Have you ever had to share air on a Long Hose?

Has anyone ever shared air using a 7’ (Long) hose on a dive? Not with an instabuddy but with a teammate or a known diver on a properly planned dive. If so:
• What were the circumstances of why the OOA diver went out of air?
• Was it a real OOA situation or equipment failure?
• Were they/you diving doubles?
• Did the OOA diver have bailout that did not work?
• If they had bailout did they expend the gas requiring a share?
• Did you have bailout? If so could you have handed off the bailout bottle?
• Was deco involved?

I am curious if this happed because we use extremely well maintained good quality equipment, train and have backup safety measures to mitigate malfunctions.

Thank you in advance.
Warm Regards
George

I've used it on a dive with a short fill. We knew that going in and maintained rock bottom. The dive was uneventful and 20 minutes longer than it would have been. Essentially none of your hypotheticals apply.

Yes I have had to share air on my long hose. This was about 3 years ago, diving with my cousin who was somewhat experienced, but most of his experience had been in the tropics. We were in about 130 feet of water, but were above the wreck, likely around 110 to 115 at the moment. He signaled to me that he could hear bubbles and I had a look at his reg. There were no bubbles. It was at that point that he made a major cold water mistake, and he pulled his slightly hissing reg out of his mouth to look at it, and it just blew into a MASSIVE free flow. I just yanked mine out of my mouth, gave him a shake as he was in a panic and was trying to shove his thumb in the mouthpiece to stop it, and when he looked at me I shoved it in his mouth, switched to my backup, and we started our ascent with him watching me the whole time. Made a safety stop, then hit the surface and got on the boat.

-I'd call it equipment failure, he had an HP 100 and it was very early in the dive, so he wasn't OOA
-He was diving a single, I had double faber lp 108's with nitrox
-He had no bailout, but he did purchase an al40 and reg immediately afterwards
-yes, I had an al40, but chose not to hand it off, as he was calming, but had been on the verge of panic at the moment, and with me wearing huge doubles, we had tons of gas, and with the 7 foot hose were comfortable on the ascent.
-No deco, just a safety stop.

Cheers,
Jim

Only during cavern class as a scenario.

Yup, a buncha times. Most of the time it was planned, either as a training/practice scenario or to extend someone's dive due to a short fill.

However I've had a few occasions where it wasn't planned, either due to equipment failure or just bad dive execution but hey, stuff happens. It's happened in singles and doubles but I don't do deco diving so that was never an issue.

Peace,
Greg

Outside of training, I've shared gas around a half dozen times. Nearly all were planned and due to one diver having a short fill and wanting to extend the dive (dive starts on the long hose, so rock bottom is maintained in both cylinders at all times). One case of an actual OOG buddy. Was during training and he just plain didn't pay attention to his SPG. It was a non-issue: I donated and we ascended. Lessons were learned (primarily: when doing a lot of ascent drills, make sure to check the SPG before every descent). I've had gas donated to me (but on a 40" hose) when I had a deco reg fall apart (I could have stayed on my own back gas, but why not speed up the deco if you have extra to share?). Again, a total non-issue; I switched over to my second bottle at 20'.

GeorgeC:

I am curious if this happed because we use extremely well maintained good quality equipment, train and have backup safety measures to mitigate malfunctions.

Click to expand...

Who is "we" white man?

I can't count the number of things which I or my buddies have broken. Generally before the dive but occasionally during: Lights, canisters, 2nd stages, 1st stages, knives, buckles, stage straps, bolt snaps, power inflators, suit inflators, suit dump valves, OPVs, and spring fin straps off the top of my head.

Almost none of these problems were due to lack of maintenance or normal care. If you are diving off boats and in caves with lots and lots of gear sh*t breaks.

I've only shared air with a long hose in cavern/cave class, 1,000 feet of lights out, single-file, bumping through restrictions, all the while having my buddy on my long hose in front of me.

I have, however, had to breath off of someone's short hose when I had an uncontrolled free flow and subsequent OOA. It was enough convince me that a long hose has its advantages even when you're in OW.

Doc Harry:

I've only shared air with a long hose in cavern/cave class, 1,000 feet of lights out, single-file, bumping through restrictions, all the while having my buddy on my long hose in front of me.

I have, however, had to breath off of someone's short hose when I had an uncontrolled free flow and subsequent OOA. It was enough convince me that a long hose has its advantages even when you're in OW.

Click to expand...

I went to the long hose on the very next dive after having to share air with an OOG diver when I was using a short hose, combined octo/inflator rig. It was technically OW, as we could - and did - ascend directly to the surface. However, we were in the middle of a large giant kelp bed in all its summer glory and faced a long, slow, PITA kelp crawl to the boat. If only I could have donated a long hose and we could have swam back to the boat under the canopy.

rjack321:

Who is "we" white man?

I can't count the number of things which I or my buddies have broken. Generally before the dive but occasionally during: Lights, canisters, 2nd stages, 1st stages, knives, buckles, stage straps, bolt snaps, power inflators, suit inflators, suit dump valves, OPVs, and spring fin straps off the top of my head.

Almost none of these problems were due to lack of maintenance or normal care. If you are diving off boats and in caves with lots and lots of gear sh*t breaks.

Click to expand...

Who = Divers

I assume from your response you never had to share air on a long hose due to the bolt snap breaking, light not working, fin straps not working etc.