Scuba Diver Out of Air and Emergency Ascent - Buddy failure

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Grrr. It's about being self-reliant. Hang around for a while talking about the weather, then die. Or simply make your own decision and leave.

Shine your torch into the face of the other diver, when you've got their attention, thumb the dive and leave. Your life. Your responsibility.
 
If you are not going to try to seek air from a buddy (when you absolutely need it) I see little benefit to diving with a buddy and even less to signaling him that you are going up.
 
If you are not going to try to seek air from a buddy (when you absolutely need it) I see little benefit to diving with a buddy and even less to signalling him that you are going up.

It's almost a standard "triage" problem. Place these issues in the order of importance:
  • I'm low on gas
  • Must tell my buddy
  • Buddy not responding
  • Buddy distracted
  • I'm now out of gas
  • I must do a safety stop
  • What's my ceiling
If you need to signal someone, be assertive.
 
Random theory: The single-tank diver may have been used to following other divers & just surfacing whenever they surface. That's of course a recipe for disaster in general, but even more-so if the dive-buddy has double your air.

Plenty of blame to go around here and lots of opportunities to learn for both the sidemount diver and diver #1. The gas management of diver #1 was the primary cause of this and perhaps diver 1 was distracted by their own filming. I would not be surprised if other videographers/photographers had stories of suddenly realizing that they had not checked their gauges in an inordinate amount of time, as well. From my limited experience of photographing recreationally, it can be easy to become distracted/hyper focused on a subject.

I find it difficult to excuse the sidemount diver for turning away from diver 1 when diver 1 was clearly trying to signal something. Perhaps diver #2 was distracted by the task of the dive and became hyper focused on completing the task rather than communicating with his buddy. Granted, as MaxB stated above, Diver 1 should not have OOA in the first place.
If I'm playing a video-game, I often have little concept of time. Underwater photography could be somewhat similar. I just got an action-camera, but I have it setup as record-and-forget and am not really doing deliberate underwater photography.

There are EPGs and air-integrated systems, which can alarm, when air gets below a certain PSI. Pony bottles are also a good option for redundancy. Neither of these should substitute consistently monitoring your air. Before I started diving, I was always worried I'd have problems being surprised by low air. So far, I haven't come close, and have gotten fairly used to intuitively knowing about how much air I have left.

I think that if I needed air and my signals were not immediately understood and acted upon by the other diver, I would have just grabbed the reg from his mouth. That would be a pretty clear sign of my desires.

I actually tell new buddies to do this to me. I have an Air 2, so I specifically tell them, "hey if you need air, just take the reg from my mouth, I PROMISE I will notice right away". I follow that up with: "The pony reg and the AIr 2 are for me".
Agreed, signal first (if practical), but then grab the reg if the response is slow. I'd also add make sure they see you grabbing their reg, so they're less likely to breathe in water or bite off the mouthpiece.

I've heard these types of devices (2nd stage attached to inflator) can be much harder to manage in general, which can be complicated by a panicking out of air buddy. As a general statement, people who use these devices should practice using them, including managing buoyancy while breathing from it. I have a similar but cheaper device I acquired with some regs & since it's small, I just stashed it as a spare 2nd stage in my save-a-dive kit.

Something else I do, is cover the donate-hose with something like this: 25 FT 1/2" Green Expandable Wire Cable Sleeving Sheathing Braided Loom Tubing US | eBay It's some slight extra protection, makes it more obvious which hose & reg to go for & easier to see in a potential long-hose entanglement scenario.
 
With sidemount you take the longer hose. It's either in the diver's mouth, or clipped off.

"This should have been explained in the buddy check". Hate to say that.

People who loose track of time underwater or get so distracted as to not check their vitals (gas, depth, TTS) are obviously fully paid-up members of the Darwinian society. Or, to be fair, are raw novices who need supervision.
 
He may have been low on air but not out of air, while trying to alert the side mount diver he was still breathing and he took at least 2 breaths on the assent, there’s 2 distinct pauses and exhalations
 
Here's a question I find interesting:

If you were in a similar situation, and your buddy rocketed to the surface like that, which standard safety protocols would you normally skip or cut short? And from what maximum depth would you do that from? I'm not rescue-diver trained, but I'd imagine something like that question (or something like it) might be part of that class. I'd expect at about 40ft, I'd follow ascent procedures, but skip or severely shorten the safety stop to check on the buddy, if I saw them make an emergency-ascent. If I simply lost the buddy, I'd surface normally though.

I'm only speaking as a beginner, but another factor that I can think of in this situation is whether or not there is surface support. If it's just me and my buddy, and we're on a shore dive or something, I want to get to the surface as quickly and safely as I can, ignoring stops if need be, and even speeding up my ascent a bit, in case my buddy needs help. If we're on a boat dive or charter, and there's a crew on the surface and can lend support, the dive is still over, but I'm going to be more cautious with the ascent, and take my deco stop, go slowly, maybe pop a DSMB to let the crew and my buddy know I'm on my way up.
 
Couple of years ago (then only an adv open water diver) I was on a charter boat diving with a group of people I've never met before. My assigned buddy was not really a good dive buddy to say the least. We we're at 35m and started to slowly level up to ascend and I started getting low on air, I know I'm heavier than most and didn't have 15 liter cylinder available that I usually use to match bottom time with people on 12's.
I tried to get the attention of the DM but she was pre-occupied and didn't pay me much attention. My buddy was nowhere near. I signaled the nearest person who was between me and the DM that I'm low on air and he need to relay to the DM. He did not understand my signals much similar to the SM diver in the video, I tried a second time but he still didn't get it. I then franticly started to signal out of air. He nearly got a heart attack and instantly wanted to donate his octo. I showed no and pointed to the DM who he then got hold of and we could all stop and I was able to indicate I'm getting low and I will surface. After she was aware of my situation I ascended on my smb.
If I wasn't able to get the attention of the DM I still would have started my ascend knowing that another diver is aware and I won't be reckoned as a lost diver rather than staying down and risking becoming a dead diver. You and you alone have the primary responsibility for your safety. It wasn't the best method to get him to understand and I caused another person stress underwater but it was the only way to get the message through, luckily he didn't freak and in retrospect I was a bit irresponsible in doing so. We did discuss the incident at length on the boat and everyone took some learning from it which was great. From the information in the video it's a lake and shore entry so your risk of becoming lost at sea or lost in a major body of water is low, that doesn't even come into play in your decision making whereas I always had that risk in the back of my mind.

Discussing signals and donating during the pre-dive talks is very important, especially with insta-buddies.
 
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