Treat every dive like a tech dive

[Seya]

Personally I don't like the gear configuration in the first video. I agree with donating your primary. Although I was taught in OW class per PADI guidelines to give the OOA diver my octo; however, my instructor immediately told us right after this is not how that scenario typically goes down. Quote, "The OOA diver will most likely rip the reg from your mouth without warning and you better know where your octo is. Today it's clipped to your BC, tomorrow come in the shop and I'll show you how it should be done. On a necklace under your chin next to your mouth is the best place for it to be." Are PADI instructors not allowed to teach the necklace/primary donate configuration/method?

I do believe this gear configuration should become the standard across all agencies and AIR2 should also be thoroughly reviewed if someone wants to go that way. For a new diver who hasn't master buoyancy I don't think they should start diving with an AIR2 simply because they barely know how to operate and inflator at that point and the likelihood for a new diver to actually be OOA is much higher than an experienced diver. Nevertheless, basically the education of air sharing should be donate primary or expect primary to be taken and switch to octo on necklace or AIR2 if you choose to use one. Establish firm contact and end the dive.

The problem I have with the second "EDUCATIONAL" video is no contact. This is not illustrated. Also the idea that you should be doing any swimming during in OOA emergency is a bad idea. You immediately begin your accent. A diver watching that video may get the idea contact isn't important when it really is.

Here's a good example about how current and swimming completely ruined the outcome of this dive. Mary and Steve are dead.

Two Divers, No Air | Scuba Diving

The other problem I have with this second instructional video is the conditions in which they were diving were dead calm. All of my ocean dives so far have had some sort of current and/or surge. Locked hand contact on each other's BC again insures no one gets away from each and buoyancy can be maintained on the accent. For new divers who have never experienced a current and trying to stick together without contact would likely be difficult and someone may end up with the short end of the stick.

---------- Post added December 6th, 2015 at 07:58 AM ----------

Here's a good example of why I think there needs to be some uniformity across agencies. Especially considering if it's a cattle boat dive, it may not be your buddy that needs assistance, but a complete stranger with no idea how your gear is configured.

https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/diving-incidents/Hogarthian_gear_freeflow#.VmQvdIE8KrU

Just go join GUE. All your problems will be solved. You should go over air donation before the dive with your buddy. People love to customize so you'll never ever get a single gear type.

Sent from my LG-H812 using Tapatalk

 

[Edward3c]

Personally I don't like the gear configuration in the first video. I agree with donating your primary. Although I was taught in OW class per PADI guidelines to give the OOA diver my octo; however, my instructor immediately told us right after this is not how that scenario typically goes down. Quote, "The OOA diver will most likely rip the reg from your mouth without warning and you better know where your octo is. Today it's clipped to your BC, tomorrow come in the shop and I'll show you how it should be done. On a necklace under your chin next to your mouth is the best place for it to be." Are PADI instructors not allowed to teach the necklace/primary donate configuration/method?

…

The UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) oversee commercial diving in the UK. Teaching diving for reward is a commercial activity and therefore falls under HSE jurisdiction.

The HSE did research and concluded a diver will revert to their initial training in an OOG situation, included those whom had been diving for 20 years.

If a diver has been trained to take the secondary then that’s what they will do. It’s only the primary donate people who claim every diver will steal the reg in your mouth. The incident reports don’t support that argument. If anything most OOG divers are quite rational when there is a problem.

 

[CuzzA]

Can you link that data.

 

[Edward3c]

Can you link that data.

Even in this modern world not everything is on-line. You can buy the report from them, its part of Government cutbacks information isn't free anymore.

 

[boulderjohn]

This is how I was taught to do air share in my OW class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3heu2Ij64

As is typical in instruction that begins with the students learning while overweighted and on the knees, the instruction has lost sight of the artificiality of that instruction. One of the most important concepts in teaching any physical skill is making the training look like the real world. In sports coaching theory, that is called keeping things "gamelike." When you teach something in a way that is not gamelike, you ingrain habits that will serve the student badly in the real world. Let's start with the two divers kneeling next to each other--does that look like a real world situation to you? Next, because the student is kneeling and overweighted, the instructor has to add oral inflation of the BCD. The only reason you have to do that is because they are overweighted and kneeling--in a real world dive that step should be unnecessary. (Do you think a semi-panicked diver is going to be in the mood for it?)

To do that exercise properly, the two should be neutrally buoyant in swimming posture to begin the exercise, and they should be a normal diving distance apart. When the OOA signal is given, they should swim to each other as they would on a real dive. They should complete the exchange in mid water before beginning the ascent/ Too hard for beginners? I just did it in the pool yesterday, and no problem--as usual.

Although I was taught in OW class per PADI guidelines to give the OOA diver my octo, my instructor immediately told us right after this is not how that scenario typically goes down. Quote, "The OOA diver will most likely rip the reg from your mouth without warning and you better know where your octo is. Today it's clipped to your BC, tomorrow come in the shop and I'll show you how it should be done. On a necklace under your chin next to your mouth is the best place for it to be." Are PADI instructors not allowed to teach the necklace/primary donate configuration/method?

There are NO PADI GUIDELINES for how the OOA scenario must be taught. That is up to the instructor or shop management. PADI allows complete freedom to teach the method the instructor prefers, assuming the instructor is not going to invent some off the wall, unsafe system. The long hose and bungeed necklace is perfectly acceptable.

When I teach, I use the gear the shop provides for the student, which is the traditional octo. (I have no ethical problems doing this because most new divers will rent gear for a while, and that is what they will rent.) I show them both the donate method of using it and the take method. I tell them that the one you will actually use is up to the OOA diver. If the diver signals OOA and stares at you, better donate. If the OOA signals (or not) and grabs for your octo, better get out of his way so there is no interference. I also describe the integrated octo system. In the classroom I show them my long hose and bugeed necklace system and explain why I think it is the best of all the methods. Finally, I tell them that it is important that each member of a buddy team understand each other's gear and preferred methods.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) oversee commercial diving in the UK. Teaching diving for reward is a commercial activity and therefore falls under HSE jurisdiction.

The HSE did research and concluded a diver will revert to their initial training in an OOG situation, included those whom had been diving for 20 years.

If a diver has been trained to take the secondary then that’s what they will do. It’s only the primary donate people who claim every diver will steal the reg in your mouth. The incident reports don’t support that argument. If anything most OOG divers are quite rational when there is a problem.

This is very hard for me to believe.

IF an OOA diver is perfectly calm and goes through all the prescribed signaling procedures.. then they are not panicked and they are controlled - they might just be very low on air and not really without ANY air. Never the less, if this perfectly calm and well behaved "victim" is signaling and preparing to receive the secondary regulator, what possible harm is there in handing him the regulator from your mouth?

Do we really think he is going to reject it if it is a different one than he was trained to expect? The logical answer will have to be.. he will take what is given to him.

If on the other hand, IF this same victim is disregarding all his training and is so desperate that he is NOT signaling his need/desire for air...dontcha think he is going to go for the regulator that is most obvious and most easily located?

The most easily located regulator is quite obviously the one in the other diver's mouth. Of course the secondary fact that this is a clean, functioning regulator that is delivering the correct gas mix at the current depth is important, it is probably NOT going through the victim's mind at that moment - if they are panicked.

I don't really care what some agency or training organization says, after 40 years of diving, witnessing many accidents and too many fatalities, I am going to try to follow procedures that make sense to me. Donate the primary and secondary regulator around the neck makes the most sense for me.

I'm not saying a panicked individual will NEVER go for the clipped off secondary regulator - because in a true emergency is is hard to predict with certainty what people will actually do, but I just think it is pretty damn unlikely for that to occur.

In short, he is going to either go through a signaling protocol OR a panicked snatch of a second stage and in both cases, if the victim ends up with the primary from the donor's mouth, the situation should be workable.

For the first 20-25 years, I kept the secondary regulator clipped off (with a break away) in a manner similar to what PADI et.al. recommended. It was MUCH more convenient, and it made removal of the scuba unit much quicker and easier than having the damn neck lanyard. The neck lanyard is a pain to remember when removing the tank, but I finally decided that safety was more important than convenience in this case.

Also, wearing the secondary around your neck has the significant added benefit of allowing you to immediately detect a significant freeflow from that second stage. If it is clipped off in the golden triangle and you are wearing a thick suit, a thick hood and are descending (head first) down an anchor line in heavy current, it is quite easy to fail to detect a free flow because it is being shielded by a BC and a suit and the anchor rope may be brushing your body as well on the descent, PLUS if you are upside down swimming hard, you are breathing hard, so your normal exhaust stream is going to be flowing over your body anyway (even if you are not going down an anchor line). The anchor line descent just makes the freeflow scenario more likely because the added effect of the current can induce a frreeflow.

So a freeflow is very EASY to miss - if you use the "golden triangle" secondary placement.

 

[Bigd2722]

To go back to the original post, rather than treat every dive as a tech dive, I would suggest that your treat every dive as a solo dive. I dive an almost identical configuration for every dive I have completed (so far) except for the size of my sausage and whether or not I carry spare mask.

 

[cool_hardware52]

To go back to the original post, rather than treat every dive as a tech dive, I would suggest that your treat every dive as a solo dive. I dive an almost identical configuration for every dive I have completed (so far) except for the size of my sausage and whether or not I carry spare mask.

Depends on the teammates.

Anyone familiar with Team Diving and who has spent the time and effort to develop qualified team mates knows it's counter productive to ignore team resources.

Tobin

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The tank was a AL80. I assume this was from saltwater rich air getting into the tank. Probably from fills very close to shore with poor or spent compressor filters.

Totally agree DD. For spearfishing that's definitely been the advice I've recieved from many. I have a lot of work to do before I'll be prepared to do that kind of activity at that depth and safely make it back to the surface. Deep wrecks are another technical dive that interest me.

I know I'm getting way ahead of myself, but I enjoy hearing stories about dives. Anybody following this thread have any stories to share about deep technical wrecks? Like the Lowrance for example.

I haven't even attempted a back kick. Haven't even researched how to do it yet.

The white stuff in the aluminum tank is almost assuredly aluminum oxide not CaCO3. The source of which is probably corrosion associated with salt water being blown into the aluminum tank which occurred during the filling of the tank.

It is important to open the valve and blow out everything/anything which has fallen into the valve immediately before attaching the whip to fill the tank. Few shop monkeys follow this - but then again if they mess up, they get more business when you have to pay them to brush or roll the tank.

Also, you should blow out the valve so you don't inject saltwater into your first stage when you hook up a regulator.

Getting in the practice of always cracking the valve before you hook anything up to a tank, can go a long way toward reducing long term maintenance costs/problems with tanks and regulators.

 

[NAM001]

I like that idea, after all that is the level of "tech" that should be employed on rec diving with out going to the expense of full tech. Probably would not go with the 2nd air supply though.

To go back to the original post, rather than treat every dive as a tech dive, I would suggest that your treat every dive as a solo dive. I dive an almost identical configuration for every dive I have completed (so far) except for the size of my sausage and whether or not I carry spare mask.