How does someone run out of air???

[Darnold9999]

Have not yet gone OOA but have come up with 0 PSI now twice. First time I surfaced with about 500 psi and had to go back down, but that is what the reserve is for. Came up at the same point the reg became impossible to breathe from.

Second time was just a few weeks ago. Found my first Ghost Pipefish at the end of a dive and spent the last of my air getting a bunch of pics. Came up with the guage reading 0 but still providing air. Also at 15 feet so not particularly concerned.

Had a pony as emergency reserve in both cases if I had to stay down for a minute or two if I actually ran out of air.

Have to say I can't imagine running out of air and not knowing that it was about to happen - unless the equipment fails. i.e. faulty guage, blocked tube etc.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Maybe they are "minimalist" divers and think an air gauge is an unnecessary frill - since they just know when it is time to go to the surface.

Minimalist divers use gauges, at least I do, and I look it.
Maybe you're thinking of vintage divers?
In either case, minimalist or vintage, even if we were diving with no spg we 'd have a rough idea of our air consumption, amount of air, depth and time.
I don't know about current vintage divers, but I know in the old days they were taught the math plus they had a lever on the J valve that you pulled down for your reserve that gave you an indication you only had 500 psi left.
The other thing that could be done is to use an unbalanced reg and as the pressure drops the reg will get harder and harder to breath off of givng you a pretty good indication that you're just about out of air.

Or it could just be you're poking fun at minimalists which is fine too, we don't care. It's all good.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

This is kind of a silly basic question, but one I wonder about.
All this talk in many threads about OOA situations get's me wondering what the hell people are doing that there are that many people running out of air.
.....

In addition to the good answers already provided (plain forgetting to look at gauges, not planning the dive, etc.) I'd like to propose another reason:

Dive Computer Fixation

What I mean is this:

The "default" display for many recreational dive computers is current depth and time remaining. As silly as it sounds, I think that can be surprisingly easy, especially with the slight "fuzz" of narcosis, to glance at the computer and see "75 feet, 30 min" displayed, look at your SPG and see 1,700lbs, not have a planned max depth and turn pressure, and not do the mental math required to determine that at your current depth and consumption rate you should already have turned the dive... your brain registers "30 min" and you go "hey, cool, 30 more minutes...". You go back to looking at pretty fishes, and.... well, you get the picture.

I got my very first dive computer about a year ago. All of my dives up to that point had been "sans" computer, just dive watch, depth gauge and tables. I laughed when reading the manual, because there was a warning in bold print that the "time remaining" may exceed available air remaining... I thought, "well duh"!!!

But when near the turn point of the 2nd or 3rd time I dove with it (and I had a planned max depth and turn pressure) I checked my depth, dive watch, and SPG, and then looked at the fancy computer display and thought "cool, plenty of time left, maybe I can push the turn point out a couple minutes further"....

That foolishness only lasted a second or two, I looked at my SPG again did the math and realized I had about 5 minutes until I needed to turn back; but the mere fact I even had made that silly error made me realize that the warning in the manual was in fact there for a reason.

 

[Web Monkey]

This is kind of a silly basic question, but one I wonder about.
All this talk in many threads about OOA situations get's me wondering what the hell people are doing that there are that many people running out of air.
What are people looking at?

As near as I can tell, OOA is always caused by new divers with cameras.

There should be a "camera" C-Card endorsement with a 100 dive minimum.

Terry

 

[NudeDiver]

Or, you're just poking fun at minimalists

Ding, ding ding, we have a winner!

Please keep in mind that not everything is intended to taken very seriously - esp. when it comes from me

Unfortunately, what I consider to be very obvious humour sometimes is not so obvious to others. Ah well.

Cheers!
ND

 

[ScubaSteve]

The little LCD screen on the back of their camera is another thing they may be looking at that can be very distracting if not careful.

As near as I can tell, OOA is always caused by new divers with cameras.

There should be a "camera" C-Card endorsement with a 100 dive minimum.

Terry

Agreed. They can be very dangerous things if not careful.

 

[Ardy]

When I started diving we used to OOA on almost every dive. We would dive until the tank started to get hard to breath and then go up a few meters and stay there for a few minutes and then go up. Most OOA situations turn into panics because the diver has never experienced OOA. I am not suggesting this for PADI and certainly not for new divers but it might be a good excercise once you have 50+ dives up to dive at 15m until OOA. Once this has happened it is not so scary (unless it happens at 30m). I have had a couple of newbies go OOA on me and they are convinced they are going to die and they won't touch their reg again as that is OOA!!!! They just suck up all my air.

Does some smart bugger here now how much more extra air you would get in a tank going from 15m to 5m? my memory of it was that we used to get a fair amount.

 

[Ardy]

Word of caution when I started diving the idea was to 'sip' at air which is now, quite rightly, considered dangerous. As we did this in the early 70's and it all seemed quite normal it might not be the same for you!

 

[NudeDiver]

As we did this in the early 70's and it all seemed quite normal it might not be the same for you!

There's a lot about the 70s that are not concerned "normal" anymore

 

[Ardy]

There's a lot about the 70s that are not concerned "normal" anymore

Hi Nudie,
Thank god, there was a lot of weird 60's thinkers around in those days who are now politicians and CEO's of failed banks. There's a lot about the 00'ties that I dont consider normal either.
The tragedy of old age.