Question CESA - Have You Ever Done It?

[VikingDives]

Right before I started teaching on my own I have a couple of giant classes. One of the classes was being taught by my AI, under my supervision.

I got out of the water with my class, and told her I'd be right back as I needed to change tanks (she was teaching surface skills). I hopped out, changed my tank and opened it, it was about 3000 psi. I walked away for a minute to eat something, came back and put on my wing.

When I got to the water, my AI was raring to go and told the students to descend as I looked at my pressure gauge and saw 1700 psi. Confused I started to descend with the class thinking, "I have enough gas for this dive."

My face was itchy so I removed my mask to scratch it. As I scratched, I felt the familiar stop that indicated that I was out of gas. I tried to breathe one more time, and getting the same result, I swam to the surface to sort myself out. I wasn't uncomfortable or nervous, but by that time I'd probably done 500ish CESAs with students in the pool and in open water.

 

[TMHeimer]

I didn't vote because I frequently practice CESAs from 30 feet or shallower, figuring it's a skill I should know since I always dive solo, mostly to those depths. There are a few threads on this, particularly posing the question of whether it should still be taught in the OW course and pointing out that you should never be separated from a buddy so should never need to do it for real (equipment failure when separated from a buddy never happens... I guess...). So yes, I've done many voluntary CESAs over 19 years of diving with no ill effects.