buddy out of air emergency...and the lessons learned

[Darnold9999]

Good job Les.

Re your own air consumption - now you know what happens in a real situation. You didn't panic, and you know how much air you go through in a real emergency. Surprising isn't it!

Re finding out that you buddy was just newly certified, I feel for you. Had a similar experience last week. Too many people don't want to reveal their lack of experience before a dive. If my buddy had simply told me "first cold water dive in years" the whole dive would have gone much better. Instead I got "I have 40 dives, no problems". He hit the water and was in trouble from moment one. As you said if you had known you would have been a bit more attentive to everything up front and probably wouldn't have planned that deep a dive.

Advice to new divers - tell your new buddy exactly what your experience level is. We will still go diving with you, but will probably spend a bit more time making sure you are OK and ready for the dive. In my case I would have left the camera on the boat for a dive. This would have made catching you as you sank like a stone, and clearing your mask from your hood much easier In Les's case he would have double checked your air - caught the problem - and shown you how to test yourself for a valve only partly open.

 

[Darnold9999]

It doesn't work that way with some AI computers with a partially opened valve as I found out. You need the check the valve.

Good to know if I ever go that route.

 

[TheRedHead]

BTW, I think the new OOA diver handled himself extremely well.

 

[rdharbis1]

Great Job Les.

In my training, we were taught to never remove the primary reg from our mouths. Our OOA buddy was to have access, either we donated or they took it, from our 'buddy' regulator. I have not yet been to AOW and I certainly need more training, is this the advanced method for maybe Rescue Diving. Just an opinion, but it seems that both divers become at risk when you donate your source and begin looking for the other reg.

Not a flame here by me in any fashion. I am curious and want to understand this better, it is obviously very important and I want to be doing it the right way. My buddy, who is primarily my wife or son, depends on this!

Anyway, great job under pressure.

Randy

 

[Sideband]

He is diving different gear than you are used to. His backup reg. is on a 2' hose and is bungied around his neck. His primary reg is on a 7' hose and is the one that gets donated.

Joe

 

[ClayJar]

Regarding the quarter-turn idea, here's something for you...

I've spent a lot of time on cattle boats with classes from my LDS also aboard. One thing I've seen a lot is cracking the valve to check how much air is in the tank. In my limited experience, this seems to be a very bad practice and the cause of all the air-wasn't-on incidents I've personally witnessed (thankfully, only incidents and no accidents).

My advice to the new divers (and to anyone not new who still has the ability to learn) is that when you turn your valve, your hand doesn't come away from the knob until the valve is either all the way open or all the way closed. I'll crack the tank to check the pressure, but my hand doesn't leave the knob with the valve cracked.

With the valve cracked, you can turn it a quarter turn closed, hit the stop, think "okay, it's all the way", and open it again a quarter turn. With it closed all the way, that can't happen, and you'll certainly see the SPG crash when you breath a couple pre-descent breaths.

To put it succintly, while the quarter-turn problem has problems in itself, I believe that (at least in the case of relatively new divers), the "crack the valve to check the pressure... and then leave it there" problem is far more significant (unless you're on a really bad boat with some really hungover crew, which I haven't had the displeasure of ever seeing ).

 

[DanBMW]

It doesn't work that way with some AI computers with a partially opened valve as I found out. You need the check the valve.

You are correct and I learned something today. THANKS

If you are using an air integrated computer, the movement can be very slight. What I said only works for an analog SPG, and not all of the time. The only sure way to know is to be sure that it is turned on. Not a bad idea to practice turning it on in the water. If you can't reach back, you can always remove your BC/BPW and do the deed. No need to struggle.

 

[TxHockeyGuy]

You are correct and I learned something today. THANKS

If you are using an air integrated computer, the movement can be very slight. What I said only works for an analog SPG, and not all of the time. The only sure way to know is to be sure that it is turned on. Not a bad idea to practice turning it on in the water. If you can't reach back, you can always remove your BC/BPW and do the deed. No need to struggle.

I see this advice given all the time and I wanted to pipe in here that watching the SPG does not work all of the time (emphasis in above quote also added by me). I tried turning my valve on only a quarter of a turn and my SPG did not move at all, no matter how hard I breathed. Don't count on this always catching this problem.

 

[Jasonmh]

You did a check at 20', 30', 50' and 70', good for you. Alot of people don't even do that much. At the end the most important thing happened, everyone returned safely, so kudos on the good job.

This is my first time posting in this part of the site. I have been involved in small situations while diving but this one I feel is worth posting. FYI. I am OW, AOW,Nitrox,Rescue trained.
Sunday, a dive with 2 others, one of which is a new DM and his friend. Get a dive plan organized while gearing up. We get into the water @ Whytecliff to check out the anenome gardens. descend at the point and meet at the bottom(20') group check. I am lead, buddy #1, then the DM. everyone signals OK. 30' recheck group, OK signalled back. Same for 50'. Get to 70' and I turn to recheck buddies. Buddies are there, but as I signal OK, buddy #1 is signalling out of air. (I have practiced many times U/W but as drills. You never want to have it actually happen). Now my bad but for a split second, my first thought was "we did not talk about doing drills", especially @ 70'. Then realizing that whether or not a drill buddy needs air! I pull my long hosed primary and hand to buddy and plug my face with backup. Buddy is more than glad to have my reg in his mouth. BUT not first fighting to get the reg. I have had this happen in drills where I grab the reg hose too close to the reg and buddy cannot accept it because my hand was in the way. but I am worried that the reg will swivel and freeflow. Anyhow, I was getting stressed and breathing heavy due to this being my first situation like this.
We all ascended. Everyone OK at the surface. I asked what happened when everything WAS ok. Buddy says his air was on and he had read his guage pressure to me at the parking lot predive. I get thinking and sure enough his tank valve was BARELY turned open. He thanked me so much.
My other concern was for the DM following. At this point I also find valuable info, as the buddy was a week out of his open water training!!!! Had I known that before we should not have gone to 70' in the first place and a more rigorous safety check in the lot. Why did the DM not see any distress in the diver ahead of him. ie. bubbles or lack of, stressed movements. I am just darn glad I turned around when I did to see the signal for OOA!!!!! That is something I am always doing is checking buddies for OK and psi on any dive.
Lessons learned:
- always find out as much info about who you are diving with predive!
- practice drills of all kinds OFTEN so that handling emergencies will come second nature
- take training ie: courses to better oneself. It may save a life oneday!
- recheck with buddies often.
- in my mind, while ascending, I thought about what I had just been thru. I thought about the steps I had followed and what could I have changed if given a second chance (under simulation of course ).
1) passing the reg
2) slow breathing down. I admit I was stressed and that can be a bad thing for the rescuer.
3) I thought of my OW training and the instructors training.
- regain control..... of yourself
- respond..... to the situation
- react..... in a safe manner

I hope this can be read by all and I am open to critique and feedback. End result, making better divers out of all of us and learn from others mistakes...small or big.
safe diving,
Les

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Sounds like you handled the OOA situtation perfectly to me.

I was also somewhat surprised by my own reaction when I was first presented with my buddy showing me a gage that read "zero" at 100 feet. Maybe I was a little narced, but the first emotion I felt was not fear. but anger. I immediately screamed "if you see kay U" and then gave her the regulator from my mouth. We made an uneventful ascent, but when we got there her first words were "did you say ........?" which I think we both thought was pretty funny, especially since she was my wife's boss.