Out of gas - what happens next?

[IBjones]

Maybe I can sell it to PADI for their new slogan..."Ask your PADI 5-star facility about the next SCUBA class! Don't be a Screaming Cherry!"

 

[AdivingBel]

Probably makes more sense than "Sign up for our next class...How to avoid diving like your hair's on fire."

 

[The Chairman]

We should have an animated smiley for "screaming cherry."

 

[The Chairman]

Fear has become such a part of some marketing programs that it's just silly.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was diving with a chick a few years ago on the Aeolus and her O-ring blew at 100 feet. Scared the crap out of her and she froze in panic for about 10 seconds but she snapped out of it on her own and we shared air for the surface.

This reminded me of a story that illustrates what it means to be calm under such conditions.

I was in Cozumel, in a group following a DM at the very beginning of a dive, and I happened to be looking at the DM when his O-ring blew, creating a stupendous shower of bubbles. I was by his side offering a regulator within seconds, but by then he already had his BCD off. He was shutting off his air when I got there. I watched, holding the regulator next to him and helping him hold the BCD, while he took the regulator off the tank valve, saw that the O-ring had extruded, and put it back into place. It was right about that time that he thought he might want a drag from my regulator, thank you very much. He took a nitrox hit, gave me my regulator back, and put the regulator back on the tank valve. He put his BCD back on, and once everything was in place, checked his SPG, and decided he had lost too much gas to continue the dive. He signalled for us to stay put, went to the surface, and returned in about a minute with a new tank, after which we had a great dive.

Back on the boat, he said he had enough gas to continue the dive on his own, but not in the role of a DM who might have to share air.

 

[doctormike]

Since it has been quite some time since anyone actually answered the OP's question, I thought I would go through the thread and take stock. In a number of cases, it was not really clear from the description exactly what had taken place in the diver's experience. In a few cases, people used a phrase like "a few," so it was hard to put a numerical value on the experiences. The numbers below should, however, form a reasonable approximation of what people who actually experienced OOA situations described.

Donor gave regulator to OOA diver: 17
OOA diver took donor's alternate regulator, with or without signal: 9
OOA diver took donor's primary without signaling: 6
OOA diver went to surface from very shallow depth: 2

In only a few of the above situations did the description include the OOA diver being in a state of real panic.

Thanks for doing this... it's good to actually tabulate some real world experience.

 

[Kevrumbo]

. I have frequently heard that an OOG diver will grab another diver's primary reg, but other instructors have said that they have experienced divers more calmly taking an octo (invited or not).

In fifteen years now consistently diving the 7' long hose Primary configuration, I've donated for real in three non-panic recreational single-tank circumstances --twice for divers in Open Water low on breathing gas, and once for an Indonesian Dive Guide who had an O-ring blowout on his yoke valve on initial descent (donated my 7' long hose, switched to my necklaced bungee'd back-up, shut down his tank valve, displayed my SPG showing 150 bar indicating plenty of breathing gas for us both --and we both elected to continue the dive, sharing gas for nearly 30 minutes dive time on a nice shallow 9 meter part of of the reef system at a dive site in Raja Ampat).

The only time I observed someone grab a regulator out of a diver's mouth was during a class setting, where the Instructor clearly gave the OOG sign to a student who hesitated, unsure or wasn't ready for the S-drill to start.

 

[IBjones]

This reminded me of a story that illustrates what it means to be calm under such conditions.

I was in Cozumel, in a group following a DM at the very beginning of a dive, and I happened to be looking at the DM when his O-ring blew, creating a stupendous shower of bubbles. I was by his side offering a regulator within seconds, but by then he already had his BCD off. He was shutting off his air when I got there. I watched, holding the regulator next to him and helping him hold the BCD, while he took the regulator off the tank valve, saw that the O-ring had extruded, and put it back into place. It was right about that time that he thought he might want a drag from my regulator, thank you very much. He took a nitrox hit, gave me my regulator back, and put the regulator back on the tank valve. He put his BCD back on, and once everything was in place, checked his SPG, and decided he had lost too much gas to continue the dive. He signalled for us to stay put, went to the surface, and returned in about a minute with a new tank, after which we had a great dive.

Back on the boat, he said he had enough gas to continue the dive on his own, but not in the role of a DM who might have to share air.

That's cool. I guess the only concern was servicing the reg to get the saltwater out afterwards.

 

[RayfromTX]

This reminded me of a story that illustrates what it means to be calm under such conditions.

I was in Cozumel, in a group following a DM at the very beginning of a dive, and I happened to be looking at the DM when his O-ring blew, creating a stupendous shower of bubbles. I was by his side offering a regulator within seconds, but by then he already had his BCD off. He was shutting off his air when I got there. I watched, holding the regulator next to him and helping him hold the BCD, while he took the regulator off the tank valve, saw that the O-ring had extruded, and put it back into place. It was right about that time that he thought he might want a drag from my regulator, thank you very much. He took a nitrox hit, gave me my regulator back, and put the regulator back on the tank valve. He put his BCD back on, and once everything was in place, checked his SPG, and decided he had lost too much gas to continue the dive. He signalled for us to stay put, went to the surface, and returned in about a minute with a new tank, after which we had a great dive.

Back on the boat, he said he had enough gas to continue the dive on his own, but not in the role of a DM who might have to share air.

I absolutely believe this story. It is the kind of cool calm attitude I have seen from my DM in Coz consistently and I'm still quite new. It's somewhere between normalization of deviation and "this stuff really is no big deal, just chill"

 

[BabyDuck]

i've never had an oog around me 'in the wild', but larry has. two i'm sure of, but it might be three. both the ones i'm sure of were not his buddy and grabbed the reg out of his mouth. he does use long hose config and they may have known to do that but i don't think so based on the stories, i think they did the 'going for a working reg' thing.