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

[scubadiver888]

It was not a training dive. He was visiting someone in Canada and thought it would be fun to go diving. It was the Lillie Parsons.

 

[Compressor]

Never been OOA; I check my spg q 1 minute.

 

[Insta-Gator]

We have been diving for 28 years. Neither my wife nor I have ever run out of air. No one we have been diving with has run out of air. IMO, running out of air shows a complete lack of attention to what your are doing. Even if there were an equipment problem, your buddy should be able to observe and report to you.

 

[NYCNaiad]

We have been diving for 28 years. Neither my wife nor I have ever run out of air. No one we have been diving with has run out of air. IMO, running out of air shows a complete lack of attention to what your are doing. Even if there were an equipment problem, your buddy should be able to observe and report to you.

While I agree that oftentimes running out of air shows a lack of attention, there are times when it can happen undeservedly. A good example would be getting caught in a bad current. As I noted above, the only time I was close to being out of air was when a group of us were caught in a surprise heavy current (5+ knot) in the Maldives. We scrapped the dive, my buddy and were blown apart from one another by the current and then close to the surface, I was taken deep by a bad down current in a whirlpool.

 

[TheHuth]

I'm very new to diving with a total of 7 dives under my belt. So I have not had an OOA experience, and hope to not. During my dives I've always checked my SPG a couple of times a minute. In fact, I held it most of the time in my left hand and looked at it ever few seconds. Probably comes from my flight training where all you do is monitor your six pack and then check for traffic.

But the reason I am posting is from something a diver told me before I started training. The guy was a professed "Rescue Diver" and told wondrous tales of how amazing a diver he was. And then he went on to tell me about his OOA experience. He apparently borrowed a tank to do an extra dive, and then got to depth and realized he was out of air. I just can't for the life of me understand how a competent diver could let that happen. If you are monitoring your air, its just not possible.

One day during flight training I saw Piper Archer at the repair shop that I had personally flown before. Apparently it was flown by some professed aviation aficionado. He flew from Long Beach to Catalina. Then left Catalina for a flight seeing tour and returned to Catalina. Then he took off to return to Long Beach, and ran out of gas. In the entire time he never once checked his tank.

I fully understand an equipment malfunction. I cant understand how someone could be so dumb as to let their tank run out in either situation.

 

[Scubagolf]

Never. Not even close.

 

[Doc Harry]

Once, regulator hose o-ring blew and went into free flow
Didn't actually go OOA until the end of the safety stop

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

By accident?
Never.

 

[BertStevens]

Only on purpose during training. I wanted to feel what an empty tank felt like.

 

[Reku]

had someone run out of air at vortex springs this past saturday as I was coming out of the cave - They charged toward me - I handed them a reg and all was well.