OOA Frequency

[beautybelow]

I have personally had two o rings go. One at about 40'. The second at almost 90". Both went less than ten minutes after turning the tank on. The one at ninety I was with another DM. It was just the two of us, that's how we got so deep after putting the gear on and hopping in. I swam to her and we went up face to face, not having to share air. I was watching my gauge the whole way up though and had less than 400 in the tank when I surfaced.

 

[Packhorse]

While doing a deep dive specialty one of the students went LOA. Resulting in a air share ascent.
This would never of happened had the class do some simple gas managment before hand and found out this guy was a super air hog (he had only done a dozen dives). Or had they given him a decent sized tank. It was a 10l tank for a 35 meter dive (80 cf @ 115feet).
No one was harmed.

 

[ianr33]

Once had a buddy kind of OOA. His valve was only partially open and got very hard to breathe at around 60 feet. He signalled OOA,I gave him my long hose.He pointed at his valve,I opened it. We continued the dive. No big deal.

He could have opened the valve himself but it was quicker and easier for me to donate first.

 

[shark_tamer]

During my latest dive vacation in the Carribean, I got paired with an excellent diver during 4 dives. Usually the dives would last about 60 minutes.

At about 30 minutes into one dive, the instructor gave the " How much air left " signal, and we both responded 1/2 tank .

Not 5 minutes have passed, to myself and my buddy's amazement, he signals me he only has 50 bars left !!!! and this was the end of the dive for him !!!!

When we got to the surface, he said he had no idea how or why he went thru so much air in so little time !!!

 

[nadwidny]

Personally involved with 4 OOA.

1. First dive after certification. Shore dive Hanauma Bay, HI. Using rental gear. The reg started breathing hard at 750 psi. By 500 it was almost impossible. Since we were shallow and on our way out I did the ascent and exit using the guide's octopus. Found out afterwards the gauge read 500 psi high.

2. Some years later. Halifax, NS with a new Poseidon Jetstream. Doing a surface swim on the way back in when I thought I saw something on that bottom at 30 feet. Since I had about 400 psi left I thought it would be easy peasy to just drop down and take a look. Got down, poked around when my reg did a freeflow and dropped the final 200andsome psi out. That's when I found out about the design feature on the Jetstreams where if the IP drops too low they just let go. Did a buddy breathing ascent as my buddy didn't have an octo.

3. Couple of years after that. Near Port Hardy, BC. About 100ft. Had a student doing shutdowns on his twins. He got screwed up, managed to shut down both posts leaving himself with no working reg. I can't remember if he signalled OOA or not but I saw what was going on and was ready with my primary before he even realized he was in trouble. Took a couple of minutes to get things sorted out but we did. Best part is he never lost control of his buoyancy and we sorted out the whole cluster +/-5 ft of where we started.

4. Few years ago. Near Courtenay BC. About 170ft. We were diving stages to preserve our backgas. Some of my buddy's switch from stage to BG when the stage is empty or damn near. I can't remember the exact sequence but my buddy made the switch only to find that his primary wasn't working. His stage was basically empty so he signalled OOA, and I donated my primary. Took a minute or so to figure out that he never turned on his primary's first stage in the first place. When he went to his primary and it wasn't working he just did an OOA instead of going to his backup because as he said "If I went to my backup and it wasn't working either, then I would've been in trouble. So I just did an OOA so that I had gas and we had time to figure out the problem." We sorted things out and continued on.

 

[gangrel441]

I have never run OOA, though I did have an air share once. When my wife and I were working on AOW, we were split up to work on different dives at one point. She was paired off with another diver to do Compass Nav, and I was paired with a Master Instructor to do photo. While I was on my dive, I did monitor my air, and signaled to my far more experienced buddy that I was at turn pressure, and instead he gave me his alternate and continued the dive. He shot the rest of his roll, we returned to under the boat, and on the safety stop, he signaled me to return to my own backgas, which I did. I don't think we ever exceeded 50 ft, and I brought my rig back with 500 psi remaining in an AL 80.

At the time, I didn't like the idea of continuing the dive, but I trusted the judgement of the Master Instructor in question. Had this happened to me today, I would have insisted on calling the dive. I had plenty of gas to make the ascent, though it was closer than I would cut it today.

 

[lamont]

3. Couple of years after that. Near Port Hardy, BC. About 100ft. Had a student doing shutdowns on his twins. He got screwed up, managed to shut down both posts leaving himself with no working reg. I can't remember if he signalled OOA or not but I saw what was going on and was ready with my primary before he even realized he was in trouble. Took a couple of minutes to get things sorted out but we did. Best part is he never lost control of his buoyancy and we sorted out the whole cluster +/-5 ft of where we started.

Oh yeah, I pooched a valve shutdown drill as well, and wound up with my long hose clipped off, my left post shut down and I fumbled both unclipping the long hose and spinning the left post back on, so I just went OOA on buddy. I don't know if that really counts as an "OOA" though since it was a training excersize. I've also seen OOAs deliberately thrown on divers who forget to turn their left post back on. Then there's the Tech 1 training scenario of having one diver with their left post failed who is in the middle and giving one of the outside divers an OOA to see how aware the team is of resources (both teams of three in my rec triox class failed to this correctly and resulted in a temporary OOA). I've also done several times now during gas switching where I charge-and-purge, then do the same motion for charge (quick on and off) again rather than opening it up and get precisely one breath off the reg (easily fixed without going to a buddy though).

 

[JeffG]

Its was on my second DIR-f class. Dive 3 (Second day).

AG had my buddy and I shoot bags and then bring them back down, do OOA gas sharing ascents...etc etc.

Well, he had to leave us and go to his other students and told us to keep practicing the skills.

My Buddy was having some issues with bringing the SMB down and rewinding the spool. A real (reel ) mess was being made and the vis was getting pretty low. The next thing I know, she's in front of me signaling OOA. I pass her my primary and I'm thinking "Where's the %^$%^46 is AG? I don't see him", but then I notice her backup reg is freeflowing like mad. I turned off her valve, but by this time she was down to a couple of 100 PSI.

While she was respooling her line she just put her head down and she must of hit her purge with her chin. Because she was concentrating so hard on the spool, she didn't catch the freeflow fast enough.

 

[mdb]

In light of recent threads about OOA incidents, I was wondering how many people on the board have been involved in one, either directly or have been in the water and have seen one happen? Solutions and causes have been debated Ad Nauseam on the other threads so I would like to avoid discussing them again here. I'm just looking for your OOA stories.

Diver Dennis: This could be a good learning thread. I've already told my free ascent story way enough so I'll just relate one real OOA incident.

While diving off Grand Cayman with the SeaQuest and Mares group we were testing some prototype Mares first stages. Gianni Garofolo, the head engineer @ Mares, was diving the new first stage. We are at about 130 FSW. Warm water and great visability, a low stress dive. Gianni's first stage exploded. He came over the top of my head and signaled OOA. I gave him my primary, a Mares MR12, and went to my octo, a Poseidon CS 300 second stage. We got face to face, oriented and made a slow ascent with a safety stop for a minute or two @ 20 FSW. Gianni can free dive to over 100 FSW and he stays very calm after 40 some years of free and SCUBA diving. Sure made a difference for me.

 

[mikerault]

My first night dive at the Library site in Grand Turk. I got to half a tank and signalled the DM, he signalled we were near the boat (so I guess don't worry) then I got to a quarter tank, I showed him the gauge, he again seemed unconcerned. I signalled I was going back to the boat and he acted like he could care less. I started back to the boat at 20 FSW about 50 yards away I went OOA, so I did a CESA and then manually inflated my BCD and did the rest on my back (no moon and light chop so I had to listen for the sounds of the waves on the boat's side). Anyway, I made it back and 10 minutes or so later they all came back.

Second was with my son-in-law in Cozumel. I had opened his valve all the way, someone (the dive boat crew I assume) closed it then backed it off 1/4 turn. He got to 30 feet and it stopped giving air. He was on a resort cert dive and the DM was supposed to be with him, I was about 20 feet away photographing some coral when I saw him do a CESA. I surfaced and found out what had happened.

Third was just a partially shut valve that I noticed due to fluctuations in my pressure gauge and tough breathing, had my dive buddy open the valve, end of problem.

Mike