Give up my primary regulator???

[Waterwulf]

Thanks everybody for the responses. I can understand the info about the J valve. In all of my years, I have never heard of one failing but I guess it can. I don't know about the SPG's being expensive back then. We all had one so it couldn't have been to much but truthfully, most of us bought our personal dive gear at a military base BX/PX so it was all cheaper anyway.

As far as regulator swapping: I will clarify that with my partner before the dive. If he's in trouble, he can have my spare. I'll keep my primary in my mouth where it belongs. I won't be doing anymore 100'+ or cave dives so it would be a easy shallow free ascent anyway.

Yeah, I know what panic can do to a person. I've drug in a few drowning tourists while I was riding the rip tide currents off of Okaloosa Island and Treasure Island in Florida. They would have drowned me along with themselves if I wasn't ready for it. The funniest one was a little girl and her dad. She had on little pink floaties and had drifted into the rip current. Her dad had swam after her and was near to drowning himself. I grabbed her and let her ride on my chest while I headed for shore but I thought I was going to have to smack her dad to keep him from drowning the both of us. Anyway, thanks again, everybody.

 

[Centrals]

You can never know what a complete stranger will behave in an OOA situation.
Make sure you can deploy your alternative air source with one hand within a sec while holding off the stranger with another. My alternative is locate just below my chin and I can reach it with either hand.
Never ever stow your alternative in a holder which will require both hands to free it. The worst one is those require to stuff the mouth piece into a hollow plastic ball and clip into the bc.

 

[Clark Fletcher]

Seems like in the last couple of days, I read a thread that said different agencies train differently on out-of-air scenarios. I know from my own training (PADI) that we were trained to donate our octo and retain our primary because, depending on your setup, the octo typically has a longer hose. The other day I seem to recall reading a post that said one of the other agencies (SSI maybe?) trained the out-of-air diver to take their dive buddies' primary and that their dive buddy would go for their own octo. Is that correct, or did I dream it?

Seems like I also remember that if your setup is such that your secondary is integrated into your BCD inflator, you should give the out-of-air diver your primary and use your secondary. Again, correct or incorrect?

 

[chrisch]

In an out of gas situation the person who is out of gas is the one that makes the decision. It's all well and good thinking you will force them to take the octo but as has been said before the person may not be rational at the time and equally might not be your buddy. The thinking behind primary donation is therefore that you as the donor are safest if you can easily give up (voluntarily or otherwise) your primary regulator without stress you (note - you not the other diver) are best placed to deal with the event.

The long hose primary is a feature of caves and wreck penetration where the conventional octopus hose really isn't enough. Most of us that are taught to donate our primary also use a long hose for the primary second stage. It is not essential but generally agreed as a good option.

Integrated octopus and BC controls are a bad idea. Although the octopus - or more exactly backup - is in a good place you are now doubling up on that hose and this makes controlling buoyancy that bit harder when under stress. I would keep away from such gimmicks.

With a conventional octopus rig the spare second stage can be stowed in a number of ways. If it is neglected (which many are) you can find that it is hard to deploy (so the out of gas diver grabs yours) or not working properly. By having the viewpoint that it is for you the diver will be motivated to look after it. (the real world might not follow this idea all the time )

Buddy breathing is not now taught to new divers. Once your primary regulator has been taken from you you might not get it back. Best not to rely on this technique with your life unless you know and trust the person you are diving with 100%

 

[Neilwood]

As you have now found out, there is a great deal of discussion regarding primary/secondary donate/take. A lot of divers on this forum are technical dive orientated where primary donate is the only method taught and that is carrying over to rec diving as well.

Both systems have their place and so long as both divers are trained and equipped properly for the various systems, they are both safe. If, as @chrisch suggests, the octopus is not well maintained or properly stowed, do you really want to dive with them anyway? I use the traditional secondary donate method and I stow mine safely (on a Dring clearly visible to anyone), I test breath it and also demonstrate how to deploy it during predive buddy checks.

Plan the dive with your buddy, make sure you are on the same page regarding donate and go dive.

 

[tbone1004]

@Clark Fletcher the only agencies I know of that are rigid in their OOA planning at BSAC who is rigid about secondary take, and GUE/UTD/ISE *all basically spun out of GUE* that are rigid about primary donate. The rest leave it to the instructor, largely because the AirII's force primary donate so you either alienate a piece of gear that many believe in, or you accept it. Make more money by not banning it.

 

[doctormike]

As far as regulator swapping: I will clarify that with my partner before the dive. If he's in trouble, he can have my spare. I'll keep my primary in my mouth where it belongs. I won't be doing anymore 100'+ or cave dives so it would be a easy shallow free ascent anyway.

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" .
-Mike Tyson

One other thing to keep in mind - it's possible that your spare isn't working. The regulator that you know for sure is working is in your mouth. That should go to the person who is OOG. If you are breathing comfortably and then remove your regulator, you should have plenty of time to get them plugged in and find your spare, you don't need gas that instant. If you give a panicked, OOG diver a non working regulator, that's likely to accelerate the panic spiral.

 

[Jack Hammer]

Always donate the reg known and verified to working. That's the one in your mouth. This reg is also verified to be a breathable gas at your current depth if you're doing tech dives.

 

[Clark Fletcher]

Plan the dive with your buddy, make sure you are on the same page regarding donate and go dive.

Since there seems to be no single standard for how to handle out-of-air situations, making it a specific thing to address with your dive buddy, during your dive plan, makes the most sense to me (as @Neilwood posted).

With all of the folks I dive with, we address the location of all our air supplies and how they're attached but, I don't recall ever specifically addressing who would do what in an out-of-air situation. I guess I've always assumed that my dive buddy would do exactly what I was trained to do. And, as none of my dive buddies have ever raised the question, they were most likely making the same assumption. I realize now that this assumption is only correct if they were trained the same way I was trained. So, going forward, when I do my pre-dive check with my dive buddy, I'll be making sure that we discuss specifics regarding out-of-air situations and who donates or takes and exactly who will be using what air supply when the dust settles. Thanks for all of the inputs. Very helpful.

 

[RainPilot]

If I'm diving with a new buddy, I cover this in the Regs part of the pre dive buddy checks.
"This is my primary, this is the one you need to use for sharing, it is serviceable. Puff Puff. This is my secondary, it's on a bungee so no use to you in an OOG. Puff Puff. "

If they have a confused look then I will go into more detail.