Running out of air- a perspective

[Sea Lioness]

Hey, seaducer...the way you quoted my earlier post makes it look like I said that...I was quoting someone else!

Just wanted to make sure that was clear! I hope it was my analysis of why that quote didn't make sense that you were agreeing with. (I think that's what you meant, anyway.)

 

[merxlin]

Ya beat me to it. The author is not that good at extrapolating information from statistics and falls into some common traps. His example just drives that point home.

I should think drowning (running out of air) accounts for a considerable number of diving fatalities, but what is causing divers to go OOA? If we can pinpoint those causes then we can do something to reduce those numbers. Simply recovering a body with no air in the tanks is not enough information to go on. I think reading about near miss accidents is a better use of OUR time, since the people involved can relate what happened that lead to the incident.

I wonder how many diving fatalities occurred before the diver even made it to the dock...

Just to clarify- The statistics were from a DAN study- a group I think has some credibility regarding dive accidents-And the exact quote:

A recent D.A.N. study looked at 947 fatalities over a 10-year period. In roughly half of those cases, the initial trigger--the problem that started everything on a downward spiral--was identified. In 41% of those instances, out-of-air was the culprit.

Running out of air was not the cause of death, but was the trigger that eventually led to the diver losing their life.

I think reading about near miss accidents is a better use of OUR time, since the people involved can relate what happened that lead to the incident

- How would you reply to someone who ran out of air at 60ft, did not have an alternate air source available (buddy or redundant air) in time, surfaced too quickly and suffered an embolism, but lived?

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I think we need to distinguish between running out of air and losing your air supply. Two very different things. Running out of air is inexcusable. Losing your air supply due to an equipment failure may happen simply because stuff fails. Sometimes without warning. Awhile ago I had a brand new line go on my machine at work. No warning just went. And in a second had a stream of water going thru a pinhole in the line. At 45,000 psi. Not a good thing.

Same with scuba gear. I've seen new burst discs go in the pool with only 4 or 5 fills on them. Why? Who knows. But in both scenarios losing (NOT LOOSING DAMMIT) an air supply or running out of air with a properly trained buddy is an annoyance. Without a buddy or when the diver is not properly trained is a different story. Someone whose extent of gas management is be back with 500psi will likely be in a world of crap. May even die.

So why is that? Well if he/she had been trained in proper gas management they would not have run out of air in the first place, would have had a plan, been diving that plan, and not been in a situation to run out of gas.

IF they had been trained in the OW class in proper buddy procedures and actually used them in the class they would have had a buddy in position to help. Solo is something different. I carry redundant gas on every solo dive in the form of doubles or stage or both.

Another area I see seriously lacking is when students are not introduced to the panic cycle and how to interrupt it. Task loading exercises are extremely valuable as well as doing the what ifs and teaching someone to STOP,THINK, BREATH, and ACT. That first item and even the second can mean the difference between life and death. STOP what ever you were doing when the problem hit. THINK about what is going on and where your resources are and what they may be. BREATH if possible. If the problem is loss of air you should be moving to your buddy, the surface, or your redundant supply if you have one. Get that breath and ACT. Either continue breathing, get your self positive if at the surface, head for the surface if on a redundant supply, and above all else keep thinking. Thinking thru the problem and the solution will go a long way towards stopping the panic reaction.

I teach this in my OW class from day one. We go over numerous scenarios and how to respond to them. Then simulate them in the pool as far as safely possible. Task loading will teach that things can be solved and panic is not necessary.

 

[seaducer]

Hey, seaducer...the way you quoted my earlier post makes it look like I said that...I was quoting someone else!

Just wanted to make sure that was clear! I hope it was my analysis of why that quote didn't make sense that you were agreeing with. (I think that's what you meant, anyway.)

Sorry for the confusion, yes I was agreeing with your take on the article.

Just to clarify- The statistics were from a DAN study- a group I think has some credibility regarding dive accidents-And the exact quote:
Running out of air was not the cause of death, but was the trigger that eventually led to the diver losing their life.

Absolutely, DAN has tons of credibility here. I think that pulling and isolating certain stats in the way I read the article to have done is incorrect.

- How would you reply to someone who ran out of air at 60ft, did not have an alternate air source available (buddy or redundant air) in time, surfaced too quickly and suffered an embolism, but lived?

I would ask what led to the OOG. By recovering the body we could assume that OOG was the problem, but talking to the diver we might learn that the OOG happened after a series of smaller problems that had nothing to do with gas planning and alternate air sources.

 

[BoltSnap]

It would be wrong and naive/simplistic to assume that ALL OOA situations are primarily due to divers just simply ignoring to check their gas supply and ran out of air U/W. Although a good percentage of these OOA situations are simply due to cavalier attitude towards monitoring their gas supply and proper/realistic gas management and dive planning. I'd say that a substantial percentage of OOA scenarios is actually due to other problems/issues faced by the diver U/W ultimately leading to running out of air while unable to reach the surface. Some people would get caught in a wreck, cave, fishing lines etc. leading to them being involuntarily held U/W and ultimately running OOA before they manage to free themselves.

I don't think that teaching students the various options they should take in OOA encourages them to actually run OOA. What I have a problem with, however, is talking about air supply U/W as a community property and divers go U/W expecting that their buddy's gas supply would be available to them. I think that this attitude builds the cavalier attitude that would lead to OOA. I believe that divers should be approaching their diving and air supply as if they are diving alone but they dive with a buddy. When I dive, I never expect or plan that my buddy would bail/save me if and when I screw up and run out of air. I dive and plan my dives as if I had NO alternate source of air and no one is diving with me to help me out. I am very conservative with handling/managing my gas supply.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Let's step back a moment and ask a simple question ...

"Why do people run out of air?"

I think there's a number of potential reasons ...

- New divers aren't good at task-loading ... and they are easily distracted, so they don't watch their SPG as often as they should.

- Even when they do watch their SPG they usually aren't taught how to figure out at what point they should begin their return to entry or ascent ... and so they can "overstay their welcome" even though they KNOW how much gas they have.

- New divers, or those who dive infrequently often have fairly high air consumption rates ... sometimes they even surprise themselves by how fast they will drain a tank.

- Add to that the double-whammy of most diving locations only having AL80's available ... a size more suitable as a beer container than a scuba cylinder.

- Peer pressure ... now that they have that shiny new C-card, they just HAVE to go hit that bucket-list dive they've been reading about in all the travel magazines. Or perhaps once they're in the water they're not feeling too comfortable ... but they don't want to ruin their dive buddy's good time, and so they force themselves to go on a stressful dive ... further driving up their already-high consumption rate.

None of these are uncommon occurrances for the newly certified diver ... or even for the once-a-year vacation diver who may have gotten certified years ago.

So what's missing? Certainly some additional training would be helpful. It does little good to tell a diver to look at his SPG regularly unless you tell them what they're supposed to be looking for. I can't tell you how many divers ... many with a fair amount of experience ... I've run into who don't know what "turn pressure" means, or how to figure it out. The typical vacation diver hasn't a clue what their SAC rate is, or even why they should know. These are things that should ... at a minimum ... be discussed at a high level in OW training. Because to a diver, air is like money ... no matter how much you have, unless you know something about the concept of budget you will always overspend.

But there are other factors that have less to do with training. Most divers believe themselves to be more skilled than they really are. And so they'll go on dives they're not sufficiently trained or skilled for, and as long as nothing goes wrong, they're fine. But let an unexpected current come up, or the visibility to be lower than they're used to, or something happen that delays them a bit at depth ... and suddenly they are in trouble. Compound that with the fact that most of these divers haven't practiced an air-share drill ... much less an ascent while sharing air ... and it doesn't matter whether it was covered in class or not, the stress of the event makes it something far more difficult for them to deal with than it should be.

Every diver is taught an ESA in OW class. Every diver is taught to "never hold your breath" while ascending. And yet, how many of those fatalities in that report do you think probably occurred due to embolism on an emergency ascent? I can think of several that I know of, personally ... locally. I don't think our regional divers are exceptional in this regard ... I suspect that many of those OOA fatalities occurred not because people weren't sufficiently trained, but because they forgot to do what they had learned in class. Doing something once in a controlled environment doesn't mean you've learned a skill ... it only means that you've demonstrated that you know how to learn it. The learning comes from practice ... just like anything else you've ever tried in your life that you decided you wanted to be good at.

And finally, let's look at the dive travel industry. How many dive locations have that "signature" dive that everyone just HAS to do ... whether it's the lava tubes in Hawaii, the Blue Hole in Belize, the Devils Throat in Cozumel or any number of other bucket-list dives that get endlessly promoted and sold as "easy and fun"? Maybe these aren't even the dives that people get hurt on ... after all, these dives are highly supervised, by people who do this day in and day out. But what happens when the guy who did the lava tubes decides sometime later that it's OK to just duck a little bit past a cave entrance because, hey, this is just like going through that tube, right? What about the guy who goes home to California and decides that going to 140 feet at Pt. Lobos isn't any big whoop, because he went that deep in Belize. These dives give people the notion that they're more skilled than they really are ... and so they don't take the risks as seriously as they should..

Training could be better ... to my concern, it SHOULD be better. But that's just looking at part of the picture. To really examine why these things occur one has to look at the nature of the industry ... we're selling people on something that's easy and fun.

And under the right conditions, it is. But what we need to do better is tell them the rest of the story ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DevonDiver]

The statistic is that 41% of diver deaths were triggered by an out of air situation. If everyone knows the ramifications of running out of air, why do so many divers that still run out of air DIE?

The OP questioned the suitability of entry-level dive training as a result of those DAN statistics. I don't think that anyone would disagree that OW training has become less comprehensive over the past 20 years. I don't think that many people would disagree that many diving fatalities result from a diver not having the right skill-set for the dive they undertook.

However, every agency has a 'model' of training. For mass-market agencies like PADI and SSI, their OW courses are meant to be cheap, easy, convenient and quick. This reflects consumer demand.

This model balances the training given against the activities subsequently engaged in by the diver. This is why training courses always come with firmly recommended limitations. The OW course may be cheap and simple - but it is only designed for NDL diving, with a buddy, to a max depth of 18m/60'. Further courses progress diving skill and competence, enabling a progressive reduction in limitations.

This model of training provision seems to have one major inherent flaw... human nature. People want the quickest, easiest and cheapest training, but don't want to have limitations on their diving after that training. The fact is that some divers will exceed their firmly recommended limitations and conduct diving for which their training was insufficient.

IMHO, the scuba training courses available today are all fit for purpose. A PADI OW course gets you in the water quickly, but with significant limitations. A CMAS OW course gets you into the water more slowly, but with less limitations.

When a diver chooses to dive solo, to dive deep, to dive beyond NDLs or to enter overhead environments (wrecks and caves), etc without getting the appropriate training, then they are exceeding the 'model' or 'parameters' of the scuba training they were given.

Is it correct to blame scuba training for it's limitations... or should be more correctly blame the divers themselves for exceeding those limitations?

Personally, I would love to see some statistics that showed the details of these fatal dive plans...and compared them against what those divers were actually trained to do.

I'd hazard an assumption that in the vast majority of these fatal OOA dive accidents, the diver concerned was either exceeding their limitations and/or otherwise failing to abide by the safe diving practices (inc. buddy system) taught by their certifying agencies...

 

[divermike1011]

Bob:

I think you pretty much nailed it, especially "We're selling people on something that's easy and fun." I think it's a select group of divers who want the kind of training and are willing to put in the hours to overcome task saturation, who are willing to drill safety skills into their muscle memory and who are willing to study and understand the physics and physiology that safe diving is based on. I'd love to be able to conduct some in water harassment and make students practice skills until they can do them blind, but the reality is Skippy the Customer see the adverts and wants to do dives in crystal clear water with no currents and interesting fish. I think dive shops would be hard pressed to do well financially if we reverted to a more military based training regime. Until I win the lottery and can teach the way I want too all I can do is try to both follow my agencies rules and model good diving behaviour and try to spark their interest in being safe, thoughtful dives who do practice.

Michael

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob:

I think you pretty much nailed it, especially "We're selling people on something that's easy and fun." I think it's a select group of divers who want the kind of training and are willing to put in the hours to overcome task saturation, who are willing to drill safety skills into their muscle memory and who are willing to study and understand the physics and physiology that safe diving is based on. I'd love to be able to conduct some in water harassment and make students practice skills until they can do them blind, but the reality is Skippy the Customer see the adverts and wants to do dives in crystal clear water with no currents and interesting fish. I think dive shops would be hard pressed to do well financially if we reverted to a more military based training regime. Until I win the lottery and can teach the way I want too all I can do is try to both follow my agencies rules and model good diving behaviour and try to spark their interest in being safe, thoughtful dives who do practice.

Michael

I don't think harassment or military style training is needed. I don't train my students that way ... I don't even learn very well that way. I just try telling the whole story ... or at least the parts I know about. Most people want to be safe. If you tell them why certain skills are important, or why it's important to practice their skills, then I don't have to push them ... they'll push themselves.

Air management is important to me ... I've spent the past six years going around to dive shops, dive clubs, and anybody else who'll listen and offering free seminars on the topic. I've had people who weren't certified yet telling me how easy it was once they understood what to think about and why. I've had people who've been teaching scuba far longer than me coming up after the seminar and telling me how they never thought about it that way, and how much sense it makes.

Last month, at my most recent seminar I asked an audience of 17 divers how many had practiced an air share ascent since their OW class. One person raised his hand. I asked them how well they thought they could do it in an emergency ... got lots of head-shaking that indicated probably not very well. So I suggested that next time they did a dive, do an air share on their safety stop and just come up afterward sharing air ... just to remember how it's done. After all ... if you need it for real, that ain't a very good time to be trying to remember how to do it. Got lots of agreement that they would ... I think maybe three or four actually will. But that's three or four more than would have if I hadn't brought it up.

And that's the thing ... getting people to think about it. 'Cuz it's the ones who don't think about it that'll end up running out of air ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[merxlin]

The OP questioned the suitability of entry-level dive training as a result of those DAN statistics. I don't think that anyone would disagree that OW training has become less comprehensive over the past 20 years. I don't think that many people would disagree that many diving fatalities result from a diver not having the right skill-set for the dive they undertook..

I don't believe I nor the author said anything about entry level training. There is nothing in the statistics that designates the deaths as being in entry level divers, or that any of the fatalities no advanced training. True CESA's and air sharing is typically only taught in OW classes and a few specialties.

....................Is it correct to blame scuba training for it's limitations... or should be more correctly blame the divers themselves for exceeding those limitations?..

If you subscribe to the "they don't know what they don't know" theory (which I do), I think you have to blame the training. There may be limitations in place, but how many divers know why those limitations are there, or the possible consequences of exceeding them?

Personally, I would love to see some statistics that showed the details of these fatal dive plans...and compared them against what those divers were actually trained to do.

I'd hazard an assumption that in the vast majority of these fatal OOA dive accidents, the diver concerned was either exceeding their limitations and/or otherwise failing to abide by the safe diving practices (inc. buddy system) taught by their certifying agencies...

OK, since we don't have any data that shows any particular agency accounts for an abnormal % of the fatalities, and they all teach the buddy system, would it be safe to assume that the divers ignored or didn't dive the buddy system properly and that lead at least in part to their deaths? And if so, if the divers chose to ignore that part of their training, would additional training have kept them from running out of air, or would they ignore that portion as well?