No air at 40' at night

[TSandM]

Sounds like an unnerving situation that was handled about as well as you could have handled it at the time.

As with so many other scuba stories, the best solution was prevention . . . but I know I don't check the security of the mouthpieces on my regs every time I dive, and I doubt many other people do, either.

It's an interesting facet of the story, that because it was dark, you couldn't see that your regulator was gone. I also suspect you weren't specifically LOOKING for it, because you still had the mouthpiece in your mouth. Having an understanding of the ways that a reg can begin to breathe wet (as opposed to failing to deliver air) might have allowed you to decide to go to your own alternate before getting gas from someone else. That's good information; we teach our students to check their regulators IN the water, to make sure they aren't breathing wet, but we don't go through the differential diagnosis of a wet-breathing reg with them, and perhaps we should. Thanks for posting this.

 

[billt4sf]

I don't check the security of the mouthpieces on my regs every time I dive, and I doubt many other people do, either.

I do check the mouthpieces now. Many of them are not securely connected -- try it!

I also suspect you weren't specifically LOOKING for it, because you still had the mouthpiece in your mouth.

That's exactly right; because I had the mouthpiece in I thought I was connected to the tank. When I tried to clear it I couldn't "find the purge valve" -- in retrospect this is because the reg wasn't there but that just confused me even more at the time. Which is also why I didn't reach for my secondary air - I thought I was connected to the tank.

Having an understanding of the ways that a reg can begin to breathe wet (as opposed to failing to deliver air) might have allowed you to decide to go to your own alternate before getting gas from someone else. That's good information; we teach our students to check their regulators IN the water, to make sure they aren't breathing wet, but we don't go through the differential diagnosis of a wet-breathing reg with them, and perhaps we should.

I think it would be a great thing to add to the OW training. OTOH, it may be just another thing for students to forget (like I did about breathing from a free-flowing reg. -- another thread).


Thanks for all your comments. I sure am learning alot from this forum!

- Bill

 

[ianr33]

If you get a mouthful of water first thing I would suggest is switching to your alternate reg (preferably sitting around your neck on a bungee cord)

 

[Mike]

Please feel free to comment on anything that we did that could be improved.

Biggest thing should have been the DM was never involved in the incident. You and your buddy should have resolved the problem.

The results of solving it correctly with your buddy would have also eliminated you and your buddy being separated, being separated at night of all times, her surfacing alone etc....

Buddy... buddy... buddy.... buddy.... no dive master, no dive master, no dive master.

There is no sense in analyzing the situation of the bad reg, if it's not a bad reg it will be something else, it will always be something. The real lesson is to stick close to your buddy and resolve your problems with your buddy, this ensures you stay together and you don't create an even bigger problem by abandoning your buddy by chasing the dive master to save you. This story could have ended much worse with the last part of it being "after surfacing with the dive master my wife was never seen again."

Also in my very conservative world of diving safely I'd never recommend divers with 15 dives doing a night dive. Everything needs to be 100% dialed in before you add darkness to the equation. That likely takes 30, 40, 50 dives.

 

[Hatul]

Interestingly I had the same thing happen to me years ago, also on Kona. The mouthpiece came off and I sucked in water, I reached for my buddy's octo and breathed off that until I figured out what's going on.

The underlying cause of the mouthpiece getting loose was being pummeled on some exits in heavy surf. Now I check the security of the mouthpiece before each dive.

 

[wtcreaux]

In 2009, diving off Cancun with my daughter (18 at the time, less than 20 dives). We were using rental gear, including BC and reg. I noticed my daughter's reg had a bite grip missing so I swapped regs with her...........at 55', the entire mouthpiece disentegrated in my mouth/water. I reached down for my secondary and switched over........afterwards, the crew changed out regs for the next dive. Though my daughter and I discussed it afterwards, I was thankful it happened to me and not her.......

Now she has over 50 dives and her own equipment with which we do frequent emergency drills and she has gained in her skill level and her confidence to handle problems.

 

[TSandM]

I really wouldn't be upset about new divers doing a night dive. Here in Puget Sound, it's not uncommon for algae blooms in the summer to render the top 20 feet virtually opaque -- below that, the viz can be quite good, but it's very dark. New divers just have to learn to cope with the reduced light, or not dive at all.

I wholeheartedly agree that the first reaction SHOULD have been to go to his buddy for gas, if he needed gas. If his buddy was too far away, or he didn't know where she was, that was another failure. The dive guide should also have collected the other diver and taken her to the surface with them, but he may not have felt that the OP was under good enough control to be kept underwater. I think the wife did quite well; I know that, at 15 dives, being left at depth in the dark, by myself, would have been more than unnerving.

My guess is that the OP will check the condition of his equipment pretty careful, at least for a while, and I wouldn't be surprised if he and his wife practice a few air-sharing drills, too, having learned that running out of gas is not the only reason you might need to share air!

 

[flots am]

I was confused about how my tank still had air until he explained that all that had happened was the my mouthpiece had disengaged from the reg.

This is a reasonably common problem with new divers and rental equipment where the diver brings a mouthpiece, but doesn't use the wire tie to secure it, or doesn't tighten the wire tie enough or doesn't get the mouthpiece fully seated on the regulator.

While this particular failure probably won't sneak up on you again, now that you know what to look for, you always need to be ready that your last breath was your last breath, and maintain appropriate buddy distance and contact. Then no matter what happens to make you "Out of Air" you can handle it.

Also, remember that on a recreational Open Water dive, the surface is always an option. No matter what kind of bad things are happening underwater, or whether it's day or night or low visibility, you can always ditch your weights and ascend keeping an open airway, as taught in class. This ensures that you will arrive safely at the surface and stay there, and works regardless of whatever problem you're having, and will still work just fine, even if you can't tell which way is "up" because of vertigo or a blown eardrum.

"Up" always works when you ditch your weights.

It's not a great first option (it's always better if you can share air and do a normal ascent), however it's also not exceptionally dangerous and is much safer than drowning.

flots.

 

[nimoh]

I love this line, and as such, I probably throw it out into threads far too often, but I will again

"if you have to choose, better to be bent on the surface than out of air on the bottom"

 

[mathauck0814]

I had never seen this happen in real life before Saturday. There was a large group of instructors and students out on a local charter and somehow two people had this exact failure. Given that mouthpieces are merely tension mounted by a zip-tie, I'm honestly surprised it doesn't happen more often.

To the OP - practice switching your second stages more frequently (every dive until it becomes muscle memory and in your normal routine of keeping skills fresh). You had the answer with you and bailed out to the instructor. The right move was to simply switch to your back-up.