Losing regulator

[knowone]

Just continue to isolate him from
adults and he should continue to
remain fine

 

[DevonDiver]

+1 Bungeed necklace secondary.

I teach this configuration at OW and beyond (and show students how to build a bungee for less than $2)... and my explanation for doing so is for exactly the reasons that the OP illustrates. Not just the convenience of having the secondary close to the mouth, but also the fact that it presents itself as a solution much more obviously.

 

[Hatul]

I keep my primary reg on a bungee necklace. Since I don't dive long hose this makes more sense. In any case it's a good idea to have at least one reg on necklace. You should not have to doing sweeps and other maneuvers to find life giving air.

Adam

 

[vladodessit]

I keep my primary reg on a bungee necklace. Since I don't dive long hose this makes more sense. In any case it's a good idea to have at least one reg on necklace. You should not have to doing sweeps and other maneuvers to find life giving air.

Adam

One problem with this is that many people, speaking from experience, comment that panicking OA diver is likely to go after your primary. With unpredictability of panic, all kinda scenarios could be imagined when OA diver is fighting for regulator that is attached to you. I am not sure how it may work. More experienced (in my case that means just about anybody on this board) may disagree, I don't know. How about bungee cord under ziptie but without knots, so it stays there quiet securely but is going to release if pulled hard enough? Could this be a solution?

 

[Bubbletrubble]

One problem with this is that many people, speaking from experience, comment that panicking OA diver is likely to go after your primary. With unpredictability of panic, all kinda scenarios could be imagined when OA diver is fighting for regulator that is attached to you. I am not sure how it may work. More experienced (in my case that means just about anybody on this board) may disagree, I don't know. How about bungee cord under ziptie but without knots, so it stays there quiet securely but is going to release if pulled hard enough? Could this be a solution?

@vladodessit: I don't think anyone will be able to provide enough evidence to back up the claim that a panicked out-of-air diver will always or likely go for his buddy's primary reg.

Panic in a diver will cause any number of unpredictable actions.

Every effort should be made to avoid/prevent a panic situation from occurring in the first place. Many things can be done even before hitting the water: proper gas planning, performing appropriate functional pre-dive tests on regs and BCDs, making buddy aware of how to deploy your alternative air source, being mentally ready for the dive, maintaining regs properly, etc. Once the dive has begun, divers should be aware of: what's going on around them, the status of their buddy, maintaining comfortable buddy separation distance, and the amount of their remaining gas supplies. Air-sharing drills and switching from one's primary to alternative air source should be practiced regularly. If a situation occurs in which your buddy might be in trouble, approach him/her with your alternative air source already deployed. That will make it easier for the buddy to use it if needed.

If you want to be a safer diver, I'd recommend spending less time worrying about whether (and how) your primary reg is attached via a bungee necklace and more time thinking about the stuff above.

 

[DevonDiver]

One problem with this is that many people, speaking from experience, comment that panicking OA diver is likely to go after your primary. With unpredictability of panic, all kinda scenarios could be imagined when OA diver is fighting for regulator that is attached to you. I am not sure how it may work. More experienced (in my case that means just about anybody on this board) may disagree, I don't know. How about bungee cord under ziptie but without knots, so it stays there quiet securely but is going to release if pulled hard enough? Could this be a solution?

I recommend that recreational divers don't use a permanently attached bungee for exactly that reason.

It's easy to just create a 'loop' in the bungee for a regulator mouthpiece. Just circle the bungee, overlap by about 3". Knot it together. Secure the knots with zip-ties. Now the reg will pull out of the bungee, should someone go for it.

If that happened (especially with a short hose), I'd let them breath from it. Calm them down. Then swap to the longer hose once they are in control.


For technical divers, there aren't issues about misunderstanding the long/short hose drills.. so the reg can be permanently bungeed.

 

[Thalassamania]

Why would that be your first choice? Why not do an arm sweep like every diver is taught in basic SCUBA to catch your primary and put it back?

-Charles

Many divers are taught a shoulder drop and/or arm sweep method for recovering their regulator. Often that does not work. The idea of an emergency procedure that you can not count in is a strange one to me. I teach: Left hand goes under the tank and lifts, right hand reaches over the top to the regulator first stage, encircles the IP hose and then pulls outward and slides down the hose. Now the second stage is in your hand and you're reay to go. I've watched too many divers flail, and fail, and flail again, doing armsweep after paniced armsweep.

There have been a few accidents over the years involving divers who lost their regulator from their mouth and continued to perform arm sweep after arm sweep, without success, in an attempt to effect a recovery. In the two cases that I am most familiar with, the divers also lost concentration on buoyancy control and were last seen dropping like a stone by buddies who could not catch up with them, and abandoned the chase at significant depth. In both these cases the description was the same, “… sunk out of sight over the wall, kept doing arm sweeps.” It would appear that the technique had been so ingrained and their perception had so narrowed that that was all they could do.

This problem is especially true when it involves a change in gear that demands a change in procedure. Those two arm sweep incidents occurred with moderately experienced divers shortly after the introduction of auxiliaries, so why didn’t they just shift to their auxiliary and then go looking for their primary? Reverting to old learning under pressure is a well-understood principle. It is similarly illustrated by a story regarding a fighter jet from the 1960s. Pilots ejected whenever anything went wrong. The engineers couldn’t find any pattern to the ejections. It didn’t matter whether the failure was a stall, a spin, hydraulics, a flame out, locked ailerons, no matter what happened, the pilot became a member of the Martin-Baker Tie Club. When the pilots’ flight histories were reviewed, it was found that all had transitioned to this aircraft from the same former aircraft. Furthermore, the cockpits of the two aircraft were almost identical. But there was a critical difference, the throttle and ejection seat handle positions had been switched. Pilots flying the new plane had no problem until something went wrong, when it did they reverted to old behavior and mistakenly ejected when they wanted to apply power.

So what do we do? I feel that a combination of training techniques is required. Divers need to have confidence in their ability to fix things on the fly within a given timeframe. We typically work with what are calling “dynamic drills” in thirty second blocks, (e.g., if you can’t solve it in 30 seconds you’re not going to solve it). Why 30 seconds? That’s rather arbitrary, but we established that guideline based on two criteria, and that‘s where the combination of things comes into play: a thirty second breath hold is not a big deal for our students, even if the problem is discovered after exhaling and while attempting to inhale; and all of the dynamic drills that we do can be accomplished in less than 30 seconds from onset to resolution, with the exception of the deep ESAs that we no longer teach.

The reach back and follow the hose has to work (if it doesn't you've much larger troubles than you thought) yet I've watched lots of divers (in real and other classes) do arm sweep after arm sweep, with each one getting faster and more spasmodic, until having reached critical mass they bolt for the surface. One of my instructors even started using an arm sweep as the hand signal for, "look out boss ... he's-a-gonna go!"

 

[knowone]

The old still putting the fork in the mouth
after the food has fallen off trick

 

[charlesml3]

In both these cases the description was the same, “… sunk out of sight over the wall, kept doing arm sweeps.”

And never once thought: "Jeez, I have an octo?" It's there somewhere. Are the not trained to use it if something goes wrong with their primary?

 

[Tortuga68]

That's exactly the point that's being made - in the event of losing the primary they're trained to sweep & recover and that's what they do, repeatedly, regardless of the result