Running out of air- a perspective

[Tortuga68]

I bet most of the OOA divers in the report were wearing jacket BCDs

 

[DevonDiver]

Fight?

Yep... my bad... was a typo.

Except, of course, Italians and French who have different instincts...

 

[DevonDiver]

Fight?

Yep... my bad... was a typo.

Except, of course, Italians and French who have different instincts...

 

[SC_Hoaty]

Yep... my bad... was a typo.

Except, of course, Italians and French who have different instincts...

Yep... my bad... was a typo.

Except, of course, Italians and French who have different instincts...

Cool - an international slam that was worth repeating! Watch out for incoming fire, DevonDiver!

 

[Tortuga68]

Yeah, Gallic simians will start throwing half-eaten Camembert at you from increasing distances

 

[yarik83]

In my experience every single out of air diver that I saw was out of air because he or she was either not paying attention to air. That was because they were a diver who got certified years ago, have not dove since and traveled to a dive spot overseas somewhere, presented his out of date certification card and local dive operators took it for granted.

I dont know if a safety conscious diver would ever run out of air (pending he or she does not get stuck and run out of air because nobody comes to a rescue) but I do know that MOST out of air situations are preventable if dive operators checked for currency of certification card, if there were more dive masters present at tourist destination sites babysitting some divers and finally if there was a SEVERE electric shock thingie attached to scuba suit that would jolt divers every 500 lbs of air and another device that automatically inflated BCD when air was approaching 1100psi. That would be in a perfect world....

Realistically speaking I believe that active divers should be a little more involved in other diver's affairs and voice their opinions when necessary such as swimming up to new divers every once in a while and telling them to check their air supply.

 

[Tortuga68]

Hmm pretty sure I don't want my BC to auto inflate at 75 bar...

That was because they were a diver who got certified years ago, have not dove since and traveled to a dive spot overseas somewhere, presented his out of date certification card... MOST out of air situations are preventable if dive operators checked for currency of certification card

I can't speak for every agency but there's no expiration date on any of my c-cards

 

[bleeb]

Having just finished my OW training I have to say that my instructors did not downplay the risk involved in running out of air. But they did say "If you run out of air DONT panic. You have options if you stay calm and remember your training.

They did not say "dont worry" they said "dont panic".

I think my training took OOA seriously but focused on the solution and not the problem

Solutions are good if you can execute them in an emergency. However, one of the messages I'm getting from the article is that a sizable number of divers aren't able to carry out the skills they've been taught in an actual emergency, whether it be from inadequate training, insufficient practice, inexperience, lack of comfort under water, or other issues that have been mentioned in this thread. In this event, unless a generally much more skilled diver is at hand and able to rescue them, they have very few options other than a free ascent, which is another skill they're probably not good at, as shown by some of the statistics others have mentioned here (lung overexpansion, panic on the surface, not dropping weights, etc.) So I think one of the points the article was making was that for those who can't reliably do enough of the emergency skills, they have don't really have any low-risk options other than not running out of air in the first place.

 

[drbill]

In my experience every single out of air diver that I saw was out of air because he or she was either not paying attention to air. That was because they were a diver who got certified years ago, have not dove since and traveled to a dive spot overseas somewhere, presented his out of date certification card and local dive operators took it for granted.

I dont know if a safety conscious diver would ever run out of air (pending he or she does not get stuck and run out of air because nobody comes to a rescue) but I do know that MOST out of air situations are preventable if dive operators checked for currency of certification card, if there were more dive masters present at tourist destination sites babysitting some divers and finally if there was a SEVERE electric shock thingie attached to scuba suit that would jolt divers every 500 lbs of air and another device that automatically inflated BCD when air was approaching 1100psi. That would be in a perfect world....

As Tortuga68 said, most c-cards do not have an expiration date. They are good for life. I've opined in the past that I felt this was NOT a good idea and that divers who cannot show a minimum number of dives per year (say 10) over a period of time (say 5 years) should be required to take a recert course. I've used SCUBA since 1961, was first certified in 1969, but have more recent certs as well.

And as Tortuga68 said, having a BCD autoinflate at a certain pressure could result in far more SCUBA deaths!

 

[Midget]

I recently dived with a buddy (with approx 80 dives over 10 years) that didn't signal properly to the DM how much air he had. I saw the signal too. He signaled 80 bar, and I knew he had that much about 5 minutes prior because I'd looked at his gauge then. I thought he must be around 50 by now. I swam to him, looked at his air, and it was at 30 bar.
At that time I signaled to my buddy that we were heading up, took hold of him (he kept trying to push me off), and we went up.

At the surface, I asked him why he was going to continue the dive knowing he only had 30 bar.
He said because the dive master didn't seem concerned when he told him 30! Farcking 'ell!!!!

He took no responsibility whatsoever for his air. He also took no responsibility for not following the dive plan, or his improper amount of air signal.

How many divers like this end up as fatalities?

Some people can be taught. Others will never get it. As with procreating, getting a c card doesn't require passing a common sense test.