Out of air emergency at 105 feet

[nuts4corals]

You've got to remember that once you donate your octo and the OOA diver is breathing fine, the emergency is over.

And, if you remember, the donor in this scenario had plenty of gas. There is no need in these situations to rush to the surface or skip safety stops. The emergency is over. Chill out.

Part of the responsibility of the donor is to keep the OOA diver informed of the gas supply. Keep flashing your SPG to the OOA diver to reassure them that there's plenty of gas to go around. The emergency is over. Relax. Take your time. Watch your ascent rate. Do your safety stops.

The emergency is over.

Try and remember that every situation is differant... Sure, under the same situation the emergency may have been over when he had my Octo in his mouth but in this case when we got to 40 feet he was acting a bit panicked so i had no idea what was going on in his mind. You have to evaluate every situation for what it is.

As for the keep flashing your SPG comment. That was done several times on our way up from 80 to 40. Where up until this point we were parallel and at the same elevation with each other acsending at the same pace. Than at about 40 he began to fin faster to the point that his thigh was at my face and we were locked forearm to forearm and my arm was almost straight vertical and his was straight down. Additionally his head was looking to the surface the whole time and he was not looking at me at all by this point. So getting him to look at my SPG at this point was... well... pointless. So like I said every situation may be different, i can tell you that at 40 feet I thought I had another emergency especially when he waived off the safety stop. To give you an idea of what happened at 20, when he waived it off it wasn't like he waived it off and than waited to see what I would do... he looked down waived it off, looked straight up and began to fin to the surface immediately. So I was going up weather I liked it or not. My only choice was to try and swim away and kick him in the nuts sure I could have also used my knife on him (except that was on the boat as they don't allow knives on dives on Cozumel). Honestly, none of those thoughts ran through my mind at the time and they are just as rediculouse now. First time I did feel that the emergency was over in this case was about a minute after we surfaced where he began to calm down. Key word is "BEGAN"

 

[KY_BOB]

In my humble opinion, you did great and exactly what I would have done. I'm a fairly new diver but I have been through S&R class. If there were only 1 or 2 dives in the past day or two, I wouldn't have worried about him calling off the safety stop. With a week of repetitive diving, I would have worried about it but would have still gone to the surface with him.

There could have very easily been another problem that you needed to be there for. I would rather take a slight chance of DCS than find out a guy was having a heart attack underwater. Who knows what the reason is when someone signals to go up but may not (probably not) be a big issue but it could be.

The negative parts on his behalf: There's no excuse for not checking your gear before entering the water but even if it happens, why didn't he glance as his gauges from time to time to see how he was doing. I do. If nothing else, I like to see how much gas I'm going through, even knowing that I should have 2/3rds of a tank left. Maybe he's so complacent that he doesn't think about it.

Also, I assume that he was diving with gauges instead of a computer. I have two alarms set on my computer, one for 1000psi and another for 100'. It's not that either is necessarily a bad thing but at that point, I want to know where I am. I can hit the acknowledge button and shut it up but at least I know to start paying attention to the computer.

 

[KY_BOB]

I will add to my post that if he wasn't in distress other than having to breath off of your octo, he was very irresponsible to you to ask you to blow off a safety stop. He didn't know the level on nitrogen in your body.

 

[nuts4corals]

With a week of repetitive diving, I would have worried about it but would have still gone to the surface with him.

this was my 11th dive for the week... I dove every morning twice (repetative dive). As I understood it and my computer showed it that Nitrogen loading was zero by the next morning. Can you explain what you mean? Is there residual nitrogen that our computers dont indicate? Or is this statement purely a safety minded one. Thanks

 

[RickHeil]

Kudos as well, you handled yourself as a very experienced and well trained diver.

As others have said your first responsibility is to yourself. Given the depth and week long diving I would have done the safety stop, normally after several days diving I begin to lengthen safety stops.

You've learned probably the most core skill there is, maintaining composure which you did very well. In virtually any diving situation the old fundamentals of stop, think, act are a life saver - you did it well! Thanks for sharing!

 

[KY_BOB]

this was my 11th dive for the week... I dove every morning twice (repetative dive). As I understood it and my computer showed it that Nitrogen loading was zero by the next morning. Can you explain what you mean? Is there residual nitrogen that our computers dont indicate? Or is this statement purely a safety minded one. Thanks

For the most part just safety minded. I just know that according to DAN most DCS hits come from repetitive dives. The computers should calculate that.

I just came back from Bonaire, the shore diving capital of the world, but we did charter a boat for a couple of dives. We were at one at 7:00am. The DM on that dive had no clue if I had been doing night dives a few hours earlier or if I had been out of the water for a day.

Again, IMHO if you were going off of your computer, you were probably fine but I assume that he didn't know. I would be a lot less worried about blowing off a safety stop having been out to the water for 12 or 18 hours than if I had done a couple of deep night dives 8 hours earlier.

 

[KY_BOB]

For the most part just safety minded. I just know that according to DAN most DCS hits come from repetitive dives. The computers should calculate that.

I just came back from Bonaire, the shore diving capital of the world, but we did charter a boat for a couple of dives. We were at one at 7:00am. The DM on that dive had no clue if I had been doing night dives a few hours earlier or if I had been out of the water for a day.

Again, IMHO if you were going off of your computer, you were probably fine but I assume that he didn't know. I would be a lot less worried about blowing off a safety stop having been out to the water for 12 or 18 hours than if I had done a couple of deep night dives 8 hours earlier.

I think you did right and what I would have done in that situation. Had I have been 100' deep a few hours earlier, I might have refused to skip the stop.

 

[Scared Silly]

N4C your computer probably showed no nitrogen but I bet if you looked at your No-Fly-Time it would still be counting down. So while you were probably pretty clean N2 wise there was still some residual N2 in your system. BTW if you were looking at the bar graph that many computer have I would take them with a grain of salt as the resolution is pretty crude.

BTW - I agree the emergency is not over until the situation and all people involved are "safe". Obviously the DM was not okay until he was on the boat. FWIW - last summer my wife had an OOG close call due a close isolator on her doubles. I look at our profile afterwards we went up fast enough to get a beep at around 50 feet then slowed. We got another beep around 35 feet. After that we took just over 3 min to go from 25 feet to the surface. At which point our computers were clear. We later figured out that the filler closed her isolator so only one cylinder (the one with the SPG on it) was full. My wife, new to diving doubles forgot to double check that it was open so she was breathing off of the cylinder that did not get filled. A good lesson was learned by all.

 

[Doc Harry]

I think you did just fine. I wasn't criticizing you, I was making a general statement for those asserting that the theortically-correct answer was to skip the safey stop. A dive master is supposed to be in charge, and when he directs you to skip the safety stop, I can see how that's what most people would do.

I understand that it's a stressful situation. I have been OOA at depth from an uncontrollable free-flow when I was a new diver.

It's important to remember that once everyone has got a regulator in their mouth and they're breathing again, the emergency is over. Relax, take a deep breath, and get to the surface in a safe, controlled manner. There's no reason to omit a safety stop when coming up from 100 feet if you've the gas to make the stop.

I highly recommend the book "Deco for Divers," as mentioned above. The data on bubbles and safety stops is quite interesting. Even during no-deco dives, a controlled ascent rate and safety stops are important to prevent bubble formation and DCI.

Try and remember that every situation is differant... Sure, under the same situation the emergency may have been over when he had my Octo in his mouth but in this case when we got to 40 feet he was acting a bit panicked so i had no idea what was going on in his mind. You have to evaluate every situation for what it is.

As for the keep flashing your SPG comment. That was done several times on our way up from 80 to 40. Where up until this point we were parallel and at the same elevation with each other acsending at the same pace. Than at about 40 he began to fin faster to the point that his thigh was at my face and we were locked forearm to forearm and my arm was almost straight vertical and his was straight down. Additionally his head was looking to the surface the whole time and he was not looking at me at all by this point. So getting him to look at my SPG at this point was... well... pointless. So like I said every situation may be different, i can tell you that at 40 feet I thought I had another emergency especially when he waived off the safety stop. To give you an idea of what happened at 20, when he waived it off it wasn't like he waived it off and than waited to see what I would do... he looked down waived it off, looked straight up and began to fin to the surface immediately. So I was going up weather I liked it or not. My only choice was to try and swim away and kick him in the nuts sure I could have also used my knife on him (except that was on the boat as they don't allow knives on dives on Cozumel). Honestly, none of those thoughts ran through my mind at the time and they are just as rediculouse now. First time I did feel that the emergency was over in this case was about a minute after we surfaced where he began to calm down. Key word is "BEGAN"

 

[RickHeil]

It occurred to me after re-reading many of the threads that the underlying concern of many, after assuring the safety of the rescued diver, was reducing the risk of DCS in particular especially on multi-dive, multi-day dives.

From my general reading's and some technical training it seems dehydration is as great a DSC risk as missing the optional safety stop and may be actual an even greater benefit. From DAN articales I've read, many undeserved DCS hits seem to be a consequence of dehydration as much as not following a (more) conservative dive plan (which to my mind adding safety stops is basically giving you a more conservative dive to shift you towards the better statistical end of the probability curve of getting DCS).

So a good lesson to add here, while unrelated to the OP but related to many of the responses, is to mitigate the risk of DCS, hydration is perhaps as important as safety stops.
Just a thought... stay hydrated!