OP
Risk of DCS?
- Thread starter ChilliMouse
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Now that your intended question has been thoroughly answered...
Your concern with that question and this statement I quoted here leads me to suggest that you and your buddy learn to relax more on your dives. It isn't that hard, and it isn't that dangerous.
When I was teaching for a dive shop, we used rental regulators for instruction, and those regulators were used pretty much only by students. We had to replace chewed, broken mouthpieces regularly. In contrast, in more than a quarter century of diving while using my own personal gear, I have never chewed through a regulator. I have no idea how old some of them are. My teeth barely close on them.
OP
ChilliMouse
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You make a good point. My buddy chewed through the first regulator she had after the first three dives. Next time we go I think we’ll stay shallow for a few dives to get comfortable, relaxed and oriented to the feeling of diving, before we go deeper…
You might also note that taking a regulator out of your mouth while underwater, or suddenly having it extracted (e.g., fin kick, snagging a hose) is not a sudden death sentence. Comfort means being able to take the reg out of your mouth, and then put it back in, purging if need be to get the water out, but more likely just expelling the air in your lungs through it. Practice this, get comfortable with it. Holdiing on for dear life with the teeth is NOT a good practice.
Absolutely!
It took me a couple years as an instructor to realize that many students had a fear of having their regulators out of their mouths, and it made them near frantic to do the skills that required it. I devised an demonstration that I did at the very beginning of class. In the shallow end of the pool, I would lie on my side facing them, my elbow on the floor, and my head propped on my hand--a pose of deep boredom. I would casually take the regulator out of my mouth, point to my mouth to show the tiny stream of bubbles I was releasing, and then drop the regulator o the floor. I would then stay in that pose for 30 seconds or so, sometimes looking at my watch, sometimes drumming my fingers on the floor--trying to show bored indifference to the fact that there was no regulator in my mouth. Then I would replace the regulator and purge. Once I started doing that demonstration, students became comfortable with the fact that taking a regulator out is no reason to panic.
On one dive I splashed with my primary and octo hoses twisted around each other. It was usable, but annoying so as soon as we were all squared away and moving as a group, I dropped my primary and started sorting it out. Maybe 10 seconds later I had a wide-eyed fellow diver (not my insta buddy) trying to shove her octo into my face
I was on a dive in Cozumel. Early in the dive, the divemaster blew an O-ring in his first stage regulator. There was an immediate eruption of bubbles, and I headed over to help. By the time I got to him, he had gotten the BCD off, shut off the air, and was taking the regulator off of the valve. I helped hold the BCD while he worked on reseating the O-ring. I held my alternate out. After a while he finally took one breath off of it before going back to work. He got it all back together again and then checked to see how much gas he had lost. He decided that he needed a new tank, and he signaled us to stay there briefly while he went up to get it. HE came back and we continued the dive.On one dive I splashed with my primary and octo hoses twisted around each other. It was usable, but annoying so as soon as we were all squared away and moving as a group, I dropped my primary and started sorting it out. Maybe 10 seconds later I had a wide-eyed fellow diver (not my insta buddy) trying to shove her octo into my face
Yes, in that entire time that it took him to take his BCD off, take the regulator off of the valve, fix the O-ring, and put it all back together again, he took exactly one breath from my regulator.
Just to add: Potentially check your hose routing and flexibility. My primary came with a Miflex and I found it to be uncomfortable. It constantly had a little force on the mouthpiece, the position it "naturally" wanted was not suiting me. That could add maybe to chew on the mouth piece.
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