Have you ever sucked the bottom out of your air tank?

[wulvrine74]

I did it once. I was diving in the GUlf of Mexico. I had a cold a few weeks before and thought I was over it. I decended and had a slight problem equalizing, but nothing major. I did my dive, and everything seemed cool until I tried to come up. I was literally stuck at 50-55 ft. The pressure in my ears was just unbearable every time I even came close to trying to get in the 40s.
Pretty much by the time I hit 100 lbs. I had to force my way up. I ran out at about 20 ft. When I got to the surface I had broken SEVERAL capilaries from the sinuses and had half my mask fill with blood. Of course I was the last one on the boat and those who saw me come up with that much blood in my mask freaked out. I had an extream migrane for 3-4 weeks after, but once again, I lived to dive another day.

 

[spectrum]

Well there's a good sanity check for all of us dealing with winter colds! Thanks for sharing.

Pete

I did it once. I was diving in the GUlf of Mexico. I had a cold a few weeks before and thought I was over it. I decended and had a slight problem equalizing, but nothing major. I did my dive, and everything seemed cool until I tried to come up. I was literally stuck at 50-55 ft. The pressure in my ears was just unbearable every time I even came close to trying to get in the 40s.
Pretty much by the time I hit 100 lbs. I had to force my way up. I ran out at about 20 ft. When I got to the surface I had broken SEVERAL capilaries from the sinuses and had half my mask fill with blood. Of course I was the last one on the boat and those who saw me come up with that much blood in my mask freaked out. I had an extream migrane for 3-4 weeks after, but once again, I lived to dive another day.

 

[dpbishop]

Once towards the end of the dive, just below safety stop found a big lobster and spent ages getting him. During the safety stop my computer read "0", and even though I could still breathe, decided to breathe off my buddy's octo for the last minute of the safety stop. I was keeping an eye on my air, it was the first dive of the day, no deco, close to surface, with a buddy who didn't like breathing P) so I wasn't too worried. The lobster was huge, so I thought it was worth it.

Murphy's Law of Lobster Diving: The size of the lobster is inversely propotional to the amount of air in the tank. ( i.e. the less air you have, the bigger the lobster you will see)

 

[Hoosier]

Been there done that.... And I did O2 clean again........ LOL~~~

 

[spearfish]

Let me tell ya a quick story. My buddy and I (I will simply call my buddy WD to protect the innocent and the uncertified of S. Florida) were on this wreck in about 80' of water and it was covered in gags. Skidish gags. We never got close to one, but being young and really stupid we kept tryin. Anyhoo, we're on our second dive and our typical profile was something like 10 minutes over the tables on the first dive and we were well on our way to overtime for the second. WD had spent several minutes trying to corral me up to begin our ascent and finally managed to drag me to the anchor line when one of those big gags came rollin over near us. I looked at me guage and it said something like 200lbs so, being an idiot, I figured I had plenty of time to slide off the anchor for one last shot.

Ha! That was about thirty seconds before I tried to take a breath and felt that brick-wall-thing-a-ma-jiggy in my reg. Ooops. So I finned over to WD as fast as I could motor. I allowed the reg to drop out of my mouth to signal that I was out of air (laugh) and grabbed onto his BC as we ascended the anchor line. He looked me in the eye and gave me the out of air signal that he too was out. So we went up a little and I tried my reg again and it gave me a little pull...just enough to take a breath. We kept ascending and the tank kept slidin me a little air. Well, needless to say, we didn't make much of a safety stop. That was the first of many. But that was my most egregious out of air episode.

 

[landlocked]

Did anyone notice that this thread is 4 years old?

I was wondering why I started recognizing the names! I sucked one close to dry once. After our safety stop we had a way to go to get back to the dock. We did it at 10 feet deep. By the time we reached the dock, the gauge was getting really low (150 as I recall.) Even though I we were just below the surface and I was staying real close to my buddy, it still made me nervous. I had to keep telling myself to relax.

 

[Web Monkey]

I don't mean to be overly critical, but what's with all the "running out of air" (not just you, but the others too)?

Assuming you have an SPG or computer, the amount of air you have remaining shouldn't be a mystery. If you started with 3000 PSI 45 minutes ago, and now you have 300 PSI, wouldn't that be a hint that you should be heading for the surface?

Terry

I looked at me guage and it said something like 200lbs so, being an idiot, I figured I had plenty of time to slide off the anchor for one last shot.

 

[Zero]

Only happened once in a pool during a Rescue diver course. The last formal drill was practicing buddy breathing with four other divers off my long hose (3) and octo (2). Afterwards, I was working removing all my gear and putting it on at the bottom of the pool, when I noticed it was getting a wee bit difficult to breathe. I signalled my buddy I was out of air and we surfaced safely.

In the open water, I always carry my Rock Bottom Tables for various depths along with planned Safety Stops written on slate. Since, I've haven't evolved gills yet, I like planning to have enough air for my buddy and I to safely exit the water.

 

[Glycerin]

I always try to surface with at least 500 PSI. However on my first deep dive I sucked air like there was no tomorrow and surfaced with about 250 psi left

 

[Daylonious]

I've never sucked the bottom out of a tank, but I have hung around a 15' safety stop till the last possible minute a couple of times and got down to 125-150 pounds.

That's about as close as I want to get.

D.