Out of Air Emergencies - what are the principal causes?

[Bonnet Ray]

I always use alot of air, thanks to a bout of bronchitus a few years ago, so i am very aware of the air i am using.

When i have hit 50 on several occassions I have been offered the octopus of my buddy or dive leader to continue diving but have always chosen to ascent slowly and end my dive. I feel that I should only use someone elses air if it is an emergency and if i use their air just to continue diving I may put someone else at risk. My buddy and other have disagreed with this as they see that I am ending the dive for someone else before they need to, as I shouldn't ascend on my own, or I have 'endagered' dive leaders who have to take me to the surface and then descend again. Having said that there have been times when I have ascended on my own :wacko: . Other times I have ascended with more novice divers saving the instructor the need to ascend and descend again.

I would welcome comments on this as I always feel torn between ascending or sharing air. I am working on improving my air consumption but I still use more than most divers, ascending between 10 and 20 mis before the main group.

 

[dlwalke]

Sharing someone else's air in order to extend the dive seems like a real bad idea to me. I am certainly not the voice of experience, having received my OW certification just last year, but I think you are absolutely right to end the dive. Sharing someone elses air is hardly ideal logistically or ergonomically and could conceivably lead to trouble. Plus, you would then be sucking someone elses air down at a high rate and the other person would not have as much of an intuitive sense of how rapidly their air supply was going down. Plus, the person whose air you are sharing loses, to some degree, their own personal redundancy (i.e., if there was a problem with his/her reg the two of you would have to buddy breathe to the surface which I consistently hear is a last ditch option as it is more complicated than it seems), plus that person would no longer be available to assist someone else who had a TRUE emergency. Have you considered purchasing a larger tank? That would seem to be a much better solution.

Dave

 

[Boogie711]

I would say the easy answer to solving the whole "I use more air than my buddy" question is quite simple - use a larger tank.

If they're diving 80's, go out with a 95 or 100. Or etc.

If you're on a boat or vacation, that's not so simple, but it's something to consider if you're planning a tank investment.

 

[Bonnet Ray]

I am currently thinking of taking my nitrox speciality as that may improve my consumption. The trouble with a larger tank is that we tend to do most of our diving aboard so you get what size tank you are given unless i buy and take a bigger tank. Given baggage allowances I would like to have some clothes with me so this is probably not an option.

I guess I have to become less of a fair weather diver and improve my breathing!

 

[Snowbear]

I've had to share air a couple of times with supposedly "experienced" divers who didn't pay attention to their air supply. Both times they could have surfaced, but the air share enabled a safety stop.
Equipment problems are one thing, but I would be severely embarrased to actually be the one who needs to use someone else's air because I didn't pay attention to my own supply!!:blush:

 

[randyjoy]

Didn't happen to me, but for a friend, he just wasn't paying attention to his SPG. He's a photographer and gets caught up in getting the perfect picture.

 

[Wendy]

Ok I picked other because although my incident was my falut for watching my guages enough, I was task loaded which caused it.

Ok so I had been diving for about 5 or 6 months and I was diving NewYear's Eve from a private boat in the Biscayne Bay area in Miami. So I was lobstering and my dive buddy was spearfishing and lobstering and towing the flag. We started in 40' of water and the max depth of the dive was 80'. So anyway, buddy shoots a fish, and then later he sets his gun down to get a lobster, that's when I notice that the flag is no longer clipped to him, so I got the flag, untangled it fom the reef and got his gun, cuz he swam off without it, then I give him back the gun and the flag, But he is faster in the water cuz he has those free diving fins on, so he is chasing fish and i am chasing him. I had about 1200 psi at this point, I remember looking that one time. So I go after a lobster a little later and was having trouble, it was my first time, so he moves me over so he can get it and I swim behind him and feel that it's hard for me to breathe the reg, I look at my spg and ut oh, no air, so I tap him on the shoulder, he doesn't look, just gives me the "i'm getting the lobster hand wave", I tap him again and he looks, i give him the OOA sign. He looks confused, so I do it again, he's just looking at me puzzeled, so finally i take his reg from his mouth and put it in mine, stick my guage in his face, and give him the OOA sign again. His eyes bought hit his mask! We ascend, he showed me his guage, which made me feel better knowing he had enough air for both os us, cuz that thought did cross my mind.

So back on the boat, I asked my the puzzeled look when I gave the OOA sign. He said I was too relaxed, not at all paniced, and for someone with little experience like me at the time that I should have been freaked, he thought maybe I was confused and was low on air and not out of air. He said I was text book, like I had practiced being OOA a million times. Well I had practiced it alot and I have always been able to remain calm in a crisis situation.

So anyway, I should have been watching my guages better and I think being task loaded lead to me not looking at them as often as I should. I was doing too many new things at once. Oh and I although it may sound like my buddy was lacking, he wasn't he is a good diver and buddy, I just know now not to dive with someone who is chasing fish.

Oh and that was a long time ago and I am a way better diver now and know all about gas management, etc, so no picking on me for running OOA that one time.

 

[GQMedic]

I'm a conservative and consciencious diver who watches his gauges, dives his plan, this has never happened to me, but mistakes sure happen. My daughter's mother, her renegade approach to diving led her into an out of air emergency by simple pushing her limits, diving out of planned time and ignoring her 500 lb psi limit, all the sudden, she found herself sucking on her reg with resistance, a few breaths later, sucking on nothing but the reg. (No, she was not diving with me at the time, as it would have never happened, I monitor her air supply as well as my own)Fortunately she's a cool and calm diver and did the "blow -n- go" to the surface. However, much to my dismay, when she talks about this event, she still shows the same tombstone courage and non-chalant attitude about it that has claimed the lives of many a diver past. Nice, huh?

Wendy, you deserve credit for realizing the nature of "how" it happened as well as the concern and afterthough post dive. What's even better is you're here to tell about it. No jabs for your OOA, it's easy to see you clearly learned from it. Even better than someone else will stumble on this post and may learn from it without having to expeirence it first hand.

-Dennis

 

[diverbrian]

I would not extend a dive by sharing air. Sharing air, in my opinion, is restricted to allow safe ascent rates and a safety stop. Once one runs out of air, the dive is over.

But, I wouldn't want to die and/or get Decompression Illness out of pride because I was afraid to tell my buddy that I screwed up. I have said before on these boards, we all do dumb things once in a while. We are human. The biggest error in a case like that is to compound the issue by not admitting that we have made a mistake to someone else. Every one of us has our dive bloopers story. This is the reason that I will try to consider myself a rookie whether I have been diving 10 years or 1 day.

 

[dc4bs]

BUT... S*** can happen.

The lowest I ever got was about 200 PSI after being the donator in a share-air during the safety stop.

I almost beat that with a deco bottle once because it started to free flow (very slowly so I didn't notice it right away) after I switched to the 2nd bottle. My buddy pointed it out and I got it shut down with about 250-300 PSI left in it.