Buddy Breathing

[Diver0001]

Statistically it is safer to not teach or practice buddy breathing than to have that "tool."

I would like to ask you to cite a source for that.

I personally know of cases where buddy breathing saved a life (mine... I think I posted about that in this thread). I also know of someone (who we rescued 10 minutes after he drowned from a botched air-share) that might not have had an accident if he had known buddy breathing.

I'm not saying that two examples of the specific mean it's going to work for everyone, but if you're going to postulate that it's safer not to know it, then I think you'll need to back that up with facts.

If it is required for YOUR diving to have that skill, well practice it. I dive only with recreational limits but I am still much, much more likely for me to be OOA and have to share air with a rebreather or technical diver (probably on a custom mix) than for me to be OOA and my buddy's alternate fail in some magical mode where it doesn't provide air necessitating a BB.

You're assuming this is the only possible circumstance in which you might need or want to share a single air-source.

I know for a fact that this isn't true. A botched air-share like the one I described earlier in this thread might easily lead to another diver taking your primary. I think it's important for everyone to have *some* exposure to that possibility and to be prepared to think on their feet when air shares don't go like they did in the swimming pool.

Real life emergencies tend to not go quite the way they did in the controlled environment of a course. In reality, people spaz out and wierd things happen. It's best if we're prepared for that.

R..

 

[Thalassamania]

Get with the times Thal, DCI is a term used to describe DCS and AGE. Hell it's even in the current PADI open water manual.

The PADI manual is hardly the arbiter of medical terminology. Last time I checked DCI was replacing DCS as an equal term; but AGE was NOT included in either, since it does not stem from decompression, but rather from physical gas expansion.

 

[Sloth]

The PADI manual is hardly the arbiter of medical terminology....

We can both agree on that!

DAN Divers Alert Network : Decompression Illness: What Is It and What Is The Treatment?

UHMS also recommended phasing out the term type I through IV for describing DCS and I believe that has happened as well.

 

[Thalassamania]

The "type" designation for DCI has been on the way out for a long time.

Despite DAN's article, it is rather unclear who's opinion was being expressed - Ed's been dead for six years, Joel is an R.N. and Renée I do not know.

In any case, we are just arguing semantics, the effects do not change or the causes.

 

[Captain Bil]

Since I am the person who wrote that standard I guess you've come to the right place with your question. The NAUI standard is not a prohibition against conducting any sort of watermanship test that you might wish to have ... you can have a 5 mile swim if you want. But many good and prudent instructors realized that it only takes a few strokes to see if someone knows how to swim well, you can sort them out rather quickly. So the standard was worded that why to permit the sort of evaluation that I know to work well, without limiting what might be done. It is only silly when you bring a PADI minimum standard mindset to the evaluation process.

While I respect your position, I still disagree in principle. The old standard served two purposes for me. First, it established that a prospective student could in fact swim and was comfortable in the water. Secondly, it also established that the prospective student had some general physical fitness. 15 strike cycles is not enough to establish either. Too often, as a charter captain, I have had to send a deckhand (or myself) out to a diver who has surfaced behind my boat and cannot make the swim back against even a gentle current.

True, an instructor is free to go beyond this minimum, but how many do? I posit that many see the lax standard as an okay to accept students who clearly have no business in the water. Indeed, with what I see regularly all summer long on my dive boat, there are way too many divers with C Cards who have no business with them.

Having standards for evaluation holds the instructor to accepting only those with a minimum skill set as students. If I follow your line of reasoning, why should I have them complete 5 dives for OW certification? I should be able to to determine their abilities after only one or two dives. Do you see what I am getting at? I find this sort of watering down of standards to be of no long term benefit to anyone. Indeed, it really appears to benefit only the certifying agencies and dive gear retailers, and that only financially.

So in sum, I will continue to require a 200 meter swim and a demonstrated level of physical fitness of any prospective students, and will reject those who cannot meet those standards. True, I won't have as many students as some others, but my students don't just learn to dive, they become divers. There is a difference.

 

[Captain Bil]

Buddy breathing is dangerous. For it to be required by the modern diver with modern gear and modern configuration a whole host of improbable things have to happen all of which can be prevented or served by by many other more acceptable and safer strategies.

For those in the camp "well it's another tool..." do you also practice or teach breathing off of tanks? Breathing through the BC and oral inflater? Do you equip yourself with a 3rd second stage? A 4th? How many redundant air sources do you carry? Do you know how to buddy breath/share air with a rebreather diver? How good is your knowledge of trimix gas tables in the event that you need to share air with a trimix diver? Do you know how to deploy another diver's pony?

There is a point where "all" the ways a life can be saved just are not required to be taught. Statistically it is safer to not teach or practice buddy breathing than to have that "tool." If it is required for YOUR diving to have that skill, well practice it. I dive only with recreational limits but I am still much, much more likely for me to be OOA and have to share air with a rebreather or technical diver (probably on a custom mix) than for me to be OOA and my buddy's alternate fail in some magical mode where it doesn't provide air necessitating a BB.

Kudos to the agency which will spend more time on real skills rather than vintage memories.

VI

Wow..

 

[Thalassamania]

While I respect your position, I still disagree in principle. The old standard served two purposes for me. First, it established that a prospective student could in fact swim and was comfortable in the water. Secondly, it also established that the prospective student had some general physical fitness. 15 strike cycles is not enough to establish either. Too often, as a charter captain, I have had to send a deckhand (or myself) out to a diver who has surfaced behind my boat and cannot make the swim back against even a gentle current.

I agree with you. I wrote that standard before the PADIfication of the industry, before a concept of just sliding by with the minimum existed. If I were redoing it today I'd probably argue for the 400 meters that I require and compromise back to the 200 meters that you do, with recommending language for 400.

True, an instructor is free to go beyond this minimum, but how many do? I posit that many see the lax standard as an okay to accept students who clearly have no buiness in the water. Indeed, with what I see regularly all summer long on my dive boat, there are way too many divers with C Cards who have no business with them.

No argument here.

Having standards for evaluation holds the instructor to accepting only those with a minimum skill set as students. If I follow your line of reasoning, why should I have them complete 5 dives for OW certification? I should be able to to determine their abilities after only one or two dives. Do you see what I am getting at? I find this sort of watering down of standards to be of no long term benefit to anyone. Indeed, it really appears to benefit only the certifying agencies and dive gear retailers, and that only financially.

It was not intended as a "watering" down, it was not intended really as a "requirement" but rather as a procedure for determining watermanship. If it is, in fact, being used by NAUI Instructors as a minimum requirement and people who can dogpaddle 15 strokes with difficulty are being taken into NAUI courses, I have to say that I am very sorry for any contribution that I made to that occurring.

So in sum, I will continue to require a 200 meter swim and a demonstrated level of physical fitness of any prospective students, anentd will reject those who cannot meet those standards. True, I won't have as many students as some others, but my students don't just learn to dive, they become divers. There is a difference.

You are right, that's why I use a 400 meter swim test.

 

[Sloth]

The "type" designation for DCI has been on the way out for a long time.

Despite DAN's article, it is rather unclear who's opinion was being expressed - Ed's been dead for six years, Joel is an R.N. and Renée I do not know.

In any case, we are just arguing semantics, the effects do not change or the causes.

Sorry but if DAN adopts a term I'll take it as gospel.

Regardless, replace DCI with AGE in my posts I dont think you would disagree with me in saying that for someone not trained to do so a CESA from 100ft has its risks of over expansion injuries.

Besides we both agree on the general principle of keeping buddy breathing around so lets leave it at that

 

[Thalassamania]

Here's the issue, and perhaps it's a fine point, but I think not.

AGE is a barotrauma, the result of improper management of your glottis during an ascent. It does not matter if it is four feet, forty feet, or one hundred feet ... if you keep your airway open ... you're gonna be ok.

DCI (DCS) is gas-in-solution/gas-out-of-solution problem, the result of taking up too much inert gas (a function of time and depth) and then removing the surrounding pressure too quickly. A predetermined ascent rate is a integral part of the decompression model and ultimately defines the no-D time itself. Think about the extremes: a 300 FPM ascent is fine for a very short exposure to 300 FSW while a 1 ft/hr ascent rate will work for almost any fully saturated situation. There is a very narrow window, close to the n-D limit, in which a too fast ascent will, in and of itself, result in DCI. To put it in the positive, faster ascents are quite tolerable for dives that are well under the no-D limit. Thus an increased DCI issue only comes into play, in the discussion of ESAs or even EBAs when the ascent is begun in a near the no-D limit state.

This is why I think it somewhat important to maintain the separation of the two phenomena, at least for this discussion.

 

[Sloth]

Thal would you be happy if I replaced the term DCI with AGE in all my posts on the topic? lol

AGE is a very common diving injury. Divers are taught to keep their air way open from day one yet AGEs still continue to happen.

Why is it assumed an inexperienced diver will remember to keep his air way open while panicked during a CESA?

Personally I think CESA should be the last ditch option after buddy breathing but that might just be me.

Buoyanct ascent shouldn't be on the table since a diver shouldnt be diving so over weighted that they cant do a CESA but I guess it's fair to keep it as an option when so many divers do over weight themselves.