Near Miss OOA

[thejoz]

This is my first post on scuba board, and I would like to talk about something that happened to me in the carribean, with a resort, and recive constructive criticism on the incident. I know it really isn't a huge deal, but It kinda left a bad taste in my mouth about the guide.

I have been a diver for a couple years with under 15 dives. I took at trip to the carribean and did some dives, I elected to do a night dive with my resort, as I thought it would be a good experience to get another good dive in. I was diving with a OW instructor and two other guests, the dive was eventful in a good way, without incident, I looked at my gauge and realized I had 750psi left in my tank, I imeditatly signaled the divemaster and gave him my guage reading. He signaled ok, I signaled back...this is where im thinking are we going back to the boat? He just continued the dive, so we finally make it back to the boat starting our safety stop, I give him the something is wrong followed by the low on air.. he asks for my pressure I signal back 200psi. I then started to find that my reg was extremly hard to breathe out of and I knew I only had a couple of breaths left. I was still in a calm state, and signaled that I was going to acent, the instructor then gave me a big no...I was 2 min into the safety stop, I was well within my DECO limits, I wanted to surface. He pointed to his octo, I couldn't breathe any longer off of my tank, so I gave the out of air share air signal. He passed his octo, we continued the safety stop, then continued the acent without incident.

Was this OOA situation my fault, or the guides? I still feel bad about putting myself in the situation, there was many air checks during the dive, and with him being the guide, I trusted that he would be able to gauge my air consumption.

 

[netmage]

This is my first post on scuba board, and I would like to talk about something that happened to me in the carribean, with a resort, and recive constructive criticism on the incident. I know it really isn't a huge deal, but It kinda left a bad taste in my mouth about the guide.

I have been a diver for a couple years with under 15 dives. I took at trip to the carribean and did some dives, I elected to do a night dive with my resort, as I thought it would be a good experience to get another good dive in. I was diving with a OW instructor and two other guests, the dive was eventful in a good way, without incident, I looked at my gauge and realized I had 750psi left in my tank, I imeditatly signaled the divemaster and gave him my guage reading. He signaled ok, I signaled back...this is where im thinking are we going back to the boat? He just continued the dive, so we finally make it back to the boat starting our safety stop, I give him the something is wrong followed by the low on air.. he asks for my pressure I signal back 200psi. I then started to find that my reg was extremly hard to breathe out of and I knew I only had a couple of breaths left. I was still in a calm state, and signaled that I was going to acent, the instructor then gave me a big no...I was 2 min into the safety stop, I was well within my DECO limits, I wanted to surface. He pointed to his octo, I couldn't breathe any longer off of my tank, so I gave the out of air share air signal. He passed his octo, we continued the safety stop, then continued the acent without incident.

Was this OOA situation my fault, or the guides? I still feel bad about putting myself in the situation, there was many air checks during the dive, and with him being the guide, I trusted that he would be able to gauge my air consumption.

- You and you alone are responsible for monitoring and managing your air consumption.
- Do a search for the concept of 'Rock Bottom'.... give it a thorough read and ask yourself - did you have enough gas for you (No), did you have enough reserve gas for your buddy (No)...
- Given a out and back dive profile covering a larger distance, you should have alerted them much earlier. I can see some people getting away with being at the bottom of the line (above comment not withstanding) @ ~800psi.... But when you still have distance to cover plus a safety stop\ascent... you should have 'turned' much earlier...

-Tim

 

[Web Monkey]

This is my first post on scuba board, and I would like to talk about something that happened to me in the carribean, with a resort, and recive constructive criticism on the incident. I know it really isn't a huge deal, but It kinda left a bad taste in my mouth about the guide.

I have been a diver for a couple years with under 15 dives. I took at trip to the carribean and did some dives, I elected to do a night dive with my resort, as I thought it would be a good experience to get another good dive in. I was diving with a OW instructor and two other guests, the dive was eventful in a good way, without incident, I looked at my gauge and realized I had 750psi left in my tank, I imeditatly signaled the divemaster and gave him my guage reading. He signaled
ok, I signaled back...this is where im thinking are we going back to the boat? He just continued the dive, so we finally make it back to the boat starting our safety stop, I give him the something is wrong followed by the low on air.. he asks for my pressure I signal back 200psi. I then started to find that my reg was extremly hard to breathe out of and I knew I only had a couple of breaths left. I was still in a

• Your DM is a moron.
• DMs running divers Out of Air is much more common than you think.

The next time you or your buddy hits your turn pressure and the DM ignores you, flip him off, take your buddy and surface normally.

Congratulations on surviving!

I have no idea what causes this, but a little Googling will turn up a bunch of similar incidents on SCUBABoard, including some that didn't end well.

Also, never "buddy" with the DM. He's responsible for everybody, so if he's your buddy, you're essentially solo. You need an actual buddy who is only responsible for himself and you.

Terry

 

[AfterDark]

My 1st question was also how you managed to let your air get that low? I've always treated my SPG like my speedometer I look at often during a dive. If you develop a leak that you can't see and nobody notices the only way you'll have a clue is a monitoring of your SPG and a good idea of your own gas consumption rate. At night your buddy may not see a stream of bubbles coming from your 1st stage / LP hose/SPG hose etc... I would have went back on my own did the safety stop and called it a night but that's me. I don't mean to say you had a leak it's just an example of way looking at your SPG often is a good idea.

 

[divengolf]

A good easy to remember rule of thumb from the Rock Bottom rule is never let your air get below:

(Depth X 10) plus 300.

So at 50 feet, you need at least 800 psi as an absolute minimum for you and your buddy to share air to the surface with a SS. At 100 feet, you need 1300 psi. This assumes that your buddy goes OOA at the worst possible time in the dive.

Netmage is absolutely correct. You are responsible for your own air management. If you're not comfortable it's time to head up. Don't ever rely on DMs to think/act for you.

The other thing that you learned is that your SPG isn't always accurate. You were OOA with about 200 psi indicated on your gauge. That's why it's good to plan to be on the boat with 500 psi left.

BTW you're not the first rookie diver to trust a DM and follow them doing things you deem unsafe. We all did, but some learn faster than others. Now you're a quick learner in this regard.

 

[TSandM]

It's not the DM's fault that you ran out of gas, but he sure didn't help you avoid it.

When you realized how low on gas you were, you could have done a quick calculation -- "I've been down x minutes and I've used y psi, therefore I'm using z psi/min -- I need to be on the surface within so many minutes." That would have given you an idea of how much longer you could continue the dive (and the rock bottom information will tell you whether you can remain at your current depth, or need to ascend). If you reach the point where you have to go up, you look at the DM and thumb the dive -- you don't give him your pressure. It's not HIS decision that you need to surface.

Whether you needed to do the 2 additional minutes at the stop or not depends on what your profile was. If you spent a lot of time deep, it might be advisable. If the dive was shallow, he should have permitted you to surface when you signaled that you wanted to do so. Safety stops are optional for recreational dives, except in the few dives that push the table limits at deeper depths.

There's a long thread here somewhere entitled, "Who is responsible for what?" The bottom line is that you are responsible for your dive, which includes deciding how deep you want to go, who you dive with, and what the gas parameters for the dive are. Once in the water, it is still YOUR dive. Abdicating the decision-making to the DM results in the kind of situation you recounted.

 

[imwright1985]

depends on dive profile and a number of other things, on a drift dive you shoulda just surfaced but in anchor dives its usually easier to get around under water which would leave your DM kinda in the right, you shoulda probably signaled running kinda low at about 1200 then he would have an idea ok gotta get ready to wrap up the dive. With ignoring the safety stop a little you probably woulda been fine but he was trying to keep everything by the books.

We drift dive where i live so if we are in a group of 3 or more and sticking together we usually signal to the other divers low and heading up then follow the marker line to surface and board the boat so in the dive if we come up solo we have one person alone for a few mins (which isnt a really smart idea) but with enough air + safety buffer for safety stop then board boat and the divers that are lighter on air consumption can keep their dive going longer

 

[lamont]

This is my first post on scuba board, and I would like to talk about something that happened to me in the carribean, with a resort, and recive constructive criticism on the incident. I know it really isn't a huge deal, but It kinda left a bad taste in my mouth about the guide.

I have been a diver for a couple years with under 15 dives. I took at trip to the carribean and did some dives, I elected to do a night dive with my resort, as I thought it would be a good experience to get another good dive in. I was diving with a OW instructor and two other guests, the dive was eventful in a good way, without incident, I looked at my gauge and realized I had 750psi left in my tank, I imeditatly signaled the divemaster and gave him my guage reading. He signaled ok, I signaled back...this is where im thinking are we going back to the boat? He just continued the dive, so we finally make it back to the boat starting our safety stop, I give him the something is wrong followed by the low on air.. he asks for my pressure I signal back 200psi. I then started to find that my reg was extremly hard to breathe out of and I knew I only had a couple of breaths left. I was still in a calm state, and signaled that I was going to acent, the instructor then gave me a big no...I was 2 min into the safety stop, I was well within my DECO limits, I wanted to surface. He pointed to his octo, I couldn't breathe any longer off of my tank, so I gave the out of air share air signal. He passed his octo, we continued the safety stop, then continued the acent without incident.

Was this OOA situation my fault, or the guides? I still feel bad about putting myself in the situation, there was many air checks during the dive, and with him being the guide, I trusted that he would be able to gauge my air consumption.

I'd say the most useful answer to that is that its your fault for trusting the guide. You need to be more assertive about managing your own gas.

Also -- if there's ever a next time -- you should have asked for gas at 200psi or at least when it started to pull harder, not when you were already completely out of gas and couldn't take another breath. If anything had happened wrong with that gas share (the DMs octo could have failed to deploy out of the holder, the mouthpiece may have come loose, it may have had a hole in the diaphragm or exhaust valve and been breathing water, etc), its better to figure that out when you still have some gas left -- otherwise you panic can start to set in fairly quickly when things go wrong and if you did a rapid ascent to the surface hold that last breath and no exhaling you could blow your lungs and have a CAGE and die.

Its better to get way ahead of that accident spiral, because it can turn into a very dangerous situation -- even just at your safety stop at 15 feet.

 

[tc]

A good habit to get into- before looking at your gauge take a guess at what your pressure will be, then look to see how close you were. Over time you'll get very accurate at predicting what gas you have left without even having to look. That will help you be more aware of your gas consumption as a dive progresses and avoid the surprises like you encountered on that dive.

 

[openmindOW]

I was diving with a OW instructor and two other guests, the dive was eventful in a good way, without incident, I looked at my gauge and realized I had 750psi left in my tank, I imeditatly signaled the divemaster and gave him my guage reading.

Thank you very much for your post on ScubaBoard, TheJoz. By posting here, you are helping other divers to learn. Thank you.

You handled yourself well. You remained calm. You stuck with the other diver(s). Congratulations.

Your instinct to ascend at 750psi was correct.

Divers tend to follow the instructions of the Dive Leader. That tendency is partly cultured into dive students early on. People tend to trust experts. That's natural. The term Divemaster suggests that the person knows what he is doing.

If I may, I do have a few questions.

1) You mention in your post that you were diving with an Instructor. Were you taking a class?

2) Did you have an assigned buddy or were you doing a "group dive"?

3) How deep did you get on the dive?

4) What were the conditions like?

5) Can you tell us where in the Caribbean you were diving?

6) What kind of illumination, if any, were you using?

7) I understand that this was your first night dive. Is that correct? If so, can you say with certainlty whether the dive leader or the boat captain knew that before you began the dive?

8) How many dive leaders were on the dive? How many guests were there?

Keep diving, my friend.