Is is possible to breathe from your BCD?

[Superlyte27]

But how are you going to deal with inflated bc underwater other than tie yourself to something?
And while we are building a scenario what are you doing down there breathing in and out of your bc are you waiting for your buddy are you trying to make your way out?

If the gas in your lungs is shifted to the gas in your wing, do you go up, down or stay neutral?
And HELL NO, I'm not waiting for my buddy. I'm swimming out.

---------- Post added ----------

Well, if you are going into %% of oxygen needed (which is far out of scope of the original question) consider that due to increased depth, PPO will go up, I think the minimal surface PPO is .18, which is 18% oxygen, that will go up with depth. The problem is that CO2 levels (in case of BC breathing will go up as well) which will tell your body that "you are running out of air" which will cause you to breathe more. (this is a reverse of hyperventilating to get rid of CO2 and fool your body into "I dont need to breathe" mode)

.16 is acceptable.... less than .16 and you start running into issues.
I believe if you do 3 breaths, then dump, you won't have too much CO2 to function. But it's just a guess.

 

[JOHNNY ROCKET]

Very interesting conversation. I've always wondered this myself. Has anybody had any experience actually practicing this technique?

 

[Soggy_Diver]

Hi,

I tried breathing from the BC a couple of years ago in a deep pool, after cleaning out the inside of the BC with listerine. I tried breathing on the bottom, then doing an ascent. It was doable for a maximum of about 6 breaths, but there were several kinds of complications that have already been mentioned in this thread. Here is a link to the earlier discussion: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/373634-breathing-bcd-5.html#post5786460 .

I think that probably, as a last resort in an OOA emergency, a CESA with regulator in would be a more practical choice. In a CESA, as ambient pressure drops, more air would become available through the reg.

 

[faze]

Breathing from your BC has to be an absolute last chance saloon as you may well be simply delaying the inevitable. If you look up the story of a diver called Mike Firth you'll find he took two breaths from his BC and ended up with a micro-organism that literally colonised his entire lung. The interior of a BC offers an almost perfect environment for all manner of organisms that you really don't want in your lungs!!!

 

[jmneill]

Breathing from your BC has to be an absolute last chance saloon as you may well be simply delaying the inevitable. If you look up the story of a diver called Mike Firth you'll find he took two breaths from his BC and ended up with a micro-organism that literally colonised his entire lung. The interior of a BC offers an almost perfect environment for all manner of organisms that you really don't want in your lungs!!!

Mike Firth was an isolated fluke.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Mike Firth was an isolated fluke.

I have not read the Mike Firth story so I cannot comment directly on it, but fluke or not, it does not change the fact that some ugly things can start to grow in your BC. Things that I would not want in my lungs unless I had exhausted every other option. But as an absolute last resort, I would not hesitate to take a breath or two off my wing. Wookie's Donkey's ass, as a point of reference, comes before the Wing.

 

[jmneill]

I have not read the Mike Firth story so I cannot comment directly on it, but fluke or not, it does not change the fact that some ugly things can start to grow in your BC. Things that I would not want in my lungs unless I had exhausted every other option. But as an absolute last resort, I would not hesitate to take a breath or two off my wing. Wookie's Donkey's ass, as a point of reference, comes before the Wing.

Agreed. While serious ingury or death are extremely unlikely, I too would consider it ill advised to practice on a regular basis.

 

[arthurmnev]

That's like saying you don't need a seatbelt if you're only going 3 miles up the road.

I don't understand all the debate. Yes, it's possible.

Drawing equivalency to seatbelt, this is more like wrapping seatbelt around your neck. Why in the world would you need to breathe from your BC in an OW dive within NDL?

---------- Post added ----------

And HELL NO, I'm not waiting for my buddy. I'm swimming out.

I would probably bust out as well, though this definitely highlights how much of a 'team' effort diving really is. Yes, we dive with buddies, but, in the end, how many of us would actually trust another person to do what is right when the penalty for their wrong doing is you breathing water? How many times an OOA situation actually played itself out in a 'training like fashion' where an OOA diver politely asks 'could I have some air please' ... seems like face grab / regulator pull has a much higher chance

 

[Boiler_81]

Yes, believe it or not this was taught as a skill in my SSI class in 1984. I have no idea if it was part of the standard then or not. I did practive it at the time. It would be something I would do as a last resort.

Very interesting conversation. I've always wondered this myself. Has anybody had any experience actually practicing this technique?

 

[jcfahy]

There was a case in the UK about a year ago of a diver who breathed air from his BC and inhaled spores that eventually killed him. He wrote about his experience in an article of the UK edition of either Diver or Sport Diver about Nov 2010 or 2011