Water in regulator at depth causing panic

[inquis]

A BC has an overpressurization valve built into the hip dump.

The purge button is even simpler.

 

[GJC]

Two other items:

1) Is it feasible to inflate your BC to accelerate an ascent while exhaling?
- can the BC burst or will it vent itself
- and then there is the issue of DCS

2) Someone on another thread mentioned deliberately swallowing the water in your regulator (assuming you couldn’t or chose not to purge it); then you are able to breathe. That thought never crossed my mind before. Seems like a simple solution.

1 BCD dump valves will release excess air so the bladder won't rupture. If you inflate it to ascend, you are in for a fast ride to the surface (watch one of the submarine escape videos on YouTube). I would only do that if I thought I was losing consciousness so it would be easier to find my body on the surface instead of the bottom

2 I would avoid swallowing sea water unless that was the only option due to risk of gag, cough, vomiting. The odds of a purge button not working on an otherwise functioning regulator with gas in the tank are very low.

 

[L13]

A simple layman’s experiment: Breathe normally. After your next exhale hold your breath and see how long you last.

My results:
0-10 seconds - no problem
10-15 - getting uncomfortable
15-25 - holding on
25-30 - gotta take a breath

So I would estimate you have about 10-15 seconds to think through and resolve an out of air situation underwater. Things go downhill from there.

Whether or not you can successfully ascend while exhaling from depth (will the expanding air be sufficient), I’ll leave for others to debate.

The physiological cause of your "need to breath" is not driven by time or oxygen. It is driven by CO2 levels in your blood stream. A continual ascent while exhaling (slowly) will continuously remove CO2 from your lungs which will continually drop the ppCO2, causing the CO2 in your blood to flow to the lungs, lessening the "need to breath". You will have more time before the "need to breath" on an ascent than at a constant pressure.

Also, you were measuring the wrong time in your experiment. You need to measure from the start of the exhale (not the end) while exhaling slowly.

 

[boulderjohn]

A simple layman’s experiment: Breathe normally. After your next exhale hold your breath and see how long you last.

My results:
0-10 seconds - no problem
10-15 - getting uncomfortable
15-25 - holding on
25-30 - gotta take a breath

So I would estimate you have about 10-15 seconds to think through and resolve an out of air situation underwater. Things go downhill from there.

Whether or not you can successfully ascend while exhaling from depth (will the expanding air be sufficient), I’ll leave for others to debate.

Can you explain what the length of time you can hold your breath has to do with exhaling expanding air as you ascend from depth?

Despite what people keep saying over and over and over again in CESA threads, your ability to hold your breath has nothing to do with your ability to exhale it during ascent.

 

[boulderjohn]

Two other items:

1) Is it feasible to inflate your BC to accelerate an ascent while exhaling?
- can the BC burst or will it vent itself
- and then there is the issue of DCS

2) Someone on another thread mentioned deliberately swallowing the water in your regulator (assuming you couldn’t or chose not to purge it); then you are able to breathe. That thought never crossed my mind before. Seems like a simple solution.

1. You should begin the ascent while neutrally buoyant. As you ascend, the BCD will expand naturally, making you more buoyant. With a CESA, your job is to dump a little air out of the BCD to as you ascend to keep it from bringing you up too quickly. If you do not vent expanding air from the BCD as you ascend, you are doing a buoyant ascent, not a CESA.

2. I missed this original post that made this claim. You should be exhaling as you ascend. If you are exhaling, you can't swallow. How did water get in the regulator? If you have fully exhaled during ascent, then you can inhale from your regulator.

 

[Salt]

Can you explain what the length of time you can hold your breath has to do with exhaling expanding air as you ascend from depth?

Despite what people keep saying over and over and over again in CESA threads, your ability to hold your breath has nothing to do with your ability to exhale it during ascent.

The length of a breath hold was about the time to react to a problem and make a decision. It was not about an emergency ascent.

Swallowing the water was something I saw elsewhere as a possible solution to water in your regulator. Has nothing to do with emergency ascent.

Responding to L - I am measuring it from the exhale because that is what happened to me. I exhaled and my next breath was full of water and I couldn’t get new air into my lungs.

***This thread is not all about emergency ascents! Emergency ascent was only one of several solutions to the original problem***

 

[A Bajo]

you could probably spit some of the water out even under water. I do this all the time when swim and sometimes get a mouthful of water when taking a breath. Swallowing the water will not be pleasant even if it goes down the right tube. The real danger is when it goes down the airway and drowning begins.

If we all took being a buddy seriously and stayed close to each other then pretty much all problems can be solved underwater

also, I've head the idea getting an extra breath of air from breathing in through the oral inflator of the bc?

Freedivers practice breathholding to increase co2 tolerance as that is what triggers the breath reflex as others have stated. I wonder if this may be helpful to give your more panic free time to deal with a problem before deciding on an emergency ascent. I think it at least gives you better breath control even which should help modulate the exhale should you ascend.

 

[johndiver999]

The length of a breath hold was about the time to react to a problem and make a decision. It was not about an emergency ascent.

Swallowing the water was something I saw elsewhere as a possible solution to water in your regulator. Has nothing to do with emergency ascent.

Responding to L - I am measuring it from the exhale because that is what happened to me. I exhaled and my next breath was full of water and I couldn’t get new air into my lungs.

***This thread is not all about emergency ascents! Emergency ascent was only one of several solutions to the original problem***

Nobody will ever suggest that you swallow water to clear a regulator. You use the purge button. It may make sense to swallow a couple drops of water if it is causing a laryngospasm.

I think your negative breath hold is an interesting experiment, but in a real emergency, you will probably be amped up, so your "time to distress" will probably be shorter.

The difference between full lungs and empty lungs is huge for me. I do negatives riding my bicycle for practice, I can get 11 pedals with one leg before it feels BAD and my max is probably 15, and I am quite impaired after this. It is not very far.

I suspect you would benefit from some pool practice involving clearing a flooded regulator after a complete exhalation.

 

[Boarderguy]

I suspect you would benefit from some pool practice involving clearing a flooded regulator after a complete exhalation.

I still have trouble understanding how this is difficult. Tongue up, purge, breathe, spit water out on exhale, repeat if necessary...

 

[BoltSnap]

I still have trouble understanding how this is difficult. Tongue up, purge, breathe, spit water out on exhale, repeat if necessary...

Say again slowly with more details please.