Has anyone ever shared air using a 7’ (Long) hose on a dive? Not with an instabuddy but with a teammate or a known diver on a properly planned dive. If so:
• What were the circumstances of why the OOA diver went out of air?
• Was it a real OOA situation or equipment failure?
• Were they/you diving doubles?
• Did the OOA diver have bailout that did not work?
• If they had bailout did they expend the gas requiring a share?
• Did you have bailout? If so could you have handed off the bailout bottle?
• Was deco involved?
I am curious if this happed because we use extremely well maintained good quality equipment, train and have backup safety measures to mitigate malfunctions.
Thank you in advance.
Warm Regards
George
Yes, once. During a dive in Gilboa Quarry (Ohio) c. 1996. (This is a very cold quarry with maximum depth approximately 135 ffw.) My friend and tech instructor was teaching an IANTD Deep Air course. His two students--both big, strong guys--were in drysuits and manifolded doubles. I was there to play/practice in my tech gear. (I had already received my NSS-CDS Basic Cave certification by that time and my IANTD Advanced Deep Air certification, too, IIRC, and I had completed my Dive Rescue course, too, though I've never submitted the paperwork to receive that particular certification.) I can't recall for certain if the students were slinging a deco stage, though they probably were (given this particular course). The instructor asked if I would do him a favor and serve as a safety diver for this training dive. I'm still not sure why he asked this.
Deep side of the Quarry. The four of us were into our descent, the two students were a buddy pair, the instructor was adjacent more-or-less to the lead diver, I was adjacent more-or-less to the second diver. The second diver's primary reg suddenly began a massive freeflow. We were at approx 70 ffw and still descending, IIRC, when the freeflow began. He almost instantly dropped his primary and began to head to the surface. I almost instantly grabbed him by his harness and shoved my primary into his mouth and began breathing off my secondary, as he continued to ascend. My mask became flooded when I donated my primary. His haste for the surface decreased a bit once he was breathing off my long hose, though he continued to ascend. I continued to hold onto his harness, with my legs splayed to slow our ascent. I cleared my mask and recall being completely focused on four things: That I must not hold my breath, that I absolutely would not let him pull away from me, that he still had my primary in his mouth, and that our ascent rate was slow enough. My head was at approximately his chest/stomach level, I was firmly holding his chest strap with my left hand, I could look upward slightly to see his face, I could see my bottom timer/depth gauge on my right arm. Periodically I would reach across with my right hand to my power inflator to dump air out of my wings. (Strange, but my pulse is racing right now as I am recalling all this!)
Sometime during this ascent, I recall seeing the instructor "briefly" swim up behind the diver, though it wasn't until he and I discussed this later did I learn he had actually been there long enough to shut down the free-flowing post! (Perceptual narrowing, indeed!)
Everyone survived the incident intact. It was a valuable learning experience for everyone, including me! I had been involved in an incident somewhat similar to this during an open water training dive with open water students at a very shallow depth. But these were experienced, cold-water divers training for a technical certification.
Dive Safely,
Ronald
