DAN Report on Diving Fatalities

[Ken Kurtis]

Research by Edmonds and others indicated that buddy breathing is a very hard skill to learn to do properly (despite what proponents argue).

I'm not quibbling with you John but with Edmonds. I'd love to see that "research" because it's absolutely 180º from what my experience is in teaching buddy breathing to basic OW students for 30+ years.

the skill is so "hard" that we do it in the first pool session right after the equally "hard" skills of mask clearance and regulator retrieval. I find that I can get 90% of the students successfully buddy-breathing for extended periods of time very quickly (2-3 minutes of BB, until I tell them to stop and switch who's OOA). The other 10% take a little coaching but within a little while, they get the mechanics down too.

In fact, they generally all get so comfortable with it that at the end of the first class, when I send them into the deep end to "play", I tell them they can practice any of the skills we've done EXCEPT for buddy breathing. (I don't want their enthusiasm to get carried away in the deep end before i confirm they're good at the skill.) But I also tell them that I will come up to them as the OOA diver and they will buddy-breathe with me. (Gives me a good up-close look at hwo they're doing it and, if there's a problem, they've got got their own air supply.)

I generally find that I'm able to go diver-to-diver-to-diver, with me OOA the whole time, with no major problems. There are classes where I've spent 10-15 minutes without my own reg and simply subsisted on the buddy-breathing techniques of my brand new not-cetrtified only-had-one-pool-session divers.

It's NOT a hard skill to teach. Now if you, as the instructor, start with the mindset that's it's hard, I'm willing to bet your "failure" rate is higher. (Like with teaching that other "hard" concept, dive tables and deco theory.) And I'm leaning towards the thought that that's the bias of the Edmonds research.

That research also says the skill is lost quickly if not practiced regularly.

That I would agree with. I'm not sure about "quickly" but it's definitely a skill that needs to be practiced. Ideally, even if you have an octo, practice it at the start of every diving day and with every new buddy on that particular day.

A number of years ago I had a husband/wife team and we were "done" with the certificiation dives. They were doing the final dive of the day at Catalina, on their own, while I stayed on the boat and supervised. The husband was very prone to seasickness. Maybe 30 minutes into the dive, I saw them pop up together and it appeared they were sharing air. They both gave me an OK sign and started kicking back towards the boat.

When they got back on the boat, I asked them what happened. "Oh, I got sick," said the husband, "and threw up into my regulator. I remembered what you'd told us about holding the reg in your mouth and vomiting through the reg and I did that. But then when I tried to take a breath, the reg was clogged. So I turned to her, gave the out of air signal, and we just started buddy breathing and then ascended. No big deal. I was able to clear my reg out on the surface but we decided to come back to the boat anyhow."

Not hard. Needs to be practiced. Viable skill.

- Ken

 

[Thalassamania]

Buddy breathing was an optional part of PADI instruction when you took the courses. As of this year, it is no longer supposed to be an option. I cannot say with absolute certainty what they thinking was when they made that decision, but based on things that have been said in the past, it was because of a combination of ideas:

• Pretty much every diver uses some sort of alternate air source today, making it unnecessary except in the incredibly rare event that the OOA situation is coupled with a total failure of the alternate air source. By "pretty much everyone," I mean that I although I have only been diving since the late 1990s, I have never seen anyone without one.

There is truth in that, but in my world there are still any number of underfunded, third world, marine labs were auxiliary second stages are the exception rather than the norm.

• Research by Edmonds and others indicated that buddy breathing is a very hard skill to learn to do properly (despite what proponents argue). That research also says the skill is lost quickly if not practiced regularly.

I am assuming that you mean Egstrom rather than Edmonds? If not, I'd appreciate a reference, since I'm always interested in what Edmonds has to say. Getting back to Egstrom's work, I think that you are misusing what he had to say, based on the idea that class length is a fixed value that one need back into rather than an elastic variable that should adapt itself to the required time. Glen found that in order to have 95% confidence that two divers, meeting in mid water, could (without surfacing of touching bottom) buddy breath for two pool lengths, required 17 repetitions of the skill within the course. I do not remember him addressing how fast the skill would rust.

• The odds of hitting the trifecta: 1) OOA diver, 2) Alternate air source not working, and 3) both divers skilled in buddy breathing are not good.

Amongst the folks I dive with 1) is rather rare, 2) is rather common (not equipped with) and 3) is almost 100%.

• If not done properly, buddy breathing can result in a real emergency for two people rather than one.

Not when divers are what I would call "adequately" trained.

EDIT: PADI is not the only agency that feels this way. When I did my last training dive before getting my Tech 2 certification for UTD, my buddy and I were put through a long series of equipment failures that put 7 out of 8 working regulators out of commission, so we had to do our last two deco stops buddy breathing off of the same deco bottle. Our instructor told us that it should take an emergency of that magnitude (and that likelihood) to get us to resort to buddy breathing.

I would expect BB to be dropped from the curriculum in organizations like UTD and GUE who would say, if you don't have the gear we require you should not make the dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am assuming that you mean Egstrom rather than Edmonds?

Yes. Brain lapse.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Research by Egstrom and others indicated that buddy breathing is a very hard skill to learn to do properly (despite what proponents argue).

I know Glenn and this just didn't sound like him to me. So I thought I'd go to the source. I called him up and just had a lovely 40-minute chat with him about this issue. The short version: Not exactly.

First of all, the study everyone's referring to Glenn thinks was done sometime in the early 70s. Not sure if things would have changed in 40 years but keep that in mind.

Glenn does not think it's hard to teach buddy breathing.

However, he did point out that the study talked about the complexity of things and how that the more components/complexity something had, the harder it was to do it correctly. From that standpoint, because buddy-breathing has numerous components to it, it's harder to do than just breathing off an octo.

Glenn also pointed out that they were rather nit-picky about what qualified as doing it correctly. You had to not only do the buddy-breathing correctly, but you also had to be doing it without sinking and then be able to ascend to the surface. And he mentioned that BB stationary on a pool bottom is different than doing it while moving, which is different than doing it in the open ocean, which is also likely different than doing it in a real emergency.

So while that may mean it's "harder to get it right", that doesn't necessarily mean it's hard to teach people to get it right (if that makes sense).

Getting back to Egstrom's work . . .Glen found that in order to have 95% confidence that two divers, meeting in mid water, could (without surfacing of touching bottom) the buddy breath for two pool lengths required 17 repetitions of skill within the course.

To Thal's point about repetition, Glenn said the actual range was 17-21. And that's 17-21 times DOING IT CORRECTLY, not 16 failures and then you finally do it once and now it's locked in your brain. And I think I've seen that before in just some general studies in terms of repetition. But remember, it's NOT "Practice makes perfect." It's really "Perfect practice makes perfect."

As to retention, Glenn said there was a definite falloff that tended to correspond to how long the course was. In other words, if it was a four-week course you might retain the skill for four weeks. But in an eight-week course (assuming you're exposed to the skill repreatedly through each course), there might be an eight-week falloff period.

I aksed him if they did a stufdy as to how quickly the skill could be regained after falloff and he said not really, but that it seemed the learning curve was pretty quick to regain the skill after falloff since you're remembering something you knew rather than learning something from scratch.

- Ken

 

[Scubagolf]

Comment removed by poster.

 

[Thalassamania]

First of all, the study everyone's referring to Glenn thinks was done sometime in the early 70s. Not sure if things would have changed in 40 years but keep that in mind.

Glen's point was (as I recall) less to do with buddy breathing, per se, and more to do with the time it took to actually master complex tasks.

Glenn does not think it's hard to teach buddy breathing.

However, he did point out that the study talked about the complexity of things and how that the more components/complexity something had, the harder it was to do it correctly. From that standpoint, because buddy-breathing has numerous components to it, it's harder to do than just breathing off an octo.

Without a doubt.

Glenn also pointed out that they were rather nit-picky about what qualified as doing it correctly. You had to not only do the buddy-breathing correctly, but you also had to be doing it without sinking and then be able to ascend to the surface. And he mentioned that BB stationary on a pool bottom is different than doing it while moving, which is different than doing it in the open ocean, which is also likely different than doing it in a real emergency.

On the bottom is very different from moving a significant distance distance while critically controlling buoyancy and swapping the second stage back and forth. Lots of divers might have trouble just controlling their buoyancy over that distance in a shallow pool.

So while that may mean it's "harder to get it right", that doesn't necessarily mean it's hard to teach people to get it right (if that makes sense).

That makes sense to me.

To Thal's point about repetition, Glenn said the actual range was 17-21. And that's 17-21 times DOING IT CORRECTLY, not 16 failures and then you finally do it once and now it's locked in your brain. And I think I've seen that before in just some general studies in terms of repetition. But remember, it's NOT "Practice makes perfect." It's really "Perfect practice makes perfect."

I usually quote Glen's study as, "requiring at least 17 repetitions," a phrase that I believe does it justice, by both identifying the minimum and making the not-unreasonable-assumption that a "repetition" represents a correct done exercise.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I thought I would add this little sheet, that Dennis Graver gave us during our NAUI ITC in 1972. Titled "Buddy Breathing, Friend or Foe" it details his thoughts at that time concerning buddy breathing.

One thing to remember is that we have a whole new generation of divers who, by and large, have never been exposed to buddy breathing. My instruction book to that time was Cousteau's The Silent World. If it is read cover-to-cover three or so times, most every lesson in a course is already covered by that book.

Also, when I first started scuba diving, I dove for three years before receiving any lessons (LA County). We were comfortable doing things that today's divers probably are not comfortable with, as we grew up on swim teams, and in my case had already taken the YMCA Lifesaving course so we could lifeguard at the local pool. We were a generation that grew up in water, and scuba was simply an extension of what we had been doing for years. Holding our breath for buddy breathing was easy, as it was only about 10 seconds, and we were used to breath-holding for a minute or so. Many of us started as free divers, and could free dive to considerable depth too. 'Just some thoughts...

SeaRat

John C. Ratliff, NAUI #2710 (retired)

 

[scubadada]

I was certified in 1970 by LAC Underwater Unit. We did not have alternate air sources, buddy breathing was the only way to obtain air in an OOA emergency. The technique was expected to be adequately demonstrated in class and in final exam, pool and ocean. Everyone who passed the class was able to satisfy this requirement. I must admit, I did not practice this technique much after becoming certified.

Many older skills are probably lost in "modern times". As per John's post, above, I was also a swimmer and water polo player. The swimming and breathing requirements of scuba were a piece of cake. Today, it seems like many divers have minimal or inadequate water skills and physical condition to compensate for an emergent situation.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thanks for you comments John. I have to take on Dennis' piece head on though. Let's look at this piece. Dennis states that one diver breaths while the other holds his breath - WRONG! One diver breathes while the other exhales by slowly blowing bubbles. As far as I know there has never been an incident (e.g., controlled exchange of regulator from depth to the surface) that resulted in an embolism. All of the cases I can remember involved a FAILED attempt to buddy breathe which resulted in a battle over the regulator followed by an bolt for the surface (or just a bolt for the surface) that resulted in an AGE. The divers are not together forgetting to exhale, they are separated, bolting to the surface. The article has many good points, unfortunately they are rather randomly distributed amongst pure fabrications.

 

[tracydr]

I am just curious, and this might be the wrong place to ask, but are there any training agencies who teach students to buddy breath? And to clarify that, I do not mean simply grabbing your partners safe second, I mean sharing your partners primary reg.

Legions

PADI used to and you still have to do it for the DM cert. I had to do it for OW in my PADI course, back when dinosaurs still roamed.