How does "real life" OOA looks like?

[pt40fathoms]

At around 800 psi I noticed a slight resistance to my inhilation. I signalled my buddy that I was having a problem with air, and he came over. However, while looking at my SPG and inhaling, the needle made a very pronounced drop, recovering when I stopped inhaling. I showed this to my buddy, and then signalled him to check my valve. Sure enough, it was not open fully, he opened it, we completed our dive, and had a good laugh on shore.

Why did this happen? I am very methodical in my pre-dive. The answer is simple. We got distracted, and our routine was interupted. I had cracked the valve and checked the pressure just as I always do, but at that moment we were distracted by a boat that had started using the diver down markers as pylons. (Thats a whole different story!) Returning to my gear after a short interval, we carried on and entered the water. I did a final checked my buddies valve/gear etc... in waist deep water as is usual and he checked mine, however, my valve also has a sticky spot and it just happened to be at a point just after the valve is cracked open. He didn't turn hard enough to go past it and the result is what happened at the start of this story.

I've had the valve serviced, the sticky spot is gone, and I learned the value of communicating any special gear requirments with my buddy once again, like "hey my valve may stick a bit, turn a little harder than usual". I also learned that having a routine although good, can also mess you up if the conditions are right, and to start from scratch if you leave your gear unattended for even a short time. It's a leason that I "try" to teach all new divers as well.

 

[Conor]

Phew, glad I'm not the only one.

I guess the mindset should be the same as safety precautions on a weapon, everytime your recieve it, leave it unattended etc then you do a thorough check, as you life and possibly those around you may depend on it.

 

[Travisc]

Nothings more when you when you dive on a match set of regulaters and run out of air, now I dive doubles ocassionally and when I switch to a single I use a 19cu pony. And the story goes I dropped down to about 85 feet about 12-15 min in to the dive when I started getting a low pressure feeling from the mouth piece and start thinking this can't be good, well I have a pony back up so no big deal, I check pressure gauge, everythings good, and then wham, no air... hmm, not good, so I grab my backup signal my dive buddy and give him things not OK, we start ascending at a safe rate when I grab the spg for my pony sitting off my right hip, hmm, I think this hose is way to flexible for supposedly having all this air in it, and then it quickly dawns on me. I was breathing off the pony when i started out.... I do know I am calm in those situations, so I just continue the dive and finished a 45 min dive in cold water with almost 2000lbs in my HP100....

Travis

 

[scubaredneck]

On my first bug-huntin trip down in FL, I was spending waaaaaay tooooooo much time searching for bugs and not neeeeaaaarly enough time looking at my gauges. I went to take a breath in 60fsw and there was nothing. I did an ESA and got in the boat. I did save my bugs, though.