During my open-water exam for getting the 3-stars CMAS extension to my certification, the examiner used to suddenly remove mask and/or regulator to the instructor being evaluated.
He did remove the reg to my wife, from behind, so she could not see him coming. Of course he waited she had expired, and starting inspiring. She did not drown, she coughed a little, grabbed her secondary, purged it pressing the button (as we were trained to do in such a case) and started breathing from it. She passed the exam.
To me, instead, he did remove the mask. But he made the error of making him visible. As he removed my mask, I removed his one, placed it on my face, evacuated it from water, and looked around... he was not around, as he did not expect my reaction, so he surfaced quickly. He was quite upset with me, and I seriously risked not passing the exam. After a long discussion with the other two examiners, they found I did not behave really wrong, as I did not panic, so I got my 3-stars degree.
However, the point was that in our training the case to have the regulator and/or the mask taken away was specifically included, and we were trained to manage the situation (well, I did not manage exactly as I should have been, indeed).
There is another point which was not discussed. If a normally-trained rec divers comes to you, and tries to grab the secondary, which is necklaced and with short hose, do you think that this will end well? He probably will not be able to breath from it comfortably, resulting in a mess. In think that my approach is the most robust: I can easily donate both the primary and the secondary, and I can survive whatever one is grabbed by a panicked OOA diver.
My primary does not have a hose so long as my secondary, but is still around 1m, which is enough for being donated without too much problems. None of the two is necklaced, the secondary has a quick-release attachment to my harness, which will free it just grabbing.
Of course before the dive with people who do not know me I ill show them my secondary with its bright long yellow hose, and suggest them to take this one if OOA. I really do not see why they should take my primary, but in the case, I was explictly trained to survive to such an action, and I hope to be yet fit enough for using my training and to avoid drowning...
He did remove the reg to my wife, from behind, so she could not see him coming. Of course he waited she had expired, and starting inspiring. She did not drown, she coughed a little, grabbed her secondary, purged it pressing the button (as we were trained to do in such a case) and started breathing from it. She passed the exam.
To me, instead, he did remove the mask. But he made the error of making him visible. As he removed my mask, I removed his one, placed it on my face, evacuated it from water, and looked around... he was not around, as he did not expect my reaction, so he surfaced quickly. He was quite upset with me, and I seriously risked not passing the exam. After a long discussion with the other two examiners, they found I did not behave really wrong, as I did not panic, so I got my 3-stars degree.
However, the point was that in our training the case to have the regulator and/or the mask taken away was specifically included, and we were trained to manage the situation (well, I did not manage exactly as I should have been, indeed).
There is another point which was not discussed. If a normally-trained rec divers comes to you, and tries to grab the secondary, which is necklaced and with short hose, do you think that this will end well? He probably will not be able to breath from it comfortably, resulting in a mess. In think that my approach is the most robust: I can easily donate both the primary and the secondary, and I can survive whatever one is grabbed by a panicked OOA diver.
My primary does not have a hose so long as my secondary, but is still around 1m, which is enough for being donated without too much problems. None of the two is necklaced, the secondary has a quick-release attachment to my harness, which will free it just grabbing.
Of course before the dive with people who do not know me I ill show them my secondary with its bright long yellow hose, and suggest them to take this one if OOA. I really do not see why they should take my primary, but in the case, I was explictly trained to survive to such an action, and I hope to be yet fit enough for using my training and to avoid drowning...