Is is possible to breathe from your BCD?

[Superlyte27]

rinse your bcd with a healthy dose of vinegar. It's what my parapalegic brother was told to soak his catheters in because his insurance sucks and they wouldn't pay for new catheters. It's also what alot of people are cleaning their counterlungs with on rebreathers. At any rate... kills bacteria/fungus and is not harmful to ingest.

 

[flots am]

In my scenario, i'd choose lung infection over death everytime. Knowing that these avenues do exist, should the unthinkable happen, is ammo in fighting off that bastard called Death.

For an Open Water diver, the choice has nothing to do with "death" except possibly from a lung infection.

There are no Open Water conditions that would require breathing from your BC, since the surface is always available from any depth within the OW limits.

flots.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

don't know about breathing from your BC but I since I use an air2 as my alternate source, no problem. But allot of new divers don't think of using their spare regulator for themselves, they think of it as being there for their buddy if he gets in trouble. I've seen the question posed here about what to do if your regulator goes out. In OW training you're taught how to use your regulator in most situations, but you're not taught that you can also use your backup, it just means you have to end the dive. Where as with the air2 system you're taught to give your regulator to your buddy and breath through your inflater hose.

 

[SC_Hoaty]

Sounds like something we should submit to Mythbusters.

Are those the guys that explode tanks?

 

[SkimFisher]

For an Open Water diver, the choice has nothing to do with "death" except possibly from a lung infection.

There are no Open Water conditions that would require breathing from your BC, since the surface is always available from any depth within the OW limits.

flots.

That's like saying you don't need a seatbelt if you're only going 3 miles up the road.

I don't understand all the debate. Yes, it's possible.

 

[decompression]

Yes, not only is it possible, you could even consider it a skill, check out Bil Phillips video on you tube (his company is called Speleotec). Bil is pretty amazing.

 

[Firefyter]

Lets re-think this....
His questions is, is it possible to breathe off of a working inflator, and the answer is yes, it is possible.

Now, lets take it a little bit further. Lets say you and your dive buddy really screw up on a cave dive. You've gotten severely lost, and by the time you find your way, you KNOW for a fact that you don't have enough air to make it back to land using the traditional method SCUBA intended. Is it possible to use your wing as a rebreather with the remaining air in your tanks? You inhale from the reg, exhale into the wing. Recycle the gas in the wing 3 times, then discard that gas, and again Inhale through your REG, exhaling through your wing.

Just FYI for those that don't know, we breathe in 21%, we exhale 16% Oxygen. Granted the CO2 levels are growing, but if the crap hit the fan, this is a better alternative than dying.

Emphasis mine. This in my opinion is spot on.

I certified in 1978 before the octo was that common, and I recall this being mentioned in training . . .

Since the air in the BCD is at ambient pressure, it will breathe just like a reg. No need to hold down anything on the inflator as long as the BCD already has air in it . . .

I was taught this in training in 1986 as well. We were told it was only to be used as a last resort, but I know for a fact it works.

Yes, not only is it possible, you could even consider it a skill, check out Bil Phillips video on you tube (his company is called Speleotec). Bil is pretty amazing.

It was a skill I was required to pass as part of my training.

 

[NC myerssl]

If you were in an OOA situation with no buddy, (I know shame on you if this happens), then breathing one or two cycles out of your BC can be done. One thing you have to realize is that you will need to raise your inflator hose higher than your BC to drain the water into the BC from the hose prior to taking the first breadth. If not, you will be inhaling some water on the first breadth. This is something you should practice once or twice with a clean BC if you ever decide your willing to do this.

As far as crud in your BC, always rinse it out after your dives and once a month if you use Listerine in the rinse cycle it helps get rid of the crud.

As I said, this is a last resort and as others have mentioned, it can be done.

 

[NJDiver_Chris]

In theory yes, it would work, you inflate it with air from your tank, the same air that you would be breathing, you are just going through a different source to get the air, would be about the same as cutting an air hose and putting it in your mouth to breathe.

 

[flots am]

That's like saying you don't need a seatbelt if you're only going 3 miles up the road.

That's an invalid analogy. A properly performed OOA ascent from recreational depths is always a reasonably safe option. Driving into a tree two miles from your house with no seatbelt is nearly always unsafe.

I don't understand all the debate. Yes, it's possible.

FWIW, the OP was about not being OOA, but having two malfunctioning second stages that failed closed. I'd prepare for a Bigfoot abduction before learning a skill to be used in the case of two simultaneous second stage failures while not being OOA.

flots.