How does someone run out of air???

[shoredivr]

being distracted/task loaded, and following the DM around (perhaps feeling self-conscious about their breathing rate and being too embarrassed to be the one to turn the dive).

I remember on my first few "trust me" guided dives 11 years ago, before I had any idea about gas management, I got lower on air than I liked on a warm water wreck dive. I *was* watching my gauge, and showed my buddy that I was getting near 800PSI. I then showed the DM who made a "no problem, that's lots of air, let's keep swimming along at 90 ft going away from the mooring line" sign.

I wasn't comfortable with that at all, and myself and my buddy went back to the line on our own. IIRC, I did surface with around 500PSI but certainly not through any real gas management skills (ie, calculating SAC and knowing how long I'd have at depth).

I don't think most OW or even AOW courses give real gas management skills. That's a problem...you don't know how long you have at depth then. And I think that many new divers trust that the DM "knows best" and swim along with the guide, even though they can see the diminishing gas supply.

Of course, there *are* those who just don't look at SPGs at all.

 

[Rhone Man]

Some of us have been known to have tried really stupid things to impress girls in our reckless youth that required a buddy breathing ascent from 90 feet. No need to go into details. But I still maintain it was the girls' fault for being hot.

 

[Guba]

I suppose that in my case, it wasn't truly an "OOA" experience, since I had PLENTY of air (1600 pounds)...it just wouldn't come out of the tank. (Debris from the Mexican charter's tank plugged up my first stage.) I've related this story several times here on SB, and I still have yet to see a satisfying answer about how to avoid a repeat of the experience other than "be careful with whom you charter dives". You can bet I'm more selective in that respect, but still...is there a way to "test" a rental tank before you go down?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Some of us have been known to have tried really stupid things to impress girls in our reckless youth that required a buddy breathing ascent from 90 feet. No need to go into details. But I still maintain it was the girls' fault for being hot.

Hmmmm .... were you buddy-breathing with the girl, and was this "lung-to-lung" buddy breathing?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[NorthWoodsDiver]

operator error is the only thing I know of...

 

[Steve50]

I must confess that I went intentionally OOA once ... just last year, in fact.

It was either that or miss this ...

... and it was in 15 feet of water.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Well - that's one good reason!

 

[bigken462]

Natural Selection!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I suppose that in my case, it wasn't truly an "OOA" experience, since I had PLENTY of air (1600 pounds)...it just wouldn't come out of the tank. (Debris from the Mexican charter's tank plugged up my first stage.) I've related this story several times here on SB, and I still have yet to see a satisfying answer about how to avoid a repeat of the experience other than "be careful with whom you charter dives". You can bet I'm more selective in that respect, but still...is there a way to "test" a rental tank before you go down?

Now this is a good one, I didn't think about a situation like this when I wrote the original post. This is real and could be a problem even for the best most responsible divers out there.
Big clumps of white rust in aluminum rental and charter tanks. Red rust on steel could also be a problem but it's usually finer in size. If the dive operator in some of these unregulated locations get's complacent about their rental equipment this could be one of those really bad unforseeable problems that you don't have much control over. I don't know of any way to test a tank when it's full to tell of such a situation. You'd have to drain the tank and look inside.

 

[rstofer]

I don't know if this will work but lay the tank down and blow air through a paper towel or kleenex. The corrosion would have to be pretty severe to get to and through the dip tube (if any).

Richard

 

[NudeDiver]

This is kind of a silly basic question, but one I wonder about.
All this talk in many threads about OOA situations get's me wondering what the hell people are doing that there are that many people running out of air.What are people looking at?I don't understand, people in these OOA situations, don't they look at their gauge?

Maybe they are "minimalist" divers and think an air gauge is an unnecessary frill - since they just know when it is time to go to the surface.