>No pony bottle or other gadget would have saved this diver.
Actually if he'd been sucking on any kind of tank he would not have been holding his breath
>Everybody does something dumb sometime, most of us revert to training before the final step in the chain to the final outcome and survive to learn from the experience.
I agree. In the end it comes down to this. I had one experience myself. I was running a group in a location where the dive masters do everything for you including changing tanks. On one dive after I had checked the group I forgot to check the amount of air I had in my own tank and dived on a light tank (my error).
At about 30m I started to find it hard to breath. At first I thought that I'd forgotten to fully open my tank so I called my buddy over to check for me. At this point I was holding my breath. After he checking and me taking another breath I ealised that I was out of air and grabbed the alternate of my buddy and did a normal ascent (with safety stop)
In my case I have been through a lot of courses where they turn off your tanks at all sorts of depth for stress testing so I knew what it was like to be out of air. Many of the training organizations do not do this or only do it once in the pool so if it actually happens panic is a typical first response.
I can tell you that it is possible to do an emergency ascent from 30 meters and still have air left in your lungs but I certainly don't recommend that you try or practice this unless you are really in a situation where you have no choice.
These days I check my air first before checking the others.
As a test I once did my 3 minute safety stop at 3m using a single spare air bottle so there is enough gas for a controlled ascent from most recreational depths.
