I have experienced two occasions IRL when a diver panicked thinking he was out of air. The first time, the diver and I were in rec gear. The second time, the diver and I were in tech gear, at the start of a tech training dive. In both cases, I responded as I was taught in my open water course. Grab the diver firmly by the shoulder of his BC shoulder strap (or by the shoulder strap of his harness) and hold onto him securely, remove my first stage from my mouth and shove it into his mouth, put my AIR 2 (or backup second stage) into my mouth, establish eye contact with him to help him calm down as we slowly ascend to the surface.
The tech dive incident wasn't completely smooth, though. I was wearing a long hose "wrapped" per my Basic Cave training, and a snorkel on my mask. Giving the diver my primary dislodged my mask slightly, and my mask flooded. No issue, really, except I needed to clear my mask to establish eye contact. And the water (Gilboa) was a bit cold.
For the tech dive incident, our instructor was right there with us. But, dealing with clearing a flooded mask to stare into the eyes of the panicking diver, I completely missed when our instructor circled behind the panicking diver and shut down the valve to his free-flowing regulator! Perceptual narrowing, maybe?
In both cases, each diver seemed to calm down very quickly as soon as he had a working reg in his mouth.
I've described both of these incidents in a bit more detail, IIRC, on some ancient SB posts.
rx7diver
The tech dive incident wasn't completely smooth, though. I was wearing a long hose "wrapped" per my Basic Cave training, and a snorkel on my mask. Giving the diver my primary dislodged my mask slightly, and my mask flooded. No issue, really, except I needed to clear my mask to establish eye contact. And the water (Gilboa) was a bit cold.
For the tech dive incident, our instructor was right there with us. But, dealing with clearing a flooded mask to stare into the eyes of the panicking diver, I completely missed when our instructor circled behind the panicking diver and shut down the valve to his free-flowing regulator! Perceptual narrowing, maybe?
In both cases, each diver seemed to calm down very quickly as soon as he had a working reg in his mouth.
I've described both of these incidents in a bit more detail, IIRC, on some ancient SB posts.
rx7diver