGE because you just HAD to complete that last 60 seconds of safety stop following a relatively shallow dive. I don't think I've seen this level of combined ineptitude in a single dive.

Where was your dive buddy when all of this was happening?

Of course I am. You just pointed out couple of mistakes and I absolutely agree with those. That's the reason why I posted here, so that experts can point out to my mistakes and I and others like me can learn from them and we all become better divers.

Edit: In my defense - I monitor my gas every couple of minutes. Please check the graph that I posted. That happened almost instantly. I handed over my primary to the DM, because on it there was a breathing adjuster. Now I know what that is, back then I didn't. Part of was hoping that he will rotate that I could start breathing out of it again.

 

[ispasov]

Again, where was your buddy while all this was happening?

As soon as I couldn't breathe I went straight to the DM. My buddy was behind us, but I think he didn't realize what was going on because we were in bad visibility.

 

[ispasov]

The topic changed a lot. My intention was not to point fingers at other divers and judging their competences and reactions. I was trying to understand which peace of my gear failed and what can I do to reduce the chance of that happening again. So far the main suspects are either the tank or the regulator correct?

 

[rongoodman]

The topic changed a lot. My intention was not to point fingers at other divers and judging their competences and reactions. I was trying to understand which peace of my gear failed and what can I do to reduce the chance of that happening again. So far the main suspects are either the tank or the regulator correct?

It looks like it. Even if you buy and maintain your own regulator there's no way to protect against crud and water in the bottom of poorly maintained rental tanks. That's why you have a buddy or some other form of redundant gas supply.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Since we were using DIN regulators, is it possible for the o-ring to have fallen during the setup process without me noticing? I can't remember if it was on the reg when I disassembled my gear.

No if you are using DIN and you have no O Ring when you open the tank valve the DIN will not be sealed and gas will scream out. You cannot miss it.

 

[tmrqs]

How in the world would a DM allow both of you to run out of his gas supply? And continue the safety stop to completion from the 2 minute mark despite both of you drawing hard on the last gas in the tank and the dive being relatively shallow?. How in the word did neither one of you know to grab the DMs octo given that you were obviously drawing the last few breaths of available gas from your tank?

And why would you pass the primary to check if you "were doing something wrong" despite you knowing your tank was empty as you had checked the pressure? You've got at least 30 dives...

How many newly minted divers use air integration anyway?

It's unbelievable.

I used AI by dive #8.

 

[bcaderunr]

Hello fellow divers. I'm a newcomer to the diving hobby. I got OW certified this year and have only 30 dives .On my 30th dive I experienced an out of air situation. Please help me understand what happened and if I did something wrong.

I am a very cautions about my air consumption and normally I check my air once every couple of minutes. Here is what happened:

I was in a group of 6-8 people diving in Greece. At about 30 minutes from the start of the dive I checked my air and I had around 110 BAR. We were at 22 meters. Couple of minutes later we spotted a nice octopus and I was checking it out and having a super nice time. At about minute 35 I noticed that taking a breath started to require a lot of effort, like something was blocking my hoses. Looking at my computer I saw that I only had 3 BAR left . I immediately went to the dive master and gave him the out of air signal. He understood me and double-checked my computer. He offered me his backup 2nd stage, but I didn't take it immediately, because I was still breathing (harder and harder, but still doable). We slowly started going up. I positioned myself very close to his octo, so that in case I run out of air completely I can grab it relatively quickly. I wasn't in panic at all, but I still had a strange feeling of uncertainty. Shortly after, I ran out of air completely, gave my DM the signal again and he passed me his octo. So far so good, I was finally able to take a normal breath. We continued going up, but from time to time we had to stop and wait for the others, because we were in a very bad visibility. We made it to around 5 meters and we started our safety stop. During the stop I passed him my primary so he can double-check if I was really out of air (by then I was still thinking that maybe I was doing something wrong). He confirmed. At minute 2 of the safety stop I had the same feeling again - taking a breath required a lot of effort and I was not able to take a full breath - clear sign the DM's tanks was running low. We finished our safety stop. By the end of it there was no air inside the tank. That was no problem, we ascended safely and I remembered to blow bubbles on the way up (huge thanks to Gus and Woody from Dive Talk).

I am loosing sleep over what actually happened. Maybe something blew up and all of my gas went out. I don't think so, because I expect such event to be noisy. I didn't hear that. I am a beginner diver and I am working on my trim a lot. That day I noticed that when I was adjusting my trim (upper body going up or down) I was hearing bubbles going out. I was thinking that these were not bubbles, but rather the air inside my BCD moving (how stupid was I....). That happened multiple times. I believe that's how I lost my air. However, these adjustments were happening over a period of time. According to my computer I lost my air in a very short time. I don't know what to trust - what I heard or what my computer is telling me. According to the DM it was sort of malfunction in the regulator, because it was due for a service. I am confused I am also wondering if I tightened the 1st stage to tank good enough. These were DIN tanks.

What do you think? What possibly happened that day? Have I done something wrong and what can I do to reduce the risk of that happening again? I am buying a set of personal regulators so that I can be responsible for cleaning and maintaining them.

Here is a photo of the air chart for your reference:

View attachment 914044

I keep looking at this time series and am trying to understand what might produce this graphic -- and the OP's experience. Since the transmitting sensor connects directly to a high pressure port on the first stage, the only rational explanation that fits the facts is a clogged first stage from debris in the tank.

The receiver in the Op's computer gets a near empty reading as soon as a significant blockage occurs. It appears to have briefly cleared at T=40 only to have "junked up" again a minute later. All the time, the OP is breathing the tank down despite the significant resistance.

A tear-down of the first stage might (and should) reveal the presence of particles or some other solid contaminant. And, shout out to the OP. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ispasov]

I keep looking at this time series and am trying to understand what might produce this graphic -- and the OP's experience. Since the transmitting sensor connects directly to a high pressure port on the first stage, the only rational explanation that fits the facts is a clogged first stage from debris in the tank.

The receiver in the Op's computer gets a near empty reading as soon as a significant blockage occurs. It appears to have briefly cleared at T=40 only to have "junked up" again a minute later. All the time, the OP is breathing the tank down despite the significant resistance.

A tear-down of the first stage might (and should) reveal the presence of particles or some other solid contaminant. And, shout out to the OP. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks a lot for your reply. That makes sense and is possibly the answer I was looking for. Sadly that was a rental regulator and I cannot take it somewhere to be examined. How can we protect ourselves from situations like you described? Generally, we go to a nice holiday and we almost always get the tanks from the dive shop. Debris from poorly maintained tanks can clog any regulator (in my opinion), regardless of brands, reg design, cost or how well we maintain them.

 

[lizardland]

What was the rest of the dive data? In particular, what was your depth profile and cylinder size?

Going by the chart you've posted and assuming it was a 12l cylinder then that's looking something like 1200 litres of air in around 35 minutes. And if most of the dive was around 20m then that works out to a very low air consumption. Like a hell of a lot lower than you would expect from an inexperienced diver lacking confidence.

The other thing that stands out is that the DM ran out of air after a fairly short period of sharing. That suggests to me that he was actually pretty low on air at the start of the ascent as well.

My guess is that your computer was misreading the pressure and for whatever reason around the 35 minute mark it kicked back in and started showing a true reading. Given that the DM appears to have been low on air then it seems reasonable that an inexperienced diver would be at or near zero without anything disastrous needing to have happened.

According to the DM it was sort of malfunction in the regulator, because it was due for a service. I am confused I am also wondering if I tightened the 1st stage to tank good enough. These were DIN tanks.

A regulator won't fail like that just because it's due a service. At least, a decent regulator that has been looked after won't. If it was a catastrophic leak that you (and everyone else) somehow managed to not notice then that's not just because a reg needed a service. He's fobbing you off and trying to normalise an event that was far from normal. Probably because he realises there was a lot of failings.

If you hadn't tightened the DIN valve then you'd know the minute you turned the air on. It would be undiveable. It won't just work loose during a dive either. If it seats enough to form a seal then the amount of force you have to apply to undo it without turning off the air and purging the reg is substantial. There is always the chance you hit that magic point between seated and unseated but it's extremely unlikely that was the issue.

I can only add to the two main things that others have pointed out. Doing a discretionary safety stop in an out of air situation isn't a gamble I'd take. You can get unbent a lot easier than you can get undrowned. Not taking the octopus when offered was also a mistake for all the reasons pointed out by everyone else.

 

[davehicks]

This thread is going in circles with finger pointing and wind conjecture about debris clogged regulators. A new diver is asking for feedback after a dive mishap. Don't pummel the person. This is how we all learn from mistakes.

The scenario described is exactly the experience of a half opened tank valve. Simplest explanation.