Out of air emergency at 105 feet

[grf88]

If they are holding me that closely then I still have access to the inflator or dump valve to ensure they are not positive at which point they will be trying to kick both of us up. I will be on my way up a bit but I will not go up the full 105 feet.

At least until he drops his weight belt.

 

[ScubaSteve]

We can go though dozens of variations of which most panicked divers will take a long time to arrive at while in a panicked state....the reality is, I will get them off of me if they are taking me to the surface (no grip would be impossible to get off my BC) and that mouthpiece is not going to hold for them either. You have your way, enjoy it. I will make my safe ascent one way or the other.

 

[grf88]

I'm glad I have a 7' hose. All that grabbing, grappling, panicked stuff scares me.

Scares me as well, at least with a long hose you can get face to face and try to calm them down.

I was on a charter this weekend where we had a total of 8 freeflows each resulting in air sharing from depths up to 100 feet. One was a double freeflow where the donors reg, a recently serviced Aqualung Arctic, also freeflowed when the panicked buddy started breathing from it. Each of these incidents were handled albeit not without some issues that could have resulted in problems. Water temps were a balmy 40 F.

 

[DevonDiver]

I'm glad I have a 7' hose. All that grabbing, grappling, panicked stuff scares me.

...said the bishop to the actress!

 

[Cave Diver]

I'm glad I have a 7' hose. All that grabbing, grappling, panicked stuff [-]scares[/-] excites me.

Fixed.

 

[Cave Diver]

What makes you think they are going to let go of you. Unless you have excess weight it is very difficult to hold someone down against their will and if they have a death grip on your octo or BC you are going along for the ride.

Depends on their ability to get positive. If they are OOA they probably won't be able to inflate via LP inflator and it's unlikely an OOA diver is going to do an oral inflation of their BCD. If they are properly weighted, dropping weights should make them positive, but still fall short of Polaris Missle Status. That's assuming they even have the presence of mind to drop weights in that situation.

There are 1001^nth variations on ways to handle the situation but I'm in favor of whichever one gets usable gas to the OOA diver the quickest. Whether that's donating a primary, donating a pony/bailout reg or making a controlled swimming ascent. If I get dragged along for the ride to the surface my focus will be 1) trying to stay ahead on exhalation and ear clearing and 2) trying to stay clear from any panicky flailing from the OOA diver.

What may be more important than what to donate, would be how often gas sharing is practiced to make sure that we are proficient in our choice of providing gas when the need arises.

 

[grf88]

Depends on their ability to get positive. If they are OOA they probably won't be able to inflate via LP inflator and it's unlikely an OOA diver is going to do an oral inflation of their BCD. If they are properly weighted, dropping weights should make them positive, but still fall short of Polaris Missle Status. That's assuming they even have the presence of mind to drop weights in that situation.


What may be more important than what to donate, would be how often gas sharing is practiced to make sure that we are proficient in our choice of providing gas when the need arises.

In the case of the OP's situation I would agree with you but diving in my home area it would be a little different. A two piece 7mm wetsuit and the amount of air in the BC to be neutral at say 100 feet with that suit would provide a considerable amount of buoyancy at 50 feet even if they did not drop the approximately 30lbs of lead they were carrying.

As you say practicing gas sharing and deploying the chosen back-up is key.

 

[Cave Diver]

In the case of the OP's situation I would agree with you but diving in my home area it would be a little different. A two piece 7mm wetsuit and the amount of air in the BC to be neutral at say 100 feet with that suit would provide a considerable amount of buoyancy at 50 feet even if they did not drop the approximately 30lbs of lead they were carrying.

:cold:

 

[nuts4corals]

We can go though dozens of variations of which most panicked divers will take a long time to arrive at while in a panicked state....the reality is, I will get them off of me if they are taking me to the surface (no grip would be impossible to get off my BC) and that mouthpiece is not going to hold for them either. You have your way, enjoy it. I will make my safe ascent one way or the other.

Having been through it... I can tell you that if a guy or even a little girl wants to hang on you and take you to the surface. he/she will... nothing that you can really do. We can't forget how fast everything happened. From the time I heard my computer beeping at me to the time I looked at it we had already gone up 7-9 feet from the time he started to panic and fin hard to the surface.

Someone said that the best thing to do is grab onto one of his dump valves. But this was an OOA diver who was finning hard to the surface. Thank G-d he wasn't finning too fast but it was fast enough to set off my computer. only thing i could do is dump all of my air to weigh myself down as much as possible (which i did). After that I pretty much stopped finning and let him drag us both which slowed the asend down enough that I'm still here to talk about it.

What scares me is how fast things were happening. someone mentioned that it took us 8 minutes to get to the surface. however, it felt like 10 seconds. Wierd thing is that i can tell you exactly to detail what happened at each moment.