If your regulator fell out of your mouth...

[Hatul]

One solution is to do what I do. Wrap a bungee around the primary regulator and around your neck. You never have to look for your regulator again.

Adam

 

[Yellowmask]

Hence why so many instructors stress the need to constantly keep in practice with the skill of AAS donation. Task loading in such situations can be extremely high - sufficiently so to place an inexperienced diver right on their threshold of panic. The thing most likely to knock a regulator out of your mouth on an AAS ascent...is the very diver you are attempting to assist.

I think this would be why I'd be inclined to try to recover my primary regulator first regardless of the situation... I see it as being like a reflex: lose primary regulator, try to recover it. As others have pointed out, you're not going to start drowning straightaway, so if you can't recover it quickly enough, you should be able to get your octopus in time.

But you might one day face a situation where you can't use your octopus, in which case you're really going to need to get your primary regulator back as fast as possible. (Particularly if you're stressed because you're trying to get yourself and your buddy to the surface - you'll be burning oxygen fast.)

I might be being a bit paranoid, I suppose. I just fear that this sort of combination of circumstances where you really need this skill is like needing a seatbelt: you might only need it once, but if it's not there, the odds are you won't be in a position to need it again.