BUDDY BREATHING

kubefish · Jul 17, 2001

last sunday i dove with a 2 of my dive buddies and my friends cousin. the cousin had not dove on a couple years. we were diving about 90' my buddies and i had about 1000 psi of air and the cousin had 800 psi. i made the decision to assend. we were about 10 feet off of the bottom when i feel someone rip my regulator out of my mouth. the cousin was out of air! not expecting it i had to pull the regulator back and get a good breath to start with. after we relaxed my buddy gave him his octopus and we all made a slow assent. We determined later that his pressure gauge was faulty. i ordered a octopus yesterday. i learned a couple things sunday.
1) always have an octopus
2) it might be a good idea to practice buddy breathing under normal circumstances. practice makes perfect.
3) you must always be prepared for the occasional emergency.

DivingGal · Jul 17, 2001

Whew, glad to hear that you all are alright.

TexasMike · Jul 17, 2001

I, too, am glad to hear you are okay. And found it interesting that you didn't already have a secondary air source on your setup.

But your story is a perfect example of why we need to take the worst case scenarios into consideration and prepare for them. When you get your octo (and I advise not to skimp on that, buy a quality one like the Apeks TX40) consider doing the DIR bungee necklace. That way if this was to happen again, you can find your secondary air source by simply ducking your chin.

kubefish · Jul 17, 2001

texas mike
i do have a secondary air supply. i have a 19cf pony that i left on my boat(good place for it). i was figuring that i would not need it when diving with three other people. i never thought that someone else would need it.
i was playing offense instead of defense.
by protecting your buddy you are also protecting yourself.
i guess i learned something else sunday!

TexasMike · Jul 17, 2001

My favorite instructor has a saying that I like very much:

"Any dive where you don't either learn something new or sharpen an existing skill was a wasted dive."

Iguana Don · Jul 18, 2001

1) Why would you dive without a safe second or octo?
2) If you had witnessed the problem from the begining what would you offer him?
3) It's a wonder both of you didn't die when you jerked the reg from a panicked diver's mouth.
4) 80', 1000 psi, 2 divers buddy breathing, stops to be made, anybody see a problem here.
5) Why do people abandon the skills and practices they were taught in their classes.

This is not a blast, although it sure sounds like one, I am just curious what goes through peoples heads when they go diving.

ID

DivingGal · Jul 18, 2001

Originally posted by Iguana Don
1) Why would you dive without a safe second or octo?
2) If you had witnessed the problem from the begining what would you offer him?
3) It's a wonder both of you didn't die when you jerked the reg from a panicked diver's mouth.
4) 80', 1000 psi, 2 divers buddy breathing, stops to be made, anybody see a problem here.
5) Why do people abandon the skills and practices they were taught in their classes.

This is not a blast, although it sure sounds like one, I am just curious what goes through peoples heads when they go diving.

ID

Valid points -- you're right on the money ID

kubefish · Jul 18, 2001

it sure does sound like blast.
excuse me for being honest
and as far as" 80', 1000 psi, 2 divers buddy breathing, stops to be made, anybody see a problem here"
sure there was a problem.
what the hell would you do?
think before you type. this is an open forum don't blast people for being honest. i was just hoping my story might help others.
this is my last post on this subject

Natasha · Jul 18, 2001

Kubefish,
Thanks for your story. And it did help others. I cut and paste stories from here all time and send them to divers that aren't on the boards. (I tried to get them to be members but they don't have the time)
There will be so many new divers that will read your story. I'm glad things worked out for you.
TexasMike's instructor had great words of wisdom. And my good friend Joel Silverstein owner and founder of Abysmal Tech Diving, says the same thing all the time.
I still consider myself a new diver and do learn something on every dive.
Joel says after more then 10,000 dives he still learns something on every dive.
Besides our own experiences learning from other people's dives are the best ways to keep up our education.
:sunny:

King_Neptune · Jul 18, 2001

kubefish,

I am glad to hear things worked out in the end and no one was seriously hurt. I don't think Don meant any harm with his questions I think it was more of a continuation of what you had already shared with us.

The honesty you shared with everyone was and is very appreciated and without knowing it you could very possibly help someone else think twice before making a similiar mistake. I think Don was more or less just trying to bring to light what led up to it.

What you shared / showed was that sometimes the decisions we make may not just hurt us but could possibly cost us or our buddies life.

I personally thank you for sharing this with everyone and I hope you have encouraged others to think act and even share their close calls or how they averted a close call. It can only help everyone.

=-)

BUDDY BREATHING

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