Routing a 5ft Octo Hose

[Drewski]

Why not just breathe the long hose, donate from mouth, go to bungied backup that's hanging around the neck?
Seems to be the quickest, safest, easiest method to donate air.

Because he's probably doing drills with students where he has the octo in his hand and then deploys it when they come over to him and signal OOA. With a class of six, you do this every night along with ups and downs and then again in open water. Using the octo for sharing is probably his agency's teaching standard.

And then, there's the OOA "philosophy" thing. I've avoided this up to now, but here goes:

IMO, if you are going to TEACH an OOA skill to NEW students, I think you should avoid stressing that other divers will SNATCH the regulator from your mouth instead of reaching for a clearly visible octopus. I say this because even though you will tell them NOT to do this, all they will unfortunately REMEMBER is that others "WILL snatch my AIR." So, if they ever get in an OOA situation, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when they panic? THEY should snatch someone else's air because the other person is expecting it.

When I taught OOA drills with students, I spent an entire pool night on this topic. By the time I finished with them, they wouldn't DREAM of snatching a regulator instead of going for an octopus. The point is that not ALL divers can handle a regulator being jerked out of their mouth, especially at the wrong time. Saving one's self could easily lead to risking another. It can also become a teaching liability. That said, in my more advanced courses I spent another entire pool night on dealing with underwater emergencies and how to handle "panicked" divers underwater. Again, by the time students finished pool training, they could handle OOA "snatching."

In the REAL world, I had one new student run out of air shortly after making a 60 FSW bottom on dive #5. He had somehow experienced regulator free flow on the surface that I did not see, breathed hard during anchor line descent and went OOA prior to inhalation just as we were getting into the "calming period" at the bottom. I was to his left, his buddy to the right. Even though I was the longer swim, he came to me and grabbed me by the right of the BCD (I was looking the other way). When I turned, he was signaling OOA with his regulator out of his mouth and reaching for my octopus. The angle was difficult for controlling the student and regulator at the same time and on the first big breath he got some water (just my luck).

He panicked and immediately bolted for the surface. Although he spit the regulator out as he was bolting, he probably dragged both of us up 10 FT. As far as I could tell, he wasn't exhaling. I did two things simultaneously. First, I grabbed him hard by the BCD, stopping the ascent (rotate a panicked student in any other direction than "up" to avoid ascending). Then, I returned the octo to his mouth while purging it. As soon as the octo was in his mouth we oriented vertical and I kneed him as hard as I could in the gut to force him to breath (they neglected to tell me how to do this during instructor training). I also dumped all BCD air using the pull valve and went hard negative to prevent ascending (BTW, this is why OW instructors sometimes weight heavy). 20 seconds later he was recovered and we did a controlled ascent together, although he was obviously shaken. I signaled "emergency" to the DM immediately upon surfacing, waited for him to have "hands on" the student (30 seconds) followed by a rapid descent back to the other students still on the bottom. We aborted #5 and the incident was over.

I should note that during that entire time, the student NEVER tried to take my air from me. He was pretty shook up on the boat and I did NOT put him back in the water. We finished the other dives while he sat out. A week later I got him back in the water and he checked out fine. He eventually took my advanced course and had 50+ ocean dives when I lost touch with him.

So, in my opinion and with my experience, I think it's better to teach NEW students using the octo donation method. At the time, this conflicted with the ScubaPro equipment set-up for Air 2 (my shop didn’t sell SP) and I found it interesting that in the OW course I recently participated in, the SSI shop taught BOTH methods.

Just my thoughts...

 

[Blackwood]

The best is when you see someone who has their octo CLIPPED OFF or zipped up in a pocket somewhere... Obviously that will work in an emergency.

 

[Blackwood]

I should note that during that entire time, the student NEVER tried to take my air from me.

Had he done so, the whole water-inhalation/bolt-to-the-surface/kick-in-the-gut-situation may have been avoided.

Again: may.

 

[lishen]

Sharky-I didn't even think about how hard it would be to re-stowe it in the middle of drilling with students. Perhaps the looped surgical tubing idea attached to my BP may work and be a bit easier to restore.

ScubaSteve-I'd love to be able to teach students with a BP/W and longhose setup. Unfortuantely my LDS doesn't want me to. Diving a bp/w setup isn't really approved as they'd much rather me in a traditional jacket bc. I totally agree with the DIR longhose setups and the reasoning behind it. When i'm not diving in classes, I'll be diving the longhose w/bungeed octo.

Any other ideas are welcomed...I'll be trying out a few options over the next few months to see what is the easiest for me and my students.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

As mentioned before in my first post, then it really doesn't matter how you do it. It's still an abortion in one way shape or form as you're finding out.

Don't sweat it then.

Hopefully being forced to do it the wrong way when you know it should be done otherwise, will be the catalyst for you to launch your own instruction regime when the time comes.

 

[Soggy]

Drewsi, none of that made any sense nor was any of it an argument against using a long hose. You shouldn't be teaching anyone to rip a reg out of the other diver's mouth. It is the responsibility of the donating diver to be paying attention and to GIVE him the regulator before that happens. However, the reality is that sometimes a panicking diver *will* rip the reg out and a long hose configured diver is prepared for that.

The *only* reason to use an octo configuration is because you are a DM and your boss tells you that you have to. My answer would be to tell him to shove it and go find a smarter instructor to work with, but not everyone shares that philosophy. The octopus is an outdated, over-complexificationized configuration.

 

[Drewski]

Sharky-I didn't even think about how hard it would be to re-stowe it in the middle of drilling with students. Perhaps the looped surgical tubing idea attached to my BP may work and be a bit easier to restore.

This is why I used to tuck it in the jacket when I still wore a jacket. During drills, it's the easiest way to use it.

 

[c555]

Like others have said, bungeeing the longhose is not a good idea. You specifically stated you wanted to use this for a DM class showing an OOA drill. If you use the bungee method you will have the hassle of dealing with setting the thing up on the surface and most importantly having to re-stow it.

After you compete the drill, what will you do with that extra 5' of hose floating around? You probably will not be able to properly stuff it yourself, and relying of someone else to stuff it for you won't always work. So what do you have to do? You end up wrapping the hose to keep it out of the way. So why not just start with it wrapped so when you need to deploy it you are able to re-stow it exactly the way you had it before. Its still up to you how you choose to stow the hose, but I would not stuff it.

 

[shurite7]

There is a question you should be asking yourself. Are you demonstrating with the same equipment configuration as the students are wearing? If not, then why are you doing it?

A 5' or 7' hose is great. I use a 7' as my primary and have the OOA hanging from my neck while diving. However, when teaching in the pool I stick to what the students are going to be using and what they probably will rent when they go out into the real world.

Also, why do you want to set up your reg for a pool session then change it for o/w diving? Why not stick to one set up and use the 5/7 foot hose as your primary and donating hose?

Don't get me wrong, your idea has merrit. However, one must keep the students in mind and what they will be using when they finish their o/w course.

Cheers

Chris

 

[Drewski]

Drewsi, none of that made any sense nor was any of it an argument against using a long hose. You shouldn't be teaching anyone to rip a reg out of the other diver's mouth. It is the responsibility of the donating diver to be paying attention and to GIVE him the regulator before that happens. However, the reality is that sometimes a panicking diver *will* rip the reg out and a long hose configured diver is prepared for that.

The octopus is an outdated, over-complexificationized configuration.

First, you missed what the quoted poster said. He said "why not just breathe the long hose, donate from mouth, go to bungied backup that's hanging around the neck?" The answer to that is "because it's NOT the training standard used by the agency."

I use a long hose. I used a long hose when I instructed. The point I was trying to make is that on the TRAINING side for NEW divers the technique that needs to be taught is to go for the octopus when you are OOA, NOT the primary. If the octopus is properly identified, clearly visible and easy to get to, an OOA diver doesn’t need to inform the air donor what is about to happen. It lessens the risk to both divers.

The reason why I spoke of the example I did is that it demonstrates that even a new diver in a bad situation can keep his head. Sure, he panicked when he got some water. But what would have happened if he had turned to the other student (his buddy), not me and "snatched" his primary? Probably, the same thing. He'd have STILL got some water and possibly compromised the OTHER student. So now instead of one panicking student at 60 FT, I would have had two. Go me!

IMO, because I didn't TEACH that someone might "snatch" air at the NEW diver level, he didn't even consider it. The entire point to breathing the long hose as "primary" and wearing the necklace is the assumption that the long hose will get "snatched" by the OOA diver anyway because it IS the PRIMARY and it’s WORKING. Accordingly, divers need the necklace configuration to prepare for this. What I'm saying is that this concept should not be taught at the NEW diver level because it might actually create the problem that should be avoided.

Finally, if you are going to make the "shove it" and "get another instructor" argument, why not do something else instead? Try convincing GUE/DIR to get into NEW diver instruction. Have them talk the thousands of dive shops out there into switching over curriculums, following a new training standard and teaching from the "ground up" instead of making a prerequisite for a fundamentals course being "a certified open water diver from a recognized training agency." I'd be interested to see how the economics of that will play out. It may inject a healthy amount of standards comparisons between training agencies that might be good for the sport.