No air at 40' at night

[Mike]

Yes, surely we should learn to rely on our buddies. In this situation we were in a group with a DM (he is an instructor). There was no way I was going to swim back to my buddy in this situation.

You should never be in a situation where you have to swim back to your buddy. If you swam over, up, down, which ever, to the dive master to signal him, your buddy should have been swimming right along side of you the whole time.

I think you might be missing the point of the reason you dive with a dive buddy. You and your buddy should never be further than one breath away from each other.

 

[billt4sf]

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[Fish-R-Man]

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[flots am]

I'm surprised you suggest ditching weights for a CESA need?.

If there is any question about the diver being able to figure out what's wrong and handle it while underwater, and a swimming ascent might be questionable, ditching weights is a reasonably safe solution. Once someone is already OOA and has a mouthful of water, and doesn't understand what's going on, things will go very badly very quickly if definitive action isn't taken.

Given the number of divers that make it to the surface, then drown, I have no hesitation in recommending that new divers ditch weights, when getting to the surface and staying there is necessary in order to prevent much more serious problems.

Problem solving underwater is a wonderful thing if you happen to be able to figure out and fix the problem before you drown. A new diver with no air and a mouthful of water and no idea what's wrong isn't in a position to do very much troubleshooting. Ditching weights would have provided an immediate solution.

flots.

 

[antattack]

Water in mouth- purge, still no air
-BUDDY! OUT OF AIR
-CESA
If the DM is closer than my buddy, then the DM is my buddy (good work on that.)
Lesson learned?
1. Check the zippy tie on your mouth piece (thanks for the benefit of your experience!)
2. Keep the DM close, keep your buddy closer!

Thank you for sharing this experience. Really- its a really good to learn from your experience, and you are giving us great benefit by sharing.

 

[DandyDon]

Given the number of divers that make it to the surface, then drown, I have no hesitation in recommending that new divers ditch weights, when getting to the surface and staying there is necessary in order to prevent much more serious problems.

I guess I misunderstood. Ditching on the surface is fine - a good idea if buoyancy is questionable.

Removing weights and holding them during the CESA in case the diver passes out is debatable, but I think worthy.

 

[billt4sf]

If there is any question about the diver being able to figure out what's wrong and handle it while underwater, and a swimming ascent might be questionable, ditching weights is a reasonably safe solution. Once someone is already OOA and has a mouthful of water, and doesn't understand what's going on, things will go very badly very quickly if definitive action isn't taken.

Given the number of divers that make it to the surface, then drown, I have no hesitation in recommending that new divers ditch weights, when getting to the surface and staying there is necessary in order to prevent much more serious problems.

Problem solving underwater is a wonderful thing if you happen to be able to figure out and fix the problem before you drown. A new diver with no air and a mouthful of water and no idea what's wrong isn't in a position to do very much troubleshooting. Ditching weights would have provided an immediate solution.

flots.

I agree ! But if I did have that mouthful of water, uncontrolled panic may well have set in and I may well have drowned. That's my opinion.

I learned alot from going through it (chiefly that you can recover if you don't panic) and I hope others have learned something as well. I have another experience I'm going to post about soon.

- Bill]

 

[TSandM]

The idea that a diver should first look to a buddy, before instinctively trying to solve the problem themself is 180 degrees to my thinking... What if a mask strap breaks and the mask falls off? Do you want a diver signalling he has a problem or snatching it off the bottom and slapping it on their face?​

If you will notice, the sentence of my post that was bolded says he should go to his buddy for gas, IF HE NEEDED GAS. In this case, he didn't, but he didn't know it. As I said earlier, one of the takeaways for me from this story is that it may be useful to take our students through a quick differential diagnosis of regulator problems, and what to do or try in the event that they occur. A wet reg should immediately prompt a switch to the backup reg; there really aren't any failures that are going to deliver water to both second stages. A reg which suddenly stops delivering gas is much more likely to be a first stage problem, or a dip tube problem (or an out-of-gas problem) where switching to the backup reg is unlikely to solve the problem. However, while one is moving toward one's buddy, assuming said buddy was not immediately at hand, trying the backup reg is not a bad interim move.

Personally, I would much rather have a person who is having trouble securing a source of breathable gas go, at least temporarily, to his buddy, than persist in ineffective attempts at self-rescue until the problem becomes truly unmanageably urgent. Once a diver is on his buddy's backup, he has a whole LOT of time to inspect his equipment and try various options, at leisure and calmly. While he is in the water without a source of breathing gas, time is very severely limited, and his thinking is unlikely to be methodical.

 

[Fish-R-Man]

I agree ! But if I did have that mouthful of water, uncontrolled panic may well have set in and I may well have drowned. That's my opinion.

I learned alot from going through it (chiefly that you can recover if you don't panic) and I hope others have learned something as well. I have another experience I'm going to post about soon.

- Bill]

I am not sure how this got into CESA and dropping weights. The first response should have been to pick up your spare reg. It should be right there to supply air. To have a double reg failure is pretty remote. There is no possible way for water to have entered your tank, so you shouldn't have had an issue if you had a working second.


Most new divers that I talk to have a couple of skills that they have real problems trying to practice. The first is mask removal and replacement and the second is switching regs. Both of these skills must be second nature. If you were very comfortable with switching regs, there would have been no panic, you could be moving towards your buddy or DM at the same time you were swapping out your regs. That way if you did find yourself in an OOA situation, you would have been in a good position to start to share air.

Panic is often triggered by indecision where an automatic responce should have taken place. By practicing these skills, it reduces the urge to panic if a problem comes along. As a newer diver, the options that have been presented such as ditching weights or trying to complete an emergency assent, all take time to complete the thought process. During this decision making process the clock is ticking. The time for rational thinking is getting shorter. End result, if the correct decision hasn't been made panic takes over.


IMHO in this case it was probably a good thing that you went to your DM. It sounds like he made the correct assessment of your situation and was immediately able to correct the problem. If your wife is also a fairly new diver and given that this was on a night dive she may not have been able to understand your situation as quickly to be able to help. That damn clock is always ticking.....

 

[flots am]

I guess I misunderstood. Ditching on the surface is fine - a good idea if buoyancy is questionable.

Actually you probably understood me just fine.

A new diver with no air, and a mouthful of water needs to be on the surface if there's no way to immediately fix the problem underwater.

If the diver feels confident, a swimming ascent with or without ditching weights at the surface would be fine, but if there's any question about being able to safely arrive at the surface and stay there, ditching weights at depth will have a much more certain outcome.

Weight ditching at depth in an emergency is only dangerous if not done properly. As someone mentioned earlier, "bent on the surface is better than dead on the bottom". I'll take a chamber ride over a funeral any day of the week.

flots.