expecting out-of-air?

[pwl]

hi folks

we all use a bunch of signals all the time whilst diving: "ok", "go down", "go up", "air low" etc; but i was wondering how often people have seen or expect to see "out of air" ?

i ask because yesterday i had my own ooa experience: after 30 mins of diving we headed into a little swim-through cave. i checked my gauge before going in: 60bar - plenty under the circumstances. a couple of metres into the cave i took a breath & it was like sucking on a thickshake - i looked at the gauge again & saw about 50bar: hmm. the next breath was ok but the third was a thickshake again; guage now showed 0 bar: erk!

fortunately this little cave has a hole in the ceiling - i thumbed up very emphatically to my buddy (wife) & we went through, me first. as she came through the exit i made the "out of air" (slash across throat) sign a couple of times, then reached for her alternate air source (i had presence of mind to do that).

the thing is this: talking after she said that although she knew something was wrong went i wanted to get out of the cave in a hurry, she didn't know what i meant by my OOA signals until after i'd grabbed the alternate & stuck in in my mouth.

so - it set me to wondering whether other people had had a similar experience; it seems to me that even with practicing, you don't get the same level of see/understand/react as you would by using those signals used frequently for real: in general you just don't *expect* to see OOA.

anecdotes infer that in most OOA situations the person out of air just grabs what's bubbling - the buddy's primary (& this seems one premise for the DIR long primary hose & necklace alt setup) - but in my situation i consciously chose to take the alternate since i didn't like the idea of ripping the reg from my wife's mouth. it makes me wonder whether having primary-as-donate is necessarily the best way to go, especially for those Air-II-type alternates.

as to why i lost air - back at the surface it seemed like my cylinder valve was turned off, so either when i was going into the cave i rubbed against something in such a way to turn it off, or when i turned it on at the beginning of the dive i did a poor job & turned it on in such a way that when tank pressure dropped to 50 bar, there was not enough to overcome the valve only being part open (...or something )

 

[cool_hardware52]

How often do you and your partner practice OOA scenarios?

It's a routine part of almost every dive I do......


Tobin

 

[SparticleBrane]

You're lucky you're not dead.

 

[underwasser bolt]

its not a matter of which is best; you hit it the nail on the head: in many OOA situations a person is likely to rip the reg from your mouth. getting some distance between the two of you at that point may be a good thing, hence the 7ft hose (and for other situations). diving into overhead environments, even over short distances, can be very deadly, even with the proper equipment. It does not seem like you were prepared. I made a mistake today by letting my inexperienced buddy (wife) swim through a long tunnel; light was very apparent on the other end. good for her, but bad for me. her finning method kicked up so much silt I could not see my gauges infront of my mask, and I went into the tunnel with a gas level of 1250. She was patiently waiting from me and I felt/crawled my way out, staying calm. but in hind sight....

 

[underwasser bolt]

You're lucky you're not dead.

exactly; what you and I did was foolish, and I am experienced and knew better. vis was good, seemed like no big deal. had i got tangled/panicked, I may not be posting this. stay out of overhead environments unless you are prepared.

 

[Tigerman]

Situations like that is why we are not to dive in overhead enviroments without proper training and equipment.
Signals should be discussed pre-dive and that is the only time I EXPECT to see the OOA sign. Im prepared to see it on any dive where Im not alone, but its really a sign that means something has gone wrong already, either with equipment, planning or both..

That said, good you kept cool and got that octo.

 

[pwl]

How often do you and your partner practice OOA scenarios?

It's a routine part of almost every dive I do......

that sort of relates to my query - do you practice this in a very organised way or do you randomly decide that "now" is an OOA moment & we'll pretend it's real.

i'm wondering about the psychological differences between real & training.

 

[verybaddiver]

DIR is more than just donating from the long hose, it's also making sure you have the ability to reach your back valves to turn your valves back to open :] and many other things too. Long hose is a pretty basic config and not restricted to DIR anyways.
I do quite alot of overhead dives, that you can always see an opening too, they are certainly NOT the same as CAVE/PENETRATION dives!!! depending on visibilty or possible blackouts anyways. The likes of the "tarbarka" in Scapa Flow is a pretty easy dive conducted all inside the wreck, but is still a pretty novice dive, for instance.

The DIR out of air is to signal the "slash a cross mouth" but also with the regulator removed from the mouth, because quite simply, if the reg ain't giving air, it's pretty much useless, and gives a much better impression that you certainly need an alt. source. ;]

 

[Alex777]

<< in general you just don't *expect* to see OOA. >>

And that is a danger in and of itself. When my buddy had a sudden OOA emergency at 110 feet on a Cayman wall, she gave me the OOA sign and my first reaction was: "why is she kidding around like this?" That slowed my reaction time by a couple of seconds at least. We have frequently (every 2nd safety stop) practiced buddy breathing and other safety procedures but there is still a sort of implicit and subconscious assumption that a true emergency "will never happen to me." I found my own reaction to be the only worrying aspect of the whole thing.

 

[pwl]

its not a matter of which is best; you hit it the nail on the head: in many OOA situations a person is likely to rip the reg from your mouth. getting some distance between the two of you at that point may be a good thing, hence the 7ft hose (and for other situations).

the event got be thinking about long hoses, etc - it would have been a little more comfortable to have had a long hose as the receiver, to be sure. but then i thought about the ramifications of using the long hose as primary & the fact that i'd have *had* to pull my buddy's reg out of her mouth, thus causing a second event. as it happened, i was the only one having to worry about an emergency until it was under control.

perhaps my query should have been - how many people expect their reg to be grabbed by their buddy at any time during a dive ? is this what we should all be prepared for at any time?

diving into overhead environments, even over short distances, can be very deadly, even with the proper equipment.

understood - this spot is a fairly known factor & there's a sensible median point between going through what is effectively a swim-through with normal gear and having complete high-level cave diving training and multiple redundant systems.

in the event, the gear, equipment & training we had was sufficient to handle the emergency.