Have You (or Your Buddy) Ever Run Out Of Air?

[laikabear]

I check people's valves myself often. As long as you return it to the location you found it, you have done no harm... and you can then ask the diver if they want their air on or not..

I always thought it kinda funny that some divers will trust a stranger to deliver life saving air at 100 ft in an emergency, but the same buddy is not qualified to double check a valve position on the boat ??? weird...

Well... good point!

I actually was really nervous the first time diving with my buddy. I got very lucky in that he is a great buddy and he likes to dive a lot so I usually get to dive with him. I definitely trust him. I am less comfortable with the boat crew because I don't know them very well individually yet. And I would prefer to have someone say, "I'm going to check to make sure your air is on, okay?" than have them do it without me noticing. But on the flip-side, they don't know me, they probably can see I'm a new-ish diver, and so they probably feel the same way - I don't trust her enough to not check her air, I don't want anyone jumping off and drowning on my watch.

 

[Littlerayray]

Dec 23 2015 I went diving out to the gaskin with two other guys.
From shore it's a 20 minute swim there
I borrowed my buddy's 130 cft hp steel Faber with a cave fill. before we dove I explained to them that I was going to stick close as I only have the one tank and if there is a problem, I need help as I have a hard time reaching my valves. was doing fine. till about 1/2 way to the wreck. I was breathing heavily and started to notice my reg starting to free flow. I calmly signaled to my buddy what was happening. He gave me his alternate as he was diving sidemount. He went behind me shut my valve off. waited for about a minute turned it back on again and it was fine for the rest of the dive.
On the return I was maybe 50 yards from shore. And was at 20ft so my safety stop was done I was watching my Guage like a hawk because I lost a lot of air with the free flow. Was down to 550 psi and told my buddy I was ascending and swam the rest of the way in on the surface. When we go to shore he said he was gonna offer me his pony and I just said thanks but I knew where I was and I wasn't far from shore

 

[claymore]

I had an unexpected OOA situation last summer. I was out for a fun dive with a couple of very new dives. I had done one very short dive on my tank so I had about 2000psi in my lp 98 and was diving wet but had wrapped my dry suit hose around my 1st stage. We were about 20 minutes into the dive and had not exceeded 30 ft when I took a couple breaths that I thought were kind of hard and then nothing. Luckily I had left my pony bottle on my rig, kind of looked around like what the hell, ok grab my pony reg and go over to th other 2 divers and try and explain that I needed them to turn my gas back on. He did and I stowed my pony reg and we finished the dive. I thing my spg read 1500psi then. The only thing I can figure out is that my head movements had been pushing on the dry suit inflators hose turning the valve off. And no this was not a case of a partially open valve. It may have been slowly been getting closed but I had good gas readings and easy breathing until nothing.

 

[lermontov]

I was diving twins and had geared up checked spg after 2-3 breathes on each reg-, all ok I asked the second DM to recheck valves before getting in - after descending to about 12m I put a little air in dry suit to feel more comfortable and ... nothing .. slowly sinking to 14 m checked gauge '0' I realised the second DM had turned my left tank off. Signalled to the first DM who was close by that my tank was shut and he turned my tank back on, not too scary as the bottom was only 17-18m but could have been ugly had it been deeper and /or not realised what was going on

 

[Oldbear]

I had an OOA during my AOW course. We were on a charter on the west side of Puerto Rico. The boat anchored near their dive site for the "fun divers". Three of us and the instructor had a long underwater swim to get down around 100 feet. I was the only student doing my Deep Adventure dive, the other two just wanted to go deep. I did my skills and we began to explore the area and started to head back to the boat. When the instructor realized he was low on air he flat out left us in a rush to get back to the boat. In the maylei I got separated from the other couple. They surfaced and waited for the boat. I tried to swim back to the boat and ran out of air and then surfaced.

At the time I was PO at the instructor for leaving me. The couple was also fuming too. Looking back on the situation I can honestly say I did not take responsibility for my own safety. I put all my trust in this clown...or was I a clown too? I was a vacation diver with about 15 dives over 18 months. I wasn't comfortable nor compendant with my dive skills. I had failed myself by not monitoring my air and when separated not enacting the lost diver protocol. For years I chose to blame this guy when I should have taken responsibility for my own dive safety.

As that I am an instructor now I use this experience as a learning point for my students. I really stress that they be thinking divers and not follow others blindly.

 

[Peter69_56]

Ok well I have only been OOA once and it was deliberate. Had a tank and pony, sucked on the pony until empty to understand how it feels. Swapped to my main and continued the dive.

Had a Recreational diver come to me while on a line at 6m doing deco. He was sent by the dive guide which I could see happeing below me. he came up with big wide eyes signalling no air (but still blowing bubbles), I offered my long hose which he took, and he then dragged me to the surface with me still requiring deco. I checked he was ok and then decended to complete my obligation. he clearly had sufficient air to surface but was in absolute panic.

Had an AOW diver not tell me his air supply was very low until less than 40 bar at depth with deteriorating conditions. Put him on to my long hose and we did a safety stop and completed the dive. We had a long discussion about what we discussed prior to the dive, and why he should constantly check air, being responsible for his own safety etc.

Whenever I am with inexperienced or unknown OW divers, I now, not only take twins, but also take a sling tank too. I make a point of ensuring everyone knows the low air drill, and that I have stacks of air, and want them on my spare air before they are completely out. I want them with some air in their tank in case we get separated while coming up so their fallback is their own air. I do NOT want them to tell me they are out of air, but preferably just needing to end the dive, but if not then low on air, if ~30 BAR or less at depth, then on my spare air and coming up.

 

[hupe]

at least one documented case:

 

[bowlofpetunias]

In 700+ dives over nearly 20 years I have only had one instabuddy run OOA. He calmly went to our other buddy (his regular buddy) and shared with him. No fuss no panic.

 

[drbill]

One reason I usually dive solo (not having someone grab my secondary)!

I've had several OOA situations develop. The first was back in the days when we didn't have SPGs and used a J-valve. My student and I pulled two tanks from the "filled" rack. The surface pressure gauge was missing. We descended to 90 ft to take a picture and almost immediately he began signaling that he was OOA. In those days you buddy breathed so we began our ascent that way. My reg started drawing hard so I reached back to pull my J-valve rod and it was already down (kelp). We made it to the surface.

Another time I descended to almost 80 ft after planning to dive to 40 ft and not mounting my pony. 3 1/2 minutes into the dive I tried to take a breath and nothing happened. Rose to the surface in 70 seconds. Turned out a small piece of debris had fallen directly into the dip or debris tube when I dead my head-down descent.

Have had buddies run out of air, but there was always enough air in my tank to share until we could safely surface. There was one time in Palau when another diver tried to breathe off my Air 2 but it wasn't delivering enough air. Rather than buddy breathe with me, he surfaced.

As a videographer I have run my tank down while filming an unusual critter at the end of my dive, but never in depths greater than 20 ft and I was fully aware the tank was near empty.

 

[islanddream]

I had an OOA experience, at least I thought I was OOA, last summer in Coz. My husband and I both have our octos on a necklace. So I backroll off the boat and descend and swim for about six minutes and my reg starts breathing hard. I give my husband the OOA sign and he swims up and donates his regulator and goes on his octo (since it's around his neck). I can't figure out why I'm out of air because I had 3000 PSI when I jumped in. As it turned out, the DM turned OFF my tank (I had already turned it on) on my way off the boat. Boy was he upset with himself! Our dive buddies were with us and Carl swam up behind me and turned on the valve as my husband and I were slowly ascending (because I thought I had a problem that needed to be attended to instead of continuing the dive for a bit longer). Carl wrote on his slate "Your valve was off" and after he turned it back on, I got off my husband's octo and continued a very nice dive.

I was happy I didn't panic or grab my husband's reg out of his mouth. It was kind of a surreal experience. I'd read and heard about people going OOA and how the reg starts to breath hard. So when that happened to me, I gathered my thoughts, signaled my buddy, and made myself relax until I was on his reg. I was just so happy we weren't in a ripping current at the time!

I had the same thing happen in Curacao in December. I jumped off the boat and noticed my reg was breathing hard. I took a breath and saw the needle move and go back to it's originally spot. I knew what had happened. I wasn't underwater yet and my buddy was close by. So I yelled to him to check my tank, and sure enough, I'd turned the tank on and the DM turned it off as I was about to jump.

Since then, I tell the boat staff not to touch my equipment and I'll be responsible for turning on my tank. So far, so good.