SCUBA = Life support?

Do you consider SCUBA life support equipment?

  • Yes

    Votes: 62 71.3%
  • No

    Votes: 20 23.0%
  • Other (I'll explain)

    Votes: 5 5.7%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    87

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I picked "Other."

Past about 50-60 feet then I consider my regulator and tank to be life support. I don't know from how deep I can make a free ascent at my age but I can probably still free dive to 50 feet. I think.

I do not consider a BC to be life support. I dived for nearly 45 years without ever using one. Under certain conditions a snorkel might be life support, and a wetsuit could be too. Fins could be critical under certain conditions too. I don't consider a computer to be life support because I've never used one. A flashlight could be life-saving if stranded or abandoned, but that is not necessarily the same thing. SPG? They are quite handy however my first 1500 dives (give or take) were without one so no, not life-support equipment.
 
Other...no in that for my life to continue as is at this moment I don't need it but....

Yes for any dive that is planned to last longer than a couple mins. It becomes necessary if you wish to continue to live.

Although people can "blow and go" from more than 100' and survive uninjured, there is a real risk of serious out injury or death from that experience.

So surface swimming while on scuba no, it is not life support and that would be dumb unless you're in the Atlanta aquarium and they make you do it.

Any dive that you plan to be completely submerged for more than a few mins. Yes.

So maybe I should change to yes.....

Another way to ask is would you consider it life support if it was your daughter, son, or wife was diving it? Adding loved ones into the equation may change answers. Of course it life support if their daughter is diving it and they would treat it as such.
 
Scuba gear is not life support and it does not keep you alive underwater. Air does that. Air deserves the "life support" tag that salesmen love to hang on gear to make new divers spend more. (My personal favorite, directly from the instructor who certified me, is "Isn't your life worth spending a little more on?")

Access to air is determined by diver behavior, nothing more. Buddy system, immediate access to the surface, redundancy in air sources; all these things are a basic part of training. Technical diving requires much more training (and extra gear) due to the lack of immediate surface access. But it's the training and judgement that matter.

Scuba gear is sporting equipment. It can fail at any time for any reason. Divers survive these failures on a regular basis.
 
IMHO, you could say YES or NO to the question and be right. Hence my answer of "other". I won't bore you with a long explanation but, simply look at the definitions of life support and life support systems and you could support either argument.

Bottom line for me is, I don't care whether it is or isn't. Regardless of the fact that I could potentially die while scuba diving (I'd rather not), my equipment is important for me to participate in the sport safely. Consequently, my equipment, the care of my equipment, preparation, and planning is no different for a 30 foot dive than it is for a 100 foot dive (other than whether or not I'll be diving Nitrox). I'm kind of a detail oriented person and assume that the worst that could happen, will happen. That way I can at least take comfort in knowing that the surprises will be less surprising.

Fortunately, I haven't had a lot of surprises - yet (aside from throwing up in and plugging my regulator at 30 feet on my first cert dive). That's partially due to the fact that I have a lot fewer dives than most folks here. However, I know that it's only a matter of time before I experience more and bigger surprises. I also know from experiences outside of scuba diving that the more we do the same activity, the more comfortable we get, and the more complacent we become in our preparation. It's human nature. For my own safety, it's something I hope to avoid. I hope others will try to avoid it also.

Just my opinion.
 
At recreational depths I do not think of, or treat, my gear as life support equipment. I consider it a convenient alternative air source but not mandatory for survival.
I almost raised this argument a few times in other threads - it makes me cringe a little when people say, "don't skimp on your regulator, it's life support". Well, mostly just because expensive regs are the least bang for the buck compared to other gear (suits, harnesses, just more gear, as in for different types of diving), and this argument is used to make people overspend on them.

Otherwise... In tec, the combination of all your equipment (not just air supply!) is life support all the way. In rec, it depends. When rec diving, you're supposed to always be able to reasonably safely reach the surface, air or no air, otherwise you're not really rec diving. But there's a lot of stuff that's not really rec diving that is still permitted for or practiced by rec-only divers.

As to how it affects my planning, whether it's called life support doesn't.
What does is having been across the rec diving range without SCUBA and having experienced just how small a deal going there and back is. That changes your attitude towards hardware; it's no longer something that you depend on, just something that you use. It's like... hanging dramatically off the edge of a cliff, then looking down and realizing it's three feet to the bottom.

So what it changes it that I can lose air and calmly remove my gear, check what's going on, decide whether it's an easy fix or time to ascend. I don't care to spend money on high-end regs, because they breathe the same and aren't known to be more reliable anyway. I don't feel unease about rec diving with substandard gear, if I need to lend mine to someone who needs it more, or it just isn't around. Overall, I feel my gear less and feel the ocean more.
 
I almost raised this argument a few times in other threads - it makes me cringe a little when people say, "don't skimp on your regulator, it's life support". Well, mostly just because expensive regs are the least bang for the buck compared to other gear (suits, harnesses, just more gear, as in for different types of diving), and this argument is used to make people overspend on them.

I don't feel unease about rec diving with substandard gear, if I need to lend mine to someone who needs it more, or it just isn't around. Overall, I feel my gear less and feel the ocean more.

i don't consider a regulator to be "substandard" just because it cost less money to buy it. Here's how I "feel" about regulators: With a piston first stage and a standard (there's that word again!) second stage we have two extremely simple, extremely reliable machines that are extremely unlikely to fail unless they have been neglected. When you start adding "features" and make the machines more complicated it seems to me that you are introducing the possibility of greater unreliability. I am very comfortable with the simple, less expensive regulators as long as I know it consists of a piston and a spring on one end, and a diaphragm, valve seat, purge valve, and a demand valve on the other. Not much to go wrong.
 
i don't consider a regulator to be "substandard" just because it cost less money to buy it.

Since there is no sarcasm font you may have missed Blasto's intent while you read his post. The point is that regs are sold as if any but the top of the line are by definition substandard.

I use a lot of old metal seconds cause I like them and they work as well as new, and a lot of divers look at me as if I'm off to my doom because of the bulls**t dive shops use to sell their brand new top end regs. I don't mind diving "substandard" regs either.


Bob
 
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