OUT OF AIR - Last ditch effort breath from you BCD

[Kim]

Thats easy to answer. you could breath off a BC for longer than you could beath of water.
Thats it for me got to get up early tommorow for a day of diving. And by the way I will be surfacing with 50 bar as per normal.
This thread reminds me of a saying. " Sex is like air, Its only important when your not getting any."

If the wing is empty there's more than a reasonable chance that the only thing inside it IS water. The real answer to this is that you shouldn't be diving that close to the edge that you need the air in your wing - even if there was some!

Have a great (and safe) dive tomorrow! eyebrow

 

[O2BBubbleFree]

I heard somewhere that if you are out of air with no air anywhere, you could breath the air in your bcd while kicking hard to the surface. Is this common practice

Here's some interesting reading on the subject, if you're so inclined. I have 'breathing through the BC' at the bottom of my list of skills to perfect, after I've got pretty much everything else mastered.

 

[Humuhumunukunukuapua'a]

Yeah but that's breathing through your BC when you HAVE air, like I mentioned in my first post. These crazy guys want to breathe the air out of their wing because they don't want to surface with 500 pounds.

Kim makes the best point yet - you're VERY likely to pull in a lungful of water from your wing.

Seriously, guys, it's a stupid idea and not something you want to think about doing. Just don't get into an OOA situation at depth. It's quite easy not to. If you do, breathe off your buddy. If you can't, get to the surface fast.

But, hey, this is all theoretical. There' not a snowball's chance in hell that if either of you found yourself OOA you'd be reaching for your inflator hose to get that half a cubic foot of air and water. You'd forget all this nonsense and kick like crazy.

 

[oly5050user]

In an emergancy situation there is no reason why not. Even if there is only 1 lung full (or should that be a pair of lungs full) you can always exhale back into your BC to give you bouancy and rebreath it again as your lungs will not take all the O2 out of the air. I think I'd rather do this than ascent from 20m kicking as quick as I can. That sounds like a sure fire way to an embelizim of some kind.

you are not kicking as fast as you can from 20m..ascent rate should be 60' per minute and exhaling into regulator..As you get shallower you may try to breath off regulator and be surprised that you can get a breath..a controlled ascent is always best..do not waste time and energy trying to get air from bcd-the BSAC I believe use to do this I believe,but probably as a confidnce building thing ,not something to use in actual situations.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Well O2, I did read that story and there are a few things that the diver (FB) there did not do during his OOA accident:
-His buddy had air and was right there when it happened but FB did not use his alternate air source and his buddy did not try to grab him when he took off for the surface.
-FB did not use his own alternate air source when his primary failed.
-he had only been down for 10 minutes but when he checked his SPG he only had 1100 psi left.
- Panic set in when he started to bolt for the surface, if he forgot to use his alternate, why would he remember to try breathing off his BC?

I'm not trying to criticize FB here, he knew that he had made mistakes. As in this case there are better options, usually, than trying to breath any air that might be in your BC. Sure there is a chance that anything can happen underwater but some scenarios are so rare that it is not worth training for them. You are far better off training to make sure they never happen.
I understand that you just posted this for interest sake.

 

[Packhorse]

Depending on the depth you are at there are about 4 breaths of air in the hose when your tank is empty.

What sort of regs and hoses do you use?
I know that when my tanks are empty so are the hoses and regs. When I have 200 bar in my tanks i can get 4 breaths off my regs alone.

 

[spectrum]

What sort of regs and hoses do you use?
I know that when my tanks are empty so are the hoses and regs. When I have 200 bar in my tanks i can get 4 breaths off my regs alone.

Empty in terms of the cylinder or first stage would be when it cannot satisfy the upper limit of IP, lets say 200 PSI on a balanced unit at some depth.

At 200 PSI depending on volume there is still a deliverable delta to ambient.

As you ascend ambient lowers and more air becomes deliverable.

The air in the cylinder does not expand per say as in the FB article. It does expand on delivery (IP --> ambient) but not in the tanks as is ofen stated.

Pete

 

[HowardE]

I heard somewhere that if you are out of air with no air anywhere, you could breath the air in your bcd while kicking hard to the surface. Is this common practice

exactly, I think it should be taught as common practice

That is exactly my point even if you have to recycle the air for 10 seconds atleast you will have a chance because some of use if we are 30 feet down cant exhale the whole way up

I know it is not a good system but I just brought it up. In reality it wouldent work

I am a divemaster

Well, yes you should return at 500 psi, but sometimes it is not possible

I think it's highly unlikely that this guy is really a divemaster...

He also has contradictory posts... in one he says it's a good idea, and it SHOULD be taught... in another post, he said "it wouldn't work"

He then was upset that people called his bluff?

that's the funniest part of this thread.

I think Dennis and Kim dealt with this question rather nicely for the circumstances.

I would also say that there's no way that anyone while doing a CESA would stop to think to breathe off of their BC?!? Come on...


edit - to correct typo.

 

[Diver Dennis]

What sort of regs and hoses do you use?
I know that when my tanks are empty so are the hoses and regs. When I have 200 bar in my tanks i can get 4 breaths off my regs alone.

You're right, I should have said about 4 more breaths when you have to start sucking, the point being there is some warning you are pretty much out.

 

[Amphibious]

only total idiots run out of air.

I recomend to you that instead of learning what to do WHEN you run out of air, you should learn how to NEVER run out of air.

baring that you should be repeatedly kicked in the nuts by a proffesional soccer players all the while yelling "I will never run out of air"

if you find yourself needing to breath out of your BC please never dve again. there is more then enough idiots in the scuba world to deal with, we don;t need any more.