My first out of air incident!

[Kirky]

Read the initial post 3 times and still cant beleive it !!. Either the poster is a troll or an absolute plonker !!

 

[SadiesMom]

The only thing that I think about is that if I was in place of the dive master I would NEVER put a recreational diver down with no SPG and a half tank! To know the risk and take it yourself is one thing and to know the risk and give it to another person is quite another.

OK - going to have to disagree with you big time on your last statement. It is NOT the DM's job to make the decision to do the dive with the equipment or under the circumstances. It was YOURS. For you to "blame" the DM is ludicrous. He didn't "put" you down there - you chose to go with no SPG and a half-filled tank. That was your decision, not his - unless somehow he had a gun to your head. You gave in to subtle peer pressure and "went with the flow" despite the fact that you had misgivings about the gear - that's not the DMs fault.

Don't try to shift the blame for what happened here - you knew the equipment you had and *you* decided to make the dive. That's no one's responsibility but your own.

 

[MikeFerrara]

2. BCD is an absolutely useless piece of gear! :14:

I'll give you a dollar if you can do a nice job of diving my doubles along with a couple of full decompression bottles without one. LOL, forget diving, we'll just hang out on the surface in full gear and talk about it until you say uncle.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Please don't hate me....I am a middle aged housewife (well, no husband) in Hawaii. If you are an international vegabaond you should have no trouble free ascending from a "modified snorkel" excursion. Forty feet will not kill you if you started from an underfilled tank. Are you from the valley? Just kidding...but guys...think about it! Do you really think the Pakistanis are different from the West Indians or alcoholic American dive guides in Mexico? You gotta constantly think for yourself. Forty feet is pedestrian and it does not matter that you ran out unless you are a really new diver. I run out of air quite often trying to get that last shot with the camera. If you use your head and understand the physics (different deal with lots of bottom time) you should not be too upset by this. I admire the fact that you dove with them in the first place. This is how one becomes a better diver, having to think for yourself and analyze risk.

Sorry, I take back the comment about West Indians, that was not nice. I love them, just got loosey goosey with my choice of words.

Well, hopefully running out of air at 40 ft will not kill you. Still, let me suggest something. With just a little planning, using your head and understanding of the physics involved you can easily get that last shot with your camera and still have plenty of air in reserve.

All you nee underwater is something to breath and intentionally getting yourself in a situation where you don't have it or not excersizing due care in avoiding it is not very smart.

Let me suggest a way to finish one of your sentances for you

Forty feet is pedestrian and it does not matter that you ran out unless you are a really new diver

or happen to be entangled when you run out or you need to delay your ascent to help another diver or have to navigate out from under boat traffic, kelp or some other obstruction or you get a reverse squeeze on the way up and are forced to halt your ascent for a time, or...you get the idea.

I like the reverse squeeze one myself because I know a lady who spend the beter part of a week of her vacation time in the hospitol just because she does exactly what you do and had no choice but to ascend, tearing her ears up as she did.

 

[1_T_Submariner]

I did come across a submarine story. Its something I would like to make a documentary on if the Pakistani military gives clearence. On Saturday 23 Sept 1995 a Pakistani Midget Submarine carrying 14 under training Navy Special forces personal began to flood at 100 feet below sea level. Within minutes it was pitch dark in the flooded compartment and the 14 guys were neck deep in water water with a lot of smoke in the compartment. They were breathing in the little air pocket that was formed on top of the compartment. They all opened the main hatch and did an emergency ascent from a depth of 100 feet with no SCUBA. All of them came out alive on the surface. One guy exploded his lungs and one broke his finger opening the hatch but other than that there were no injuries. They floated on the surface for a good ten hours before they were picked up by a missile boat. The Navy Special Forces then recovered the sunken submarine and re-fitted it and now the sunken submarine and the men are in service again. There is a book on this called "Sea Pheonix" by Admiral Zaheer Shah.

I think they left out some detail here....with a submarine at 100' you have about 45 psi on that hatch so unless the equalized the internal pressure of the submarine that hatch would not come open. (Ex. an 18 inch hatch has 11500 pounds of force pushing in on it) On most submarines you would use an escape trunk not "The main hatch". Just some help for you documentary.....

 

[1_T_Submariner]

I suppose you could drive a car down a mountain without brakes or skydive without a parachute....Not my idea of adventure but, maybe I'm too cautious

Sounds like a quest to win a Darwin Award

 

[PAdiver93]

Why would you dive without a spg and not knowing how much air you started with?
Was this a recreational dive? I can't understand even wanting to dive under those circumstances.
The stress of not knowing how much I started with would increase my air consumption to the point that I wouldn't even enjoy the dive. Every breath would seem the like the last.

It wasn't a recreational five - it was probably part of the hunt for Osama... God help them...

 

[ClevelandDiver]

My vintage dives are done sans BC and SPG, but I have a J valve and a very good idea of how long the tank will last at a given depth. I have never come close to accidentally running out of air, but I have intenionally breathed a tank down in a controlled environment (buddy with twin 104s at my side in 20 feet of water on a platform) to test out the J valve.

The biggest challenge in diving with out a BC is not keeping off the bottom (you weight yourself for neutral bouyancy at your planned depth), it is controlling your ascent rate at the end of the dive. I prefer using the safety rocks that litter the floor of the quarry, but an ancor line or extra weight belt left at the exit point will also work.

 

[Cacia]

Well, hopefully running out of air at 40 ft will not kill you. Still, let me suggest something. With just a little planning, using your head and understanding of the physics involved you can easily get that last shot with your camera and still have plenty of air in reserve.

All you nee underwater is something to breath and intentionally getting yourself in a situation where you don't have it or not excersizing due care in avoiding it is not very smart.

Let me suggest a way to finish one of your sentances for you or happen to be entangled when you run out or you need to delay your ascent to help another diver or have to navigate out from under boat traffic, kelp or some other obstruction or you get a reverse squeeze on the way up and are forced to halt your ascent for a time, or...you get the idea.

I like the reverse squeeze one myself because I know a lady who spend the beter part of a week of her vacation time in the hospitol just because she does exactly what you do and had no choice but to ascend, tearing her ears up as she did.

You are right, of course. I hope I would think twice if in kelp. boat traffic, etc. My only point was if you are going to have adventure in 3rd world locales, you are not always going to be offered a tank analyzer, etc, which is why if you decide that since you are able to freedive forty feet, that maybe hopping in with ideal conditions on a partial-fill, when you are not responsible for other divers is not as stupid as it sounds. I am not advocating that everyone does this. I am convinced that this diver was forced to think about his limits and abilities in a way that will go much further towards making him a better diver than all the PADI rules in the world. What the Pakistani said about "you will know because you won't be able to suck air..." should make the diver realize that when he notices resistance he needs to buddy-up or start his ascent so his remainder air can expand. Please don't take this as advising people do this. I just think it is important to always think in terms of "probable worst case-scenario". I just do not think it seems to warrant the reaction he was getting. I might add that I am pretty conservative on my dive profiles, etc. I am sure evryone here has seen or heard about the South Pacific dive guides that throw tanks under their arms to fetch some tourist camera.....these types of actions by confident divers are not what usually kills people is my impression. At some point, a diver stops "following" others ideas about safety and sees each situation in terms of his own ability, environment, etc. My opinion is this experience put him there.



Good point about the reverse squeeze. I had my first one a couple months ago and it definately got my attention.

 

[dpbishop]

The only thing that I think about is that if I was in place of the dive master I would NEVER put a recreational diver down with no SPG and a half tank! To know the risk and take it yourself is one thing and to know the risk and give it to another person is quite another.

You said these were Pakistani Special Forces. I would not put it past some of the Navy Seals I have known to send a 'guest' diver down with a short tank just for a laugh.

I'm still waiting for a report on the dive. How was the viz, what kind of sea life, etc. Should we be making our reservations for Dive Pakistan?

Will PADI be having a specialty course: "Recreational Diving in a War Zone"?