No air left. Unable to do controlled ascent!

[Damselfish]

Question for PADI has the requreiment to have a octp. been dropped since BB has been dropped?

Buddy breathing does not use the octopus - it involves passing one divers primary second stage back and forth. The octopus is what allows air sharing rather than buddy breathing.

 

[Wookie]

Question for PADI has the requreiment to have a octp. been dropped since BB has been dropped?

Buddy Breathing was dropped. With an octopus (alternate air source) you might perform a alternate air source ascent, which the OP accomplished in fine fashon. If PADI were to drop the requirement for an alternate air source, then they would have to start teaching buddy breathing. Just sayin'.

 

[Web Monkey]

Thank you so much for all of your replies. They mean alot to me!! Regarding the drysuit, it was a rental from the manufacturer at their demonstration day. The rest of the gear is mine which was purchased new four months ago. My instructor taught us to use the drysuit for buoyancy control, not the BCD. That's probably why my buoyancy was out of control and used up alot of air. But I do not recall inflating the drysuit once after I saw my air was at 550. I was just shocked and will take y'all's advice to have my SPG checked out as well. My instructor told me 5 times after this happened that I should have went to the surface regardless, never to dive back down. I guess that's why it's still unsettling to me.

This is a great lesson as to what "buddy distance" really is. When you're Out of Air, every foot counts. You might want to stick closer to your buddy (which will also help if he runs out of air).

Also, pressure gauges stick. I've seen some that read several hundred PSI even after being tossed into the trash can. Tank valves can clog, there are all sorts of non-obvious ways to not have any air left (including the obvious "not checking your gauge"). However the solution to all of these is the same. Develop good buddy skills.

As long as you can reach over and poke your buddy in the ribs, you always have an alternate air supply within easy reach.

Anyway, congrats on surviving, and don't let it freak you out too much. All divers have a few "Oh S***T!" moments in their lives. You just got yours earlier than most.

Terry

 

[scubette]

I wonder if PADI monitors SB? That faulty logic with regards to an underwater OOA situation should be corrected quickly...

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[D_B]

SB ... Scuba Board

You did wonderful, you went to the closest air source (which should always be your buddy) and did not bolt for the surface

Buddy breathing is no longer taught by PADI (both off the same regulator)
Air sharing with your buddies alternate regulator is

A quick rule of thumb, multiply your depth by 10 and add 300 psi to that ... this is what you should start your ascent with , IE ... 50ft is 500psi + 300psi = 800psi .. This is from Lamonts post here ... Rock Bottom and Gas Management for Recreational Divers


If you do decide to dive a drysuit, get some good training, by an instructor, or by a good mentor that will stress you .. drysuits can have some dangerous failure modes
Here is what my class was like ... http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/advanced-scuba-discussions/260824-padi-dry-suit-class.html and what I learned

 

[fppf]

Wookie
We can agree to disagree. And I have dropped 26 lbs of weight at 15 feet. I will NEVER do it at 100 feet. I went up a hell of a lot faster than 100 FPM, and that was fully flared. How much weight did you drop at 40 feet?

Our instructors do teach OW students how to remove all gear and replace all gear at the surface. They also still teach ditch and don. I also have more diving in a dry suit than a wet suit. I'm by no means a "new diver"

 

[BoneCrusher]

I question whether there was truly a better decision. Ignoring the root cause of the problem (where the air went), when faced with the decision of doing a CESA or scramble to a buddy that isn't exactly close....

CESA... Your training should have taken you through this and you should be comfortable with this. The ascent would have expanded the air in your lungs. You would have been able to "blow bubbles" on the ascent. Assuming this wasn't a deep dive and were within NDL, then there is a very, very small risk of diver injury due to decompression issues. I think this is a viable decision from the depth discussed by the OP.

Dive down to the buddy... Although this worked, I think some have missed a few potential problems. First, the buddy wasn't right there. That is the first breakdown in the buddy system. That would leave questions in my head about how good of a buddy that is. If the OP descended to the "buddy", would that buddy be good enough to not panic and allow for shared breathing? How would the buddy react when the frantic diver approaches? Could they unclip the octo? Does the octo work? Did they go over sharing procedures prior to the dive?

Second, if the OP and the buddy had the same dive profiles and same basic starting pressures, is the buddy extremely low on air as well? (since we still haven't determined that there was a loss of gas at some point in the dive!). Starting a buddy breathe in this situation could have endangered both divers as they could both be now 7 feet deeper and both out of air and in panic.

I am glad that everything worked out. When considering this decision, I don't see one option necessarily better than the other. Either was an option. Both had risks. Any small change in the events could have been disastrous.

Im all for the buddy system. However, I also believe that every diver needs to be self sufficient. You may be comfortable with how you will react in an emergency, but you have no idea how a "buddy" will react. You must be ready for this.

I think it is very important for the OP to find out what it was the caused the OOA situation and remedy that. Assumptions on what the cause was don't work. I don't see how a pushed drysuit inflator valve by the BC would not be noticed by the diver. The OP should have noticed a huge change in bouyancy as well as air blowing out the vent at a considerable rate. Both, good indications that there could be a problem. Just to all of a sudden realize you have no air just doesn't make sense (unless it was a gauge issue, and thus questioning whether the buddy was the right choice as they would be low on air as well.)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Respectfully, you're wrong. Exactly how many embolized divers have you seen and allowed to die? And I'm not talking two different situations. Drop your weights from your drysuit at the bottom sometime. You don't breach, you don't come up feet-first (unless you started that way), you don't bust the surface and pop half-way out. You don't break your neck. In a shell type drysuit (I wear a CLX-450) from 40 feet to the surface, I estimate ascent rate at about 100 FPM, between two and three times what is recommended. I didn't die.

Depends entirely on what you're wearing for an undergarment, and how much weight you have to wear in order to offset the undergarment's inherent buoyancy.

You live in Florida ... what sort of undergarment do you use under that CLX-450? The person you responded to lives in Buffalo, NY. I'd be willing to bet he wears a much heavier one, and correspondingly more weight.

There's a huge difference between dropping a 10 lb belt and a 25 lb belt ... and in my area it's not uncommon for newer divers, especially, to be wearing much more than 25 lbs. I have seen people drop weights and rocket to the surface ... it's not pretty.

You've read way too many accounts in the "scare the new diver" manual, and need to go out and get some life experience. The highest diving embolism mortality rate I could find as related to scuba was 23%. I may be beating the odds.

In the time I've been diving I've known three people who embolized ... they all died.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Scott L]

In fairness to the instructor there has to be a cut-off point (depth) at which point a diver may choose a CESA as opposed to testing the rescue skills of the nearest diver. 47ft, although deep enough for all manner of trouble is within striking distance of most divers ability to effect a safe return to the surface unaided IMO. I am predicting this defense along with miss-communication from the instuctor. Instructor opionions?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I've read all the replies about what my instructor has said to me. His reasoning why is that PADI has done away with "buddy breathing" and he told me that since I swam back down to get air, I had put my buddy at risk and in harms way and I shouldn't have done that. I beg to differ as I needed air because I had no air to exhale while ascending and he had enough air for the both of us. I know when we made it to the surface, my buddy attempted to inflate my bcd by way of my octo but there was nothing left in the tank.

Scubette, I am concerned about some of the things your instructor is telling you.

Buddy breathing has nothing to do with what is going on, as you described it. You need to ask your dive instructor why you are diving with a buddy in the first place. You should ask how, since you and your buddy were supposed to be trained in air sharing, that doing so in a moment of need is putting either of you at risk. If your instructor is training you according to the mandates of his or her agency, then sharing air with your dive buddy is what you SHOULD have done under the circumstances ... and the instructor erred in telling you otherwise.

An emergency swimming ascent is called that for a reason ... it's intended to be a LAST resort, not a first one.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)