Have You (or Your Buddy) Ever Run Out Of Air?

[laikabear]

Maybe this should go in accidents and incidents or near misses, I don't know... I was chatting with another diver on a dive boat recently and he was extolling the virtues of the bungeed octo and primary 2nd stage donation. I don't want to start that debate here. But, when he peered at me and said "You know, an OOA diver will just rip that 2nd stage right out of your mouth, right? You would be better off with a bungeed octo like me."

I asked if that had ever happened to him, an OOA diver approaching and needing to share air (outside of a class where you are practicing). In 16 years of diving, he said no, it's never happened. Not a panicked, primary 2nd stage-grabbing diver, nor a calm, air-share requesting diver.

So I started wondering... how many of us experience a personal OOA or another diver needing to share? In one of my classes we did have someone run out of air on the deep dive, but he calmly shared with his buddy and they were okay. Other than that I've thankfully not seen anyone run out of air in my vast experience of 33 dives.

I'm curious about your stories. Was it that the OOA diver just wasn't watching their SPG, or did they get entangled or have some malfunction causing a loss of air? Or was it a new diver that didn't realize they would use a lot more air at depth? (That's what happened in my class, I think - we were at 126 feet and in low vis, so air went pretty fast for all of us!) It seems like a lot of accidents include someone running out of air, and I'm just trying to understand how and why that happens.

I dove our offshore oil rigs last weekend for the first time (oh, they were majestic, it was amazing!). Before going I was a little nervous about the "bottomless" situation over the Eureka (it's like 750 feet). I kept thinking of some incident report I read where a diver jumped in and their BCD was leaking, so they began sinking, adding air and adding air, and ran out of air as they sank. Found on a deep wall with 1 weight pocket partially removed. I think it was in Diver Down. I read a lot of dive accident reports and I always try to learn something. Anyway, the dives went fine and I had no problem with my buoyancy over a deep depth (that was my first dive where the objective was to stop well above the bottom). It was actually getting back on the boat that was a bit of a challenge/ rodeo. I wasn't expecting that. Learn something new every weekend it seems!

So, anyone want to share any stories?

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Yes. I was on the backside of Molokini in Maui. I was at 50 feet, just the start of the dive. After a bit, the resistance breath skyrocketed. Looked at my dive computer, about 3000 psi. Huh? Just as much as I started with? Oops! Make sure your pony bottle has a different reg than your primary. Switched regs. All was good thereafter

 

[nolatom]

Not out, but very low, reg getting hard to inhale on, signalled low air (fist against chest) to buddy who immediately gave me his reg to finish our ascent. I didn't grab it. Then on surface manual bc inflate and short snorkel swim got me to the boat with enough air to reg- breathe on ladder platform to avoid "dive jail". I misjudged strength of current and burned too much air on ascent. My fault but turned out well.

Turning the tables, in a threesome, buddy signaled "out of air" with hand on throat, I swam to him with Octo in hand which he took smoothly we surfaced together with a safety stop. Ha actually had about 300psi when he signaled but he said he didn't know the low-air signal.

No grabbing or ripping out regs. Very polite despite middling anxiety.

 

[rhwestfall]

I've experienced some poorly prepared divers. Let's just leave it to that....

 

[mattia_v]

Once, but my buddy had a good bit left, and we were ending our (already 85 minute long) dive under Salt Pier in Bonaire at the time and we'd long ago completed the safety stop and were looking at things in the shallows. This was dive 35 or 40 or so. Since I was at about 3 meters, I surfaced and swam the last 20 meters. In retrospect it would have been a good moment to test buddy breathing. After that we decided to practice the basic skills some more.

 

[tursiops]

Yes, once in a cave when my 2nd stage fell off my hose, and my other regulator was tangled. My buddy provided gas until I sorted out. i probably did not need it, but it was very nice to have for a few moments.

Once on a reef another buddy team had an out-of-gas moment, but the donor (someone I had trained as a DM) handled ti beautifully, and the OOG diver got a long, stern lecture after they surfaced.

Once while leading a dive to a deep wreck off Oahu. Two once-every-few-years divers both went very low on gas at the safety stop, and i provided gas to them from my alternate and from a hooka attached to the hang bar.

My conclusions? It is a really good idea that at least one of the air-sharing pair be calm and prepared.

 

[JBFG]

once on my 1st deep dive. I missed judge how much air I would use. it was also my 1st wreck dive and I was pretty excited.
I ran real low at the safety stop. my DM sahred air with me for the stop, and I returned to my reg for the final assent. No issues there.

 

[Bob DBF]

My experience is, shall we say, dated. When I started diving we were not using SPG's so running out of air was not the calamity it would be today, if you had a j-valve it helped giving a reserve, and the regs were unbalanced so they would start breathing harder at low pressure giving you warning before they quit delivering air. Once you you got used to it, the end of the tank was easy to predict. Also the tables were such that all ascents were 60'/min with no safety stop, which put you at the surface sooner. So yes, we basically ran low on air to tell the tank was was about empty, and if you made a mistake, which rookies do, you were OOA. We did not go as deep as soon as divers do now as running out of air at 60' is not the problem it is at 100', and we . Since the SPG I have never unintentionally run out of air.​

I have had an OOA diver take the reg out of my mouth, however at that time divers were not using a safe second, he was not my buddy, I didn't see him coming. If you keep an eye on your surroundings, you should see an OOW diver coming, and they will take the reg you give them since it will be closer.

As far a where to keep your backup reg, it is up to you. As long as you know how to deploy it effectivly, you shouldn't have any problems. I mainly use a bunged backup because I like it better, but have not had problems with the other configurations I have used over the years.


Bob

 

[FinnMom]

Yeah there is a story like that in DiverDown. I've also read lots of stories/reports about people jumping in with way ("weigh") too much weight and experiencing varying degrees of stress/misfortune.

I have heard from more than one tech instructor that most people who are "out of air" are not: the valve rolled partially shut, they sucked some water from a damaged mouthpiece, overbreathed the regulator, stuck their pony's reg in their mouth, closed the venturi because they don't know what a venturi is, etc. etc. but they were not OOA.

I was on a dive when a student (not my buddy, but right next to my buddy & I) went OOA. On his very first open water dive, poor bugger. He handled it very well. No fault of his IMHO: his dive pro best friend loaned him a reg set with a needle that rose to 220 bar normally, fell normally, BUT also froze at about 70 bar. A small but significant fault!

 

[Alastor]

Yes, many years ago, on the ascent way from a beautiful maldivian dive. SPG had salt crystal inside (discovered later) and was stuck to 55 bar. At 7 meters I went out of air and signaled to my buddy. no panic: we were very close each other. He gave me his octo and just after grabbed my spg. Then he signaled me "WTF" pointing at the spg hand indicating 55 bar. Then I grabbed my regs and pushed the purge button: just 2 or 3 small bubbles went out, the same with the secondary reg. Then he raise his eyebrow. We made the safety stop having enough air and went out on the doni.
Detaching the first stage did not result in spg zeroing, just a little banging on the floor ...
I rented the equipment from the diving center and they were very sorry about the accident, offering me a couple of free dives as compensation ...
At the moment I didn't realized what would have been the consequences for the diving centre

This is my first mesage ... sorry for my english.