Who here has done a real life CESA and what was your experience?

[Gary D.]

1 Why did it happen?
"Training and fun"

2. What depth?
"Up to 119?"

3. What was your reaction?
"Loved it"

4. What was your ascent rate?
"Depends on free around 20'-30fpm or buoyant around 60fpm"

5. Did you have to go to the chamber?
"Yes, lots, but not because of the assents."

6. General experience/thoughts/advice/anything else relevant
"Wish I could do more."

Gary D.

 

[Miller64]

I won't say anything about my training,good or bad,,but I will say, this forum and another"What did you learn from your last dive", has been extremely helpful and informative.I have only the cert dives right now,but I have read alot on here and would like to say thanks to all ,experienced and less experienced divers for some valuable information.And,I would like to say,It's a pleasure to meet all of you,even if thru this forum and thru the written words.I hope to meet many thru out my diving life,and if I screw up,,correct and forgive me,,dive safe

Lt Lynn

 

[Doubler]

Back in the late 70's early 80's when I was doing a lot of cave diving, my buddy and I would do a drill weekend. Buddy Breathing Ascents, Following on Octopus, following on octopus without masks and Blow and go's from about 80 feet. Fast forward to 1988, in Hawaii. My gear was in the shop being serviced so I had a loner Regulator with no Octopus and one of their BC's. Anyway I was fussing with my camera so I to;d my buddy to go down with the other team and I would meet them at the anchor in a couple of minutes. (Mistake number 1) So I drop in and heading down, all is well until I got a mouth full of water at about 70 feet. I was diving a Scubapro Air 1 which had a habit of letting water leak by sometimes dependent on your attitude. So I straightened up, head towards the surface, and took another breath. Nothing but water. I reached up to hit the purge and found no regulator, but the mouth piece was there the HOLY**** factor set in big time. Completely out of air, no idea what happened to my regulator, no Octopus, and worst of all no buddy. I began an ICBM move towards the surface. I heard STOP scream in my head so I slowed down and meandered to the surface, meandering being a little slower than ICBM but with the addition of blowing bubbles. When I got to the surface I leaned on the dive platform for about 5 minutes and my buddy showed up wanting to know if I was all right. Anyway we canexed the dives for the rest of the day and went back to the LDS. They informed me that my gear was ready to go, so I examined it and noticed the same problem with my gear as the rental. The mouthpiece strap was not installed. This is why the regulator came out. I didn't even notice it dropped away because I was so focused on my camera. (Mistake number 2) I now exam my gear throughly, especially checking for the strap. Mistake number 3 was not performing this before the dive. I think the drilling we did prevented a serious injury. Trust me when you are totally out of air and have gulped down two mouthfuls of water you do panic, hopefully training will kick in and calm you down and get you through.

Dive safe,
Jim

 

[drbill]

I've posted mine several years ago, but basically:

Decided to go in without my pony (I'm a long-time solo diver) because my "plan" was to go to only 40 ft. Had a beautiful bat ray take me down to 75 ft in 3 1/2 min. I exhaled, but when I tried to inhale there was no air coming out of my reg. I instinctively started ascending as I tried to get air from my octo or Air-2. The SPG read 0 even though the tank had just been filled.

Ascended at approximately 1 ft per sec. Did not ditch weights (figured I would if my lungs started protesting too much). Lungs were screaming as I saw the surface approach. Then I died. Oops, wrong version... had to rest for 10 min before I started swimming in to the park stairs. No more diving for the day.

Discovered my dip (or debris) tune had clogged letting NO air through the valve. I've never dived without my pony after that unless I was traveling and buddied up.

Since I'd only been under a few minutes I was fine re: the bends. Just made sure my ascent rate was slow enough to avoid an embolism.

 

[scubaren]

Wow! Incredible thread! Thanks to all who posted here. It is a help to me to remember to stop and think in a crisis.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

When I was 13 and getting certified in a 40 degree quarry, we had to do a swimming ascent from 60 ft to get PADI certified. I removed my regulator and held it in my hand (as required) and began kicking hard, exhaling slowly and looking up. The visibility was about 5-12 feet and I was absolutely terrified.

After a while, I began to worry that I was running out of air and looked over at the instructor's helper and then to the bottom. I could see a giant plume of dirt and that I was simply holding position 5-10 feet over the bottom (this was before real BC's were available) I was apparently quite negative. I felt that I was in trouble and did not want to fail, so I took off swimming about as fast as I could. ..... I wear a pony bottle for anything over 60 feet now.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Hmm, seems strange why it's not taught at all now (bag breathing) - ...Re CESA experiences: did you people dump air from your BCs as you ascended (those who had BCs!) in order to maintain safe ascent rate or does that become somewhat academic as one's lung's start feeling like they're ready to explode? I guess this is more relevant with deeper CESAs....

Practice CESA's that I've done or observed were performed with an EMPTY BC (to prevent out of control ascent). We swam up. You start out a bit negative, but quickly become less negative as you ascend (wetsuit regains buoyancy). Even at the current 30' CESA depth you'll notice the change (actually, its where you notice the fastest change in suit buoyancy).

In the mid-to-late 70's, most of us did not have BC's, so you had no choice but to swim up :shocked2:

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I think they avoid teaching BC breathing is because by the time you've realized that you're out of air, you switch to your BC supply, and then take a breath, you could have spent that time swimming up 20-30 feet. When you couple that with the "Boyle breath" you can steal as you're ascending, it is likely counterproductive to your survival to breathe your BC air. You've got MAYBE one breath out of that, and it's of dubious quality. I also tend to dive with my BC deflated, so there may not even be air in there in the first place, and now you've lost precious seconds. Moreover, you're pulling an unknown amount of air out of your BC -- your ascent will be slower. What if you hit negative buoyancy because you took too much air out of your BC?
...

They didn't even teach buddy breathing in my OW class. Our instructor said, "by the time you're doing this, you should either CESA or ditch your weights."

The way the technique was described to me (others please jump in and correct me) back when I was certified, is that as you CESA you exhale into your BC inflator instead of exhaling through the reg into the water, thus "saving" that air to re-breath if needed. It has plenty of O2 left in it. Starting with an empty BC was not an issue, you'd "fill" it (due to expansion of your 1st breath as you ascended). This is at least how I remember it...

Long, long threads have been devoted to the current practice of not teaching buddy breathing anymore. I think this is a mistake to not include buddy breathing training in basic OW courses. CESA is not always an option, backup regs (octopus) can and do fail, and then all that is left is buddy breathing... but only if both divers know how. Sorry to beat this dead horse again, but I could not help myself... back on topic now

 

[drbill]

I dive with a camcorder so it is more difficult to manipulate the BCD as I ascend.

I think it is important to do some practice ascents so the effort becomes more "instinctive." As soon as I detect any problem (a rarity, but it does happen), I begin my ascent while assessing the situation.

 

[goodive]

Fantastic topic,
mine didn't end up in CESA but OOA situation somehow relates to this. (It could be in "Being stupid under water" tread too).
When I was a brand spanking new diver (dive #2 after OW course) I was eager to dive ASAP and went to Porteau Cove Scuba Shore Diving Site Page for: Porteau Cove of Vancouver, BC, Canada
dive site with DM from my course Richard. Vis was about 10 feet and I was just following Rich trying not to loose his yellow fins. I was checking my air every 2 minutes till we got to the "jungle gym". I was like a kid in the candy store, completely forgot about my air. Suddenly it got harder and harder to breathe. I look at my gages and it was showing zero air, 70 feet depth. Remember I am just a new diver, no experience at all. I panicked. I could see Richard's fins about 10 feet in front of me. My only thought was to get to Rich or I AM DEAD. I climbed all over him, all I saw was the reg in his mouth. My reg was already floating somewhere behind me and I was trying to breathe water. I ripped his reg from his mouth and shove it in mine. I never forget the look he gave me. He grabbed my BCD strap and gave me "Are you O. K." signal. Sure I am I do have AIR. Maybe I even smiled. He smiled back at me, look at my gage, shook his head and smile again. I am thinking, where is his reg, he doesn't have one. Well I am not giving him mine. Oh there we go, his octopus comes out. O yea, he"ll be fine. We got to the surface no problem, no scuba divers got injured in this exercise. Rich never dove with me again which is too bad. He would see, that I check my air regularly, always carry my pony on all solo dives and now know how to do CESA.