1 BCD 2 divers: Is it okay?

[NWGratefulDiver]

Scenario ... for some reason your reg comes out of your mouth. You recover it, using one of the methods taught in your OW class, put it back in your mouth, and because you haven't done this since OW class you forget to purge it before you inhale. The tiny bit of water in your second stage goes down your windpipe, causing it to spasm shut.

Now you can't breathe ... so what do you think your instinctive response is going to be? Might take a minute or so for this spasm to relax enough to allow you to take a breath ... what do you do in the meantime?

Now suppose instead of you, this happens to someone who hasn't even had an OW class? They haven't even yet been taught how to recover a reg ... you might help them put the reg back in their mouth, but the likelihood that they'll forget to purge is very high ... particularly if they've never even been told that they should. And being underwater, you can't tell them.

What will you do to help that person?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[JamesK]

Well duh Bob! He's going to teach him all that! Gosh. I mean he is practically an instructor now.

[DevonDiver]

Well duh Bob! He's going to teach him all that! Gosh. I mean he is practically an instructor now.

Just please..... nobody give him a book on trimix cave diving...!

[DivemasterDennis]

To be direct, DO NOT DO THIS. No diver with an open water certification should ever take a non-certified diver to depth without other supervision. That is true even if the uncertified person is fully equipped. To do so on a single rig is a bad idea for even experienced divers, and such activity should be limited to training of well qualified divers in an emergency scenario with safety measures (and safety divers) in place. Scuba police or no, it is still total folly. People, people, people... common sense needs to police our actions as much as government does. As the thread points out, there are about 108 reasons NOT to do this , only one of which is liability without insurance. DO NOT DO THIS!
DivemasterDennis

[supergaijin]

Just please..... nobody give him a book on trimix cave diving...!

Then again.... maybe someone should.

[NWGratefulDiver]

... common sense needs to police our actions as much as government does.

... common sense needs to police our actions so that the government won't decide it needs to.

Scuba diving is a self-regulated activity. It's in the best interest of every scuba diver to do their part to make sure it stays that way ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[KD8NPB]

With less than 24 dives you do not even know what the risk is.

Air embolism, mediastinal emphysema, subcutaeceous emphysema, or a pneumothorax (collapsed lung).

At 13 ft, we're looking at a grand total of 5.5 psi of water pressure meaing a total of 1.37 ATA. That would put air density at about 0.0745 lbm/ft3, which is a less than 1% increase of air density from sea level.

No progression into deeper water will be made unless he can show competency at mask clearing, regulator retrieval, and buddy breathing in the 4 ft shallow end. We'll do progressions with that. Mask on, 5mm gloves on, mask off w/ gloves, blindfolded w/ gloves (only in the shallow end, where simply standing up takes you out of the water). The things I'll look for are open airways (blowing bubbles) and calm actions. If any panic is shown, we'll suspend it right there.

In my opinion, OW courses are not tough enough. Too much bookstuff, too little regulator time. More time should be spent in the pool, teaching students how to deal with additional stressors in less than ideal conditions. More of a focus should also be put on the buddy system. Buddies should be paired up at the beginning and retained through the whole course with a simple rule of being no more than 10 ft from your buddy. To encourage communication, more focus should be placed on hand signals. Students should be communicating their tank pressure with their buddy on a regular basis.

Knowing conversion rates of depth to pressure, ata, boyle's law, charle's law, etc is great and all. But it won't save you from an OOA / equipment failure in violent surf.

I'm not talking US Military pararescue / combat diver tough. But we need to focus more on real-life skills.

My $.02 about instruction.

Would anything change if I had an instructor certification? No, I would be diving with the same exact procedures.

You gentlemen are on par with those who say "If you dive with a 50 year old doublehose Aqualung Aqua-master, you will die! If you service your own regs, you will die!"

Worst comes to worst, there's a hospital 3 miles away with a helicopter, and the nearest hyperbaric is 30 miles out. I have enough medical gear in the back of my car to be an EMT-P (I did have an EMT-P assemble my bags and train me, but I don't have the time to pursue the certs unfortunately).

[ScubaSteve1962]

I have, sadly seen almost the same in the Red Sea.
Some DM/Guides actually just share air with the first diver to run low and then finish the dive when the next diver gets low on air..
That IS with certified divers in their group, but the DM/guide would be seriously inhibited with regards to helping anyone when hes busy buddy breathing with another diver. NOT the kind of dive op I would want to go diving with..

When I did my Deep certification the instructor did a share air with me while another student finished his navigation requirements for AOW, because of anxiety at the beginning of the dive I would use alot of air and get more relaxed later. I had enough air in my tank to ascend and do a safety stop. Was this the wrong thing to do, should he had let me get low instead of letting the other student complete his task?

[fjpatrum]

You gentlemen are on par with those who say "If you dive with a 50 year old doublehose Aqualung Aqua-master, you will die! If you service your own regs, you will die!"

While I don't disagree with some of your statements, I think you're overstating this issue. The people giving newbs advice not to do what you're suggesting are doing so because of a very real (and not exactly rare) possibility that issues arise with students in OW classes. The instructors here have, in theory, been taught more on how to deal with those panicked students than those of us without instructor training. I make the caveat that the internet doesn't know your history so they don't really know what you're capable of handling or what you know about panic and dealing with it. Because we/they don't know that though, it's best to err on the side of caution.

Us newbies tend to think we're better at this than we really are. (I'm completely guilty of it and got a tiny taste of that on my last dive...) We think we can handle things we might not be able to handle. Adding a second person to the mix who knows even less than we do is often far more dangerous than it seems. I agree, understanding the risks isn't that difficult, but when in doubt I choose not to push my limits. I'm old enough to have been close to dying several times by doing that (not diving) and lived to learn the lesson. Some people just aren't that lucky, though, and the real question is do you want to push your luck? Or worse yet, be responsible for a friend who isn't so lucky?

[Tigerman]

When I did my Deep certification the instructor did a share air with me while another student finished his navigation requirements for

AOW

, because of anxiety at the beginning of the dive I would use alot of air and get more relaxed later. I had enough air in my tank to ascend and do a safety stop. Was this the wrong thing to do, should he had let me get low instead of letting the other student complete his task?

Bad gas planning and gas planning should have been part of your deep dive certification..