Breathing from freeflowing reg

[Lead_carrier]

Some excellent advice was given. I teach to cover the mouthpiece with the tongue and then lower the tongue slightly when they need to inhale. Or just swap over to their alternate.

 

[SwimJim]

In cold and/or deep water free flows are fairly common. Unfortunately they have gotten lots of divers hurt to...usually from the rapid ascent that follows.

When this free flow is going on, you may very well need your hands for other things so don't mess with this holding the reg out in front of you and sipping it stuff. Just keep it in your mouth and breath, letting the excess air escape through the exhaust. you won't blow up. The exhaust valve opens at very low pressure. Turn you head to the side if you need to to keep the bubbles from dislodging your mask BUT, staying horizontal will help here too. DON'T GO VERTICAL...that's for walking not diving.

The air will be COLD. Once you have a handle on things, if you have a free hand, then you can back the reg out of your mouth a little for comfort.

Practice this until yo can manage it midwater. Since we dive midwater, that's where problems usually happen.

If you like frostbitten gums give this a try. Thats why sipping is important. If your any kind of a diver using one hand to hold your second stage and controlling your acent with the other should come natural. Just keep you cool, stop think react and you'll be okay. If your diving deco and have no back up your subject to Darwins law anyway.

 

[Charlie99]

My inst. had us do the sipping thing, works ok. But I like Mike's way better.

Simple is better, particularly in an emergency. The various posts about blocking with your tongue are good. Most divers will find that tongue guard action to be pretty automatic -- it's the same action you use to keep from inhaling water when taking a the first breath off a reg that has been out of your mouth.

I also grin really wide and let some air blow out the sides of my mouth. Most just goes out the exhaust valve though.

 

[TSandM]

Almost got to practice this tonight, when I turned off my right post and breathed it down, and went to put the secondary in my mouth, knocked the purge valve and started a freeflow. I'm looking at the freeflowing reg and thinking my other reg is turned off, and my buddy's not thinking much of my emergency signal, since such a signal is part of the valve drill . . . And you CAN breathe off a freeflowing reg. But in the meantime, I got the other one turned on. Whew.

 

[talonraid]

This is a great discussion and one that I hadn't put a lot of thought into before now.

I'm a warm water diver (rivers/lakes in Texas 50-76 degrees F) and the Caribbean. When I was going through OW we had several free flows in the pool portion. This was definitely warm water, probably 80 degrees. This usually occured sitting on the surface with the shop's banged up rental gear. Our instructor taught us to just turn the reg mouthpiece down and submerge the reg into the water. If that didn't work we gave the second stage a little love tap. It stopped every time.

We never even discussed free flow at depth. Does this happen often in warm water or is it more a cold water event?

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

It's more of a cold water event. The reg gets frozen in the open position.

 

[MikeFerrara]

If you like frostbitten gums give this a try. Thats why sipping is important. If your any kind of a diver using one hand to hold your second stage and controlling your acent with the other should come natural. Just keep you cool, stop think react and you'll be okay. If your diving deco and have no back up your subject to Darwins law anyway.

Interesting post but try to read for content in context. I think I was pretty clear that once you have things squared away you can "sip" to your hearts content if the cold bothers you.

Unfortunately free flows somtimes start rather abruptly and violently, often, at times of high exertion...meaning that you may very well have other things going on. In any case, you'll have to manage it with no hands untill you get a hand to it.

Deco and a free flow? Good subject. Your diving manifolded doubles. You reach back to shut the free flowing reg down and you have your light in the other hand which is what you are using to signal the guy in front of you...ooops, no hand to breath with...oh, but you don't need your hands to breath. Maybe your in the middle of running a line or in zero vis and in touch contact with the line and/or buddy. You want to let go of the line to hold the reg in your hand? Bad move. One hand stays on the line and the other deals with the valves.

Yep, the air comming out of that reg is cold but you might have to deal with it until you free up a hand.

 

[knotical]

And yes I am disppointed my instructor did not teach this. I even got a sick feel in my stomach when my co-worker told me she did. The sick feeling was what would I do if this happened to me underwater!

Please don’t be too disappointed. The Minimum Course Content for Open Water Diver Certification from the Recreational Scuba Training Council (RSTC - wrstc.com), of which SSI is a member, does not require breathing from a free-flowing regulator. The logic probably includes the near-universal requirements for an alternate air source and for a buddy. Your instructor seems to have been within standards.

You co-worker's agency, PADI (also a member of the RSTC) does teach the skill, requiring students to breathe from a free-flowing regulator for 30 seconds. We usually have students check their air before and after to see how rapidly the supply is depleted. I also ask them to consider how much more rapidly they would lose air at depth.

After swapping air sources, using your thumb to block the free-flow might help.

 

[Hoosier]

Don't be panic and just inhale slowly. If you still have an air and safely exit, it isn't a big deal. Only thing what I had is a couple of coughs when I inhaled from a free-flowing reg. It doesn't need any rocket science and theory.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

The earlier post about breathing from a free flowing scuba tank got me to thinking about something similar.

I got my OW from SSI and while a lot of talk was expended on free flowing regs and how to stop them, no one suggested or had us practice breathing from one.

A co-worker got certified after I did with a PADI place. As we were talking afterward she mentioned that she had to practice breating off a free flowing reg. under water.

Being cold where I live, I have not been in the water to see how this works. Any tips if this happens underwater?

I was a little concerned that this might be difficult to handle if it happend and I had not had any experience. I was concerned that my instructor didn't even metion it could happen underwater. All the instruction did was talk about it when we would get in the water in the pool and have the thing start free flowing in the shallow end. After that it was not mentioned anymore.

How often is this a problem?

It's not as difficult as some would lead to believe but there is a lot of noise, beaucoup bubbles and your teeth will probably be chilled. Just bite down on the mouthpiece, block the primary blast with your tongue and loosen your lips; the free flow will follow the path of least resistance. When you need a breath just move your tongue a bit.