My belief is that as we were both BSAC trained we had training that allowed us to recover from a dangerous situation. I do believe that if we had not both been in BSAC clubs where this sort of training is given the outcome may have been different. I was also diving with someone I knew. How to stop someone hyperventilating when diving? You have to get them to take their regulator out of their mouth to help them build up CO2 levels. I held my dive buddies hand to my regulator, then I started breathing fast to simulate hyperventilation, then I put my hand over his and removed my regulator. Then I signaled I would do the same to him. He signaled he understood and he could push the regulator back in at anytime. By that time there was no panic but we had to resolve his issue with hyperventilating. Had we both not been trained about hyperventilation and how to deal with that the situation could have been very tragic indeed. Our ability to communicate what needed to be done to each other was key. I had also inflated my BCD and his to bring us up from being very deep to a safe depth where we could do this. Controlling an emergency ascent using BCD's is also taught in BSAC. Less stress than trying to swim up when two divers are so close to each other.
After the dive we had a sit down and went through what had happened, discussed how the tie may have been damaged or aged and had come off, and his quick thinking to get to me after he could not locate his secondary. He was concerned with getting air not concerned with how I would do with that initially. We also had to calculate dive time and depth and do a deco stop before the safety stop. He said one thing that surprised him was how calm I seemed through all this which helped him relax. I certainly wasn't calm when we were inverted sinking into the depths lol. I'm like where is my BCD inflator lol.
All that time being in a BSAC club with regular training especially on rescue techniques and being self reliant really paid off.
Far far away from any chamber in PG Philippines in the 1990's.
The most important thing was my dive buddy trusted me in this situation. Certification levels meant nothing right then.
Glad it went fine for you.
And i believe you, that you calmed him down, by keeping him busy. But removing the reg, to build up co2, to stop hyperventilation (when diving) doesn't make any sense.
Co2 levels rise dangerously fast, when diving deep, because of the gas density and the inability to clear out the gasses inside the lungs. If in panic, more oxygen is needed, to keep to body "on fire", ready to fight or run. Heart rate goes up and so on ... So more co2 is produced. This results in hyperventilation, because the need to get more"oxygen*(we know this is wrong ofc) is strong.
What helps in that situation is exhaling and exchanging the "used" gas. To get rid of the co2 -> lower heartrate -> reduce panic.
Increasing co2 level is the wrong thing to do.
What helped in your situation, was probably to keep him focused on a task: take the reg out and watch you.
Its off topic, so if you want to talk about this we can open a new thread.
I hated a lot of my equipment. Especially any jacket style bcd i ever dived. Once i knew the feeling and comfort of doubles with a DIR harness, i recognized how bad jacket style bcds are in comparison.
Of course there are other opinions, but that my one. I hate jackets and i hate single tanks, where the firststage is always blocking my head movement. Of course i can dive dingles and jackets. I have to, when i teach owd in the pool, but everytime i do, i remember how much i hate it
