high/baric
Contributor
I have seen a fellow diver sharing air with a DM on a couple of occasions during my diving career, but don't know if any of those were out of air or just sharing to extend the dive a bit. I've never been even close to running OOA myself. As for the divers I have been buddied with, it has happened twice and to the same diver and on the same trip, on both occasions. Neither of these occasions was particularly dramatic and following is mostly an explanation of the circumstances leading to these events, so feel free to skip to the last paragraphs.
The trip in questions was a week-long liveaboard to a tropical location. Included in the package were 12L cylinders and for an extra price one could upgrade to 15L. The price was outrageous, of course, I could have bought a used 15L tank where I live for the price they charged for a week's rent. So I was opposed to upgrading until just before the trip when I was the trip roster and almost everyone had the upgraded tank size. I got a bad feeling about it and decided to pay for the larger size; after all, I was going on this expensive liveaboard trip for a week and there was no sense in risking it just to save a hundred or two €/$.
Of course my buddy turned out to be the only one (or at the very least one of the few) who hadn't taken the larger cylinder. He was not an inexperienced diver, in fact he had hundreds of dives under his belt, but this was his first liveaboard trip which probably explained him missing the warning signs. He did try to upgrade his cylinder once we got there, but they did not have any extra on board. In all fairness towards him, the organizer had only informed us beforehand that not ordering the larger cylinder before the trip would result in an increased rental price, not that it would be impossible altogether.
It immediately turned out that most of our group were experienced divers and had relatively similar air consumption rates, and so my buddy was running out of air before the rest of us. There was little possibility to change buddies at this point, and besides everyone else had the 15L cylinder anyways, so we agreed to go by his remaining air and not take any risks. Although I do like to be on the lookout for good photography opportunities, honestly speaking this trip did not have them in abundance and I wasn't missing much leaving a bit early with him, so it wasn't a big deal. We agreed that he would signal me when he was at 50 bar (quarter of a tank), at which point one of us would set up an SMB and we would make our way to the surface. This is also how it went on the vast majority of our dives. However, on some occasions he would return to examining the surroundings after signaling me and a couple of times he would surface with about 10 bar, although I could have only gone from 80 to 70 bar during the whole ascent. He was the more experienced diver in our buddy pair and wasn't reckless or ignorant or anything like that (and I didn't feel that he put me in danger as we all dove in a group), so I didn't feel like lecturing him about it. I think he simply felt bad about holding me and in some cases the whole group back. I did stay somewhat more alert, though, and even checked his SPG towards the end of a couple of our dives.
So, as could be expected, he did practically run our of air on two occasions (that I know of). The one actual OOA situation I didn't not witness myself, though. It was a combined drift and reef hook dive, and the current at the site was picking up towards the end of the dive. I'm talking about the kind of current that will separate you beyond seeing distance if you unhook yourselves five seconds apart. I was caught in a ripping downdraft and was holding on for dear life, while he and part of the group somehow managed to avoid it. They didn't have it much easier, though, and I heard that he had run OOA and had to share during the safety stop. The downdraft didn't last long (thank god, as it was f'ing terrifying while it did), but I don't know what would have happened if he had been caught in it with me. At its peak it was so strong that I could not even crawl against it along the reef wall and if it had continued for longer and he had been beyond air sharing distance at that point, there would not have been much that I could have done.
The other occasion was under much better circumstances. We were finishing a rather uneventful dive and starting our safety stop at 5 m. He was acting rather erratically but insisted he was okay when I asked what was wrong. I decided to check his SPG, which showed he was below 5 bar. So I calmly offered him my octo, which he refused and insisted he was okay. However, his erratic behavior continued and ultimately he darted to the surface before we had finished our safety stop or even had managed to set up an SMB. After coming up I saw his SPG still showed something like 2 bar. He told me he had been having great trouble maintaining his buoyancy during the safety stop and had come up because of that. It did make sense and explained his behavior, but I seriously doubt his air would have been enough for a proper safety stop.
So, you don't necessarily have to be an inexperienced or a reckless diver, simple pride will do. And even when you have done hundreds of dives and can handle them pretty much with routine, an unexpected current or trouble with buoyancy may just be enough to push you over the limit, if you've already pushed close enough yourself. Also, as KenGordon noted below, in many cases this may very well be a greater risk to the safety of the buddy of the OOA diver than the diver him/herself. In the above story, apart from a couple of safety stops, we were always diving so close to others in the group that I did not feel that my safety was in real jeopardy due to my buddy's actions. In other circumstances it could have been.
The trip in questions was a week-long liveaboard to a tropical location. Included in the package were 12L cylinders and for an extra price one could upgrade to 15L. The price was outrageous, of course, I could have bought a used 15L tank where I live for the price they charged for a week's rent. So I was opposed to upgrading until just before the trip when I was the trip roster and almost everyone had the upgraded tank size. I got a bad feeling about it and decided to pay for the larger size; after all, I was going on this expensive liveaboard trip for a week and there was no sense in risking it just to save a hundred or two €/$.
Of course my buddy turned out to be the only one (or at the very least one of the few) who hadn't taken the larger cylinder. He was not an inexperienced diver, in fact he had hundreds of dives under his belt, but this was his first liveaboard trip which probably explained him missing the warning signs. He did try to upgrade his cylinder once we got there, but they did not have any extra on board. In all fairness towards him, the organizer had only informed us beforehand that not ordering the larger cylinder before the trip would result in an increased rental price, not that it would be impossible altogether.
It immediately turned out that most of our group were experienced divers and had relatively similar air consumption rates, and so my buddy was running out of air before the rest of us. There was little possibility to change buddies at this point, and besides everyone else had the 15L cylinder anyways, so we agreed to go by his remaining air and not take any risks. Although I do like to be on the lookout for good photography opportunities, honestly speaking this trip did not have them in abundance and I wasn't missing much leaving a bit early with him, so it wasn't a big deal. We agreed that he would signal me when he was at 50 bar (quarter of a tank), at which point one of us would set up an SMB and we would make our way to the surface. This is also how it went on the vast majority of our dives. However, on some occasions he would return to examining the surroundings after signaling me and a couple of times he would surface with about 10 bar, although I could have only gone from 80 to 70 bar during the whole ascent. He was the more experienced diver in our buddy pair and wasn't reckless or ignorant or anything like that (and I didn't feel that he put me in danger as we all dove in a group), so I didn't feel like lecturing him about it. I think he simply felt bad about holding me and in some cases the whole group back. I did stay somewhat more alert, though, and even checked his SPG towards the end of a couple of our dives.
So, as could be expected, he did practically run our of air on two occasions (that I know of). The one actual OOA situation I didn't not witness myself, though. It was a combined drift and reef hook dive, and the current at the site was picking up towards the end of the dive. I'm talking about the kind of current that will separate you beyond seeing distance if you unhook yourselves five seconds apart. I was caught in a ripping downdraft and was holding on for dear life, while he and part of the group somehow managed to avoid it. They didn't have it much easier, though, and I heard that he had run OOA and had to share during the safety stop. The downdraft didn't last long (thank god, as it was f'ing terrifying while it did), but I don't know what would have happened if he had been caught in it with me. At its peak it was so strong that I could not even crawl against it along the reef wall and if it had continued for longer and he had been beyond air sharing distance at that point, there would not have been much that I could have done.
The other occasion was under much better circumstances. We were finishing a rather uneventful dive and starting our safety stop at 5 m. He was acting rather erratically but insisted he was okay when I asked what was wrong. I decided to check his SPG, which showed he was below 5 bar. So I calmly offered him my octo, which he refused and insisted he was okay. However, his erratic behavior continued and ultimately he darted to the surface before we had finished our safety stop or even had managed to set up an SMB. After coming up I saw his SPG still showed something like 2 bar. He told me he had been having great trouble maintaining his buoyancy during the safety stop and had come up because of that. It did make sense and explained his behavior, but I seriously doubt his air would have been enough for a proper safety stop.
So, you don't necessarily have to be an inexperienced or a reckless diver, simple pride will do. And even when you have done hundreds of dives and can handle them pretty much with routine, an unexpected current or trouble with buoyancy may just be enough to push you over the limit, if you've already pushed close enough yourself. Also, as KenGordon noted below, in many cases this may very well be a greater risk to the safety of the buddy of the OOA diver than the diver him/herself. In the above story, apart from a couple of safety stops, we were always diving so close to others in the group that I did not feel that my safety was in real jeopardy due to my buddy's actions. In other circumstances it could have been.
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. There's little doubt that he could have had a different attitude towards our safety, though.
