OOA with free-flowing reg

lamont · Jun 20, 2005

So, other than the obvious "don't hand off a free-flowing reg to an OOA diver", proper tuning, and the long hose technique to hand off the reg pointing down so that it doesn't free-flow.... what would be the appropriate action to take in the event of a real OOA with a real free-flowing long hose?

I had this happen to me in a drill, and in a real situation I don't know if I would have made it. At one point I found myself fiddling with the free-flowing reg, with no reg in my mouth and had that sudden realization that I didn't have gills and I needed a reg in my mouth *now*. I crammed the free flowing reg in my mouth, took a breath and then went back to my own long hose and ended the drill because I was getting a little bit too excited.

So, in that circumstance, the OOA recipient (me) should really be better at doing "sip, fiddle, sip, fiddle, etc" without getting excited. But what do you do though if you can't controll the free-flow (because of icing or first stage issues, etc) and you need to do a valve shutdown? We were in doubles. Should the procedure be that the OOA recipient shut down the other divers right post and, if necessary, feather the valve on the ascent?

jonnythan · Jun 20, 2005

So the situation is that you go OOA while your buddy has a freeflowing long hose?

JeffG · Jun 20, 2005

lamont:
We were in doubles. Should the procedure be that the OOA recipient shut down the other divers right post and, if necessary, feather the valve on the ascent?

In Singles, I would just breath of the free flowing reg and get out of dodge. When you got shallow, comfortable enough and you have good communication....and you would like to stay in the water longer (ie make a longer stop), you could play the game...lets try and shut the post down and see if we can stop the free flow. Otherwise, just get out of dodge....get some lunch and clean up the shorts.

In Doubles...If I was the OOG guy...I would feel more comfortable feathering my own gas supply. (Last thing you would need is a panicking diver going for your bungee'd reg...People would do some strange/dangerous things if they couldn't get gas underwater.) Hopefully, after 1 or two times of shutting down the post, it would of warmed up enough to stop freeflowing.

lamont · Jun 20, 2005

JeffG:
In Singles, I would just breath of the free flowing reg and get out of dodge. When you got shallow, comfortable enough and you have good communication....and you would like to stay in the water longer (ie make a longer stop), you could play the game...lets try and shut the post down and see if we can stop the free flow. Otherwise, just get out of dodge....get some lunch and clean up the shorts.

Yeah, don't want to be deep when the free flow finally runs out of gas, and singles gives you few options other than trying to fiddle with the second stage and getting shallow... valve shutdowns in that situation with two divers on the same first stage while deep could get very bad very quick...

In Doubles...If I was the OOG guy...I would feel more comfortable feathering my own gas supply. (Last thing you would need is a panicking diver going for your bungee'd reg...People would do some strange/dangerous things if they couldn't get gas underwater.) Hopefully, after 1 or two times of shutting down the post, it would of warmed up enough to stop freeflowing.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That means the OOG guy would manipulate the other diver's valve. If we're diving DIR with DIR hose routing we know the long hose is going to come off the right post, so we (as the OOG diver) can go there and shut it down, and our buddy should understand what we're doing. If we don't know the hose routing on our buddy's rig, it could get interesting...

JeffG · Jun 20, 2005

lamont:
If we don't know the hose routing on our buddy's rig, it could get interesting...

50 - 50 Guess. On the first shutdown, look for the diver with the biggest eyes

Diver0001 · Jun 20, 2005

lamont:
So, other than the obvious "don't hand off a free-flowing reg to an OOA diver", proper tuning, and the long hose technique to hand off the reg pointing down so that it doesn't free-flow.... what would be the appropriate action to take in the event of a real OOA with a real free-flowing long hose?

I had this happen to me in a drill, and in a real situation I don't know if I would have made it. At one point I found myself fiddling with the free-flowing reg, with no reg in my mouth and had that sudden realization that I didn't have gills and I needed a reg in my mouth *now*. I crammed the free flowing reg in my mouth, took a breath and then went back to my own long hose and ended the drill because I was getting a little bit too excited.

So, in that circumstance, the OOA recipient (me) should really be better at doing "sip, fiddle, sip, fiddle, etc" without getting excited. But what do you do though if you can't controll the free-flow (because of icing or first stage issues, etc) and you need to do a valve shutdown? We were in doubles. Should the procedure be that the OOA recipient shut down the other divers right post and, if necessary, feather the valve on the ascent?

I think you'd need to bb the working secondary and shut down the freeflow. My priorities would be air for everyone (1), shutdown (2) buoyancy (3) and sort the FF (4). Removing your OOA buddy's primary and putting it on your tank might offer a solution if you needed to swim very far. Was that for Dir-F? What did they say about it?

R..

Diver0001 · Jun 20, 2005

Just read Jeff's post. I like that solution too.

JeffG · Jun 20, 2005

Diver0001:
I think you'd need to bb the working secondary and shut down the freeflow.

Buddy breath the backup??? Nope....real cool way to overcomplicate the situation.

Diver0001:
My priorities would be air for everyone (1)

Freeflows doesn't stop gas from being delivered.

Diver0001:
Removing your OOA buddy's primary and putting it on your tank might offer a solution if you needed to swim very far.

If BB your backup doesn't kill you...this convolution will.

Diver0001:
Was that for Dir-F? What did they say about it?

There is no "procedure" for this. That would be like asking what is the procedure for when a wreck collapses on you. In this case survival is DIR, death isn't. Use the skills and other procedures that you have learned and try to apply them to a solution.

Diver0001 · Jun 20, 2005

JeffG:
Buddy breath the backup??? Nope....real cool way to overcomplicate the situation.

Well.... now that I think about it a bit you're right. I think feathering the longhose would be easier.

If it occurred to your OOA buddy to do that in his state of mind.....

How would you suggest communicating that?

R..

mer · Jun 20, 2005

Assumptions: Recreational open water, no overhead, no deco

In a two man team: 1 diver OOG, other diver with free flowing reg.
The only option is to get out of dodge immediately, with minimum deco. Even if you have doubles, you cannot shut down or isolate. Feathering is only asking for a CF.

In a three man team, you could have the OOG diver breathe off the free flowing reg until the third member gets there, which should only be a few more seconds. You then can shutdown and diagnois the free flow (doubles only). Depending on gas, and the dive environment, determines much time you spend trying to fix that free flow, or if you head to the surface.

If the freeflow happened before the OOG, I hope you were already working towards the surface/exit anyways.

OOA with free-flowing reg

Please register or login

lamont

Contributor

jonnythan

Knight Scublar

JeffG

Contributor

lamont

Contributor

JeffG

Contributor

Diver0001

New

Diver0001

New

JeffG

Contributor

Diver0001

New

mer

Contributor

Similar threads