Why donate my Primary?

[costi]

Thanks, Scuba,Bob

 

[lamont]

The first experience, long ago, I tried to pass my primary to an OOA diver who was moving from very stressed to panic mode. The OOA diver took my primary, on a longer than standard hose, and proceeded to climb up my body on the way to the surface. My mask got dragged down my face to my chin, in the process my nose was broken. I was repeatedly getting hit in the face as this person tried to drag me to the surface by my hose. There was NO chance of me getting any air source in my mouth on my own. One of my staff members sorted me out, the OOA diver eventually realized he was breathing and calmed down, we made a proper ascent. (but let me tell you how much fun it was trying to equalize with a broken nose for the next week or so. Okay, I’ll skip that part) The OOA diver NEVER knew what he did, that moment was just edited out of his memory.

This crawling up the donor thing has happened to me a couple of times. I also had someone grab the back of my head, while I was trying to donate my primary and crush my head to her sternum. While I had my alternate ready in my hand, her body was on three sides of my head (if you can picture it, laugh, I did later) and I couldn’t get the thing to my mouth.

I really don't see how shorter hoses would help in either situation. The longer the hose you've got the more room you can get between you and the guy trying to beat the crap out of you in a panic without actually having to tear the reg out of his mouth. And if someone grabs your head, having the backup by your neck seems to be better than having it anywhere else. With an air-2 I could see a similar diver in a panic grabbing the hose and keeping you from getting it anywhere near your mouth, and octos anywhere on any length of hose could be grabbed or prevented from getting close to your mouth.

 

[Adobo]

Fred,

That seemed like a long answer as to why your system works great for a DM shepherding a bunch of resort divers around. I'll defer to your expert opinion to determine whether or not that is true.

But, just because you have found that the system you describe works great for DMs/dive guides does not mean that the system is universally superior for the 90%+ of us who are non DMs/dive guides. To adopt a system optimized for your type of diving when the majority of people dive different than you do... well, I think you said it best when you said, "I practice my craft in a resort location."

All I can say is thanks for the advice. Anybody who wants to become an instructor/dive guide in a resort where you play host to a dozen stranger divers with little or no experience should definitely consider your system.

 

[Fred R.]

Adobo,

The reason I posted is because, according to the dive accident stats I read, years ago, when there is a case of an air sharing fatality, it is ALWAYS the donor who dies. Now these may be old stats, and may be out of date, but when planning for a worst case scenario, you plan for the WORST case scenario.

In my case, I don't have to plan, I just need to remember.

As to some of my other critics, as I have said before, I use the best tools at hand for the job. I am not addressing configuration for diving in overhead environments or multiple gas mixtures.

As to Lamont's comment, use whatever length you like. I use two 40" hoses on my own open water rig. I set up my rental rigs with 36" hoses on the octo's. The Octo's I use either have the hose entry on the opposite side of the second stage body from the primary, or the hose enters the second stage body from the bottom.

 

[all4scuba05]

So I am going to get the one that doesn't work?!

right....sucks huh?

 

[Adobo]

Adobo,

The reason I posted is because, according to the dive accident stats I read, years ago, when there is a case of an air sharing fatality, it is ALWAYS the donor who dies. Now these may be old stats, and may be out of date, but when planning for a worst case scenario, you plan for the WORST case scenario.

Fred,

Your worst case scenario is not everyone's worst case scenario. I dive in Monterey where we do not get a lot of resort divers. We get open water check out divers in one particular dive site. There is an odd chance that an inexperienced diver might come up to me because of an OOG emeergency. Other than that, the divers likely to need a donation from me (or to donate to me) are my buddies who are right next to me. And with these folks, we drill OOG scenarios religiously. We also practice detailed gas planning and dive plan reviews.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if an OOG scenario happens with one of my buddies, it will be from an equipment failure or because my buddy inadvertantly left his/her valve off.

If an OOG scenario happens with an open water checkout diver, I doubt he/she would be able to find me anyway as vis is typically in the 10-15 ft range where the checkout dives are conducted. (I don't generally make it habit to get that close to open water checkout divers).

I dunno if it is fair to universally super impose the issues that you find in your diving to divers who do not:
- have resort divers looking to them for guidance and safety
- concern themselves with issues about sharing the same second stage with other divers
- dive in high visibility water

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Fred, Dude, you make no sense to me whatsoever.

But then again, you're the guy who says he doesn't have to plan....so I'm just going to go ahead and stick you on ignore.

Of course that CF gear you set-up for your once-a-year customers is just so what they've never used before either most of the time.

Overhead and multi-gas has zip to do with it either.

That's a lame excuse for not using a better set-up and it holds no water.

Is your best tool for painting a sledge hammer by any chance?

 

[MikeFerrara]

Every day for the past twenty something years, the public start to my professional day has begun with a dive briefing. As I look out over the eager faces of 10 or 12 divers, I recite the day’s dive plan. A part of that briefing includes the phrase “Let me or one of the staff members know when you have reached 1500 psi, or 100 bar. It is NOT the end of the dive, but will allow us to plan on getting you to the ascent point with the proper amount of air to do a safe ascent”.

Almost no divers have a problem with this, and most days all goes very smoothly

They should all have a problem with it. They should want to know the details of the profile so that they might check your numbers and understand the plan themselves before consenting to jump off the boat.

However a certain percentage of divers, calculated by one member of this board to be .02 percent, will flit about the dive like an energetic, oversized firefly, giving the ‘okay’ sign any time a staff member asks about air and suddenly get very wide eyed as they take the last breath from their tank.

For most divers, .02 percent seems like an insignificantly low number, as in ‘never happen’, right? Well in my life, .02 percent means that I have air shared with over 200 out of air divers, with varying levels of competency and comfort.

In the beginning of my professional career, I tried to respond to these situations exactly as the training agencies I represented taught, and I was not pleased by how things went.

No real surprise there.

As my business expanded, I got together with my staff and we tried to work out a better system.

For those who are wondering, we tried;
Donate the primary
Donate the secondary
Long primary hose
Short primary hose
Long secondary hose
Short secondary hose (and lengths in between)
Spare Air
Integrated inflator/second stage
Pony bottles

By try, I mean we practiced with each other, and then dived that configuration until we had a ‘real’ air share or two.

Most any configuration will work some of the time. But panicked people are a strange species, and they often think of doing things that you would not expect.

The set up I described earlier works for the type of diving I do, and for the type of people who dive with me. As I said, not politely enough before, cave and technical divers have a different set of priorities and SHOULD use a different configuration. However, the original poster asked a valid question and I do not think he should be bullied into investing in a configuration that probably will not suit his needs for some time to come, if ever.

A pice of shock cord for a necklace doesn't represent much of an investment but it can work for him right out of the gate just as it has for many of us and our former students.

Why do you have to share air with all those divers? Don't they have buddies? Are we talking about poor gas management skills as well as no team diving skills here? It sounds like a pack situation rather than 2 or 3 diver teams with you trying to be every ones buddy...not the best situation to be sure.

IMO, you have way to many divers running out of air and way to many panicing because of it. True, your buisiness seems dependant on you being willing to dive with just about every one but few of us are forced to do that. My own answer to some of the things that you apparently have to deal with is that I avoid those dive settings. I've seen too much of it and it just isn't worth it to me anymore. I won't do a dive with some one unless I have reason to believe that their skills are up to the dive and c-cards don't count.

But back to the discussion of configuration;
Open water divers cooperatively deal with initial problems face to face. That’s how they are trained, that’s what works. Once air sharing is initiated in open water, the optimum situation is usually side by side. The two divers can maintain contact by holding hands and immediately move to their optimum ascent point and ascend as needed. This is the reasoning behind the NASDS recommendation of having a secondary on either side. The one on the left can be breathed by the OOA buddy in a side by side position.

Unfortunately they're not only taught to start out face to face but usually vertical and on the bottom. On a real dive they may not be lucky enough to be on the bottom so shortly after they realize there is a problem they go vertical. Since they likely weren't neutral in the first place they'll also start sinking (or rising but usually sinking because of their initial head up trim). If being OOA didn't get them opanicking, their lack of depth cntrol while trying to deal with another problem will.

And no it doesn't work...which you illustrate pretty well here.

For those of you who smugly refer to your necklaced octo, which you can get to without using your hands, I wish you all the best of luck and may you always have calm and competent buddies. I have had a couple of very bad experiences that would preclude me ever relying on this system as a dive guide.

No doubt, calm and competent buddies are an absolutely critical ingredient in successful problem management. Otherwise it's a rescue where you had better be a better underwater wrestler. That's what you're really talking about isn't it?

The first experience, long ago, I tried to pass my primary to an OOA diver who was moving from very stressed to panic mode. The OOA diver took my primary, on a longer than standard hose, and proceeded to climb up my body on the way to the surface. My mask got dragged down my face to my chin, in the process my nose was broken. I was repeatedly getting hit in the face as this person tried to drag me to the surface by my hose. There was NO chance of me getting any air source in my mouth on my own. One of my staff members sorted me out, the OOA diver eventually realized he was breathing and calmed down, we made a proper ascent. (but let me tell you how much fun it was trying to equalize with a broken nose for the next week or so. Okay, I’ll skip that part) The OOA diver NEVER knew what he did, that moment was just edited out of his memory.

This crawling up the donor thing has happened to me a couple of times. I also had someone grab the back of my head, while I was trying to donate my primary and crush my head to her sternum. While I had my alternate ready in my hand, her body was on three sides of my head (if you can picture it, laugh, I did later) and I couldn’t get the thing to my mouth.

I have had many discussions with the heads of various training agencies. One of their tenets is “with proper training ‘this’ is a valid air share technique” My argument to them is “If they were properly trained air sharing would never happen, if air sharing IS happening, you can not count on any level of training”.

The heads of the training agencies don't seem at all in tune with the mechanics behind these situations. If they were, agency standards woul read a bit differently.

However, even well trained and well practiced divers can suffer gas loss due to equipment failure and I guarantee you that this can be managed without panic and that's exactly what we train and equip ourselves for. Misdlessly swimming around until one runs out of gas shouldn't be an issue.

If you are still reading, there is one other thing I must add to this donate the primary or secondary discussion;
Whatever method you use, you must practice it if you expect it to work smoothly. This has been mentioned before by many. What is not mentioned is that if you practice air sharing with the primary, you ARE sharing spit with every exchange. For those of you who practice with close friends or family members, good for you. But for those of you who are dive professionals, or wish to become such, know this, sharing spit with everyone you dive with, or teach can be fatal to your dive career!

Skipping the disease aspect practice is important. You really can't skip it and expect things to turn out well. The only divers that I would generally dive with without practicing with first are divers who I know do practice and that they practice the same methods. Even then we do S drills (mini paractice) prior to a dive and our first dive together would be a pretty easy dive and you guessed it...we'd likely practice some.

You just can't dive in a pack where some percentage of the pack doesn't know how to do any of this diving stuff and where you are everybodies buddy and expect things to turn out real well.

I know you've said that you have brought them all back but pardon me...any one who has had to share air 200 times is doing (or at least consenting to) something VERY VERY wrong. Don't you worry about me dealing with a necklaced backup if I run into one more paniced diver. Worry about yourself. Statistically speaking I see a fairly high probability that before your career is over, one or more of those divers you deal with aren't going to make it. Also, I don't see it as at all far fetched to think that one of them may even manage to take you with them.

My experience owning a dive shop lead me to believe that the recreational dive industry is a very messed up place and your post is one of the best supporting pieces that I've ever read.

One of us says..."Doc it hurts when I do that!"
Doc answers..."Well, don't do it anymore".

 

[wreckchick]

Mike,

I'm glad to see you back and posting!

Rachel

 

[Scuba]

The reason I posted is because, according to the dive accident stats I read, years ago, when there is a case of an air sharing fatality, it is ALWAYS the donor who dies. Now these may be old stats, and may be out of date, but when planning for a worst case scenario, you plan for the WORST case scenario.

That's an interesting stat. Anyone know of any recent statistics? As I recall I have read of accidents where a potential donee also perished, but if statistics are highly skewed towards one side, something is going on.

Not directly related to the above since I don't have any knowledge of the particulars involved, but to reiterate a point, after a fairly thorough analysis of common configurations and methods used to donate a reg, I believe the most effective way to get air to a donee is for the donor to donate the primary breathing reg "From donation response action, to re-establishing the donee's ability to breath.", my own quote.

What I left out is the necessity for the donor to re-establish a breathing reg. This is an extra step not present when one donates an octo or secondary second stage reg. The advantage that is gained by a donee when a donor employs a method which maximizes the chances of a successful donation come at a disadvantage to the donor. When the donor employs a method which maximizes the reduction of risk to himself by donating other than his primary breathing reg, it comes at a disadvantage to the donee. There is no free ride!

This is only taking some elemental basics under considerations. There are so many possible and probable variables, as some have already mentioned, that it is necessary to look more closely at individual circumstances. After that, one can concentrate on becoming very knowledgeable and practiced in chosen configuration and method, as this will provide the best chance for success, without ignoring changing circumstances which may require that change once again be undertaken in order to be best adapted to new conditions, overhead buddy diving for example.

Some people see their configurations and methods as a no contest winner compared to others. I think this fails to account for the many variables that exist out there in divers world. And sometimes the overall advantage may or may not be that significant, although every bit counts in the search to maximize safety withing reason.

Another issue this discussion brings to light is the increased risk undertaken by divers who dive with poor and unknown quality divers in many cases. This serves to compound the unpredictability factor in these situations. Fortunately, unless one is a dive instructor or tourist guide, the odds of an OOA situation are quite rare. If one dives frequently with tourists or new divers then it's a good idea to be more on guard for this possibility.