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

[herman]

Never by accident but several times on purpose- 5 feet of water and 10 feet from shore in a spot I know very well. Tanks needed vis any way and IMO it's good to know exactly how your reg actually responds to very low air pressures. I can tell you that anyone who says they are going along wtih no signs of any problems and suddenly the reg stops working because they are OOA is full of BS. Once your tank drops below the regs IP pressure- 140ish for most regs, the reg gets more and more difficult to breath from with each breath but it's over a span of several minutes, not instantly and the last dozen or so breaths are like sucking mud through a straw, you get air but you have to work for it. It's an experience you should try in a VERY controlled setting, it is nothing at all like the OOA demo where your gas is cut off at the tank. There is no excuse for being OOA (short of major equipment failure) to start with but you have to totally ignore what your equipment is telling you to end up in a real OOA.

 

[g1138]

Never OOA, but below 500psi once. At the time felt like I was going to be OOA, till I remembered that 500psi means 500psi, as in you can still breathe past that point. Who knew!? :shocked2:.
I was wrapping up a training dive for my scientific certification. My buddy and I finished our last transect and bolted for the nearby clearing in the kelp forest. We did our safety stop above a max depth of 40ft. We both started with roughly 600psi. I looked at my gauge one second then look to my right. No buddy. Looked left, up and down, no buddy. I thought he might have descended to do a swimming safety stop through the kelp (something we had discussed).

I never got the "Let's swim" signal, but I assumed I must've missed it. I descended till the bottom was in view and found nothing. I did another 360 again and decided to rise to the surface. Found my buddy clumped up in some kelp (camouflaged from the bottom). Checked my gauge for about the 50th time during that "safety stop" and read a sliver below 500psi.
"Crap my instructor is not going to be happy" I thought. I was pissed with my buddy.

We made up for it on the last day though. Nailed all our data sheets with air to spare.

 

[highdesert]

Many dives intentionally finished at 100-300 psi, cruising the reef top at 10-20 fsw rather than surface.

 

[ShakaZulu]

30% of all airplane accidents if cause the plane ran out of gas!!

 

[Indy Diver]

Once. But I started the dive with only 450 psi, so it wasn't totally unexpected. It was at the end of a dive at a local quarry - I decended back down to a 15 foot training platform with a couple of small weights to fine tune my buoyancy. While I was taking off a larger weight and replacing it with a smaller one I had set on the platform, it started to get hard to breath. The SPG still read a little over 250psi, but I was definitely just about OOG.

 

[knowone]

Can not stand surfacing during horizontal rec diving so have always
experimented with different tanks, capacities, and gear configurations
treating every dive as an overhead navigation dive, constantly trying to
conduct back to entry point when conditions permit mandates so when I'm
doing vertical diving, gas remaining, and location is a less threatening issue.

 

[TMHeimer]

I also run it way low when on familiar 20-30' shore dives. Once at 120' I spent too much time locating the anchor line (because I knew I had my pony). Finished the safety stop USING the pony. Never again.

 

[Sas]

Never been low or out of gas without it being a deliberate choice, not even close.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Never by accident but several times on purpose- 5 feet of water and 10 feet from shore in a spot I know very well. Tanks needed vis any way and IMO it's good to know exactly how your reg actually responds to very low air pressures. I can tell you that anyone who says they are going along wtih no signs of any problems and suddenly the reg stops working because they are OOA is full of BS. Once your tank drops below the regs IP pressure- 140ish for most regs, the reg gets more and more difficult to breath from with each breath but it's over a span of several minutes, not instantly and the last dozen or so breaths are like sucking mud through a straw, you get air but you have to work for it. It's an experience you should try in a VERY controlled setting, it is nothing at all like the OOA demo where your gas is cut off at the tank. There is no excuse for being OOA (short of major equipment failure) to start with but you have to totally ignore what your equipment is telling you to end up in a real OOA.

I agree with everything said here, except I'd add that the deeper you are the quicker things happen. Just because you feel comfortable "sucking" 8 or so breaths at 100 psi in 10 foot deep water, does not mean you will be able to "suck" a whole breath at 50 feet.

 

[Teamcasa]

Years ago with J-valves, yes, quite often. With modern gear, twice as a result of gear failure otherwise, no.