My close call

[bada3003]

I am still astounded every time I hear that someone is actually teaching this method. "Unrealistic" is not the right term--"crazy stupid" is much more accurate. You have a person who is OOA and almost certainly in a state of panic reaching for your regulator, so you decide that the best course of action is to fight off that attempt and try to persuade him to choose another alternative? Nothing like a good hand fight with a panicked diver to put the exclamation mark on a great dive.

I experienced an incident in a pool session with an advanced class recently that may be instructive. The student was deploying an SMB, and she had taken her regulator out of her mouth to inflate it orally. She had trouble handling it, dropped her regulator, and went into a panic in seconds. I had seen her drop her regulator and was ready for it--my regulator was at her lips immediately. She pushed it aside as she struggled to the surface, with me holding the regulator by her lips the whole way. When we debriefed, she said she had no idea I had given her a regulator. She said she remembered dropping her regulator, and she remembered being on the surface. She did not remember anything in between. This is someone who had intentionally taken the regulator out of her mouth and had only had it out for maybe 8 seconds total before panicking. How do you think it would have gone if this had been a real OW emergency, with her going for my primary while I covered it and tried to convince her to take my octo instead?

If you are in a conventional octo setup and someone reaches for the regulator in your mouth, let him have it and take your octo--you can sort it out later. If he reaches for your octo, get out of the way and let him take it. If he signals out of air without reaching, hand him your octo. Do not try to force the OOA diver to follow your training protocol instead of what he wants to do at that moment of crisis.

I, too, provide the regulator in my mouth. It is a far faster donation than handing an octo that is hanging at your side, and if he reaches for it without warning, all I have to do is duck my head after it is pulled out of my mouth to free the rest of the hose as I get my alternate below my chin.

Great post.

One other thing I don't agree the OP doing: trying to fix the regulator problem rather than commencing a controlled ascent while sharing air. Since the kid wasn't panicking, this seems to be a no-brainer to keep the problem contained.

 

[boulderjohn]

Question ? If i was on a trip and was buddyied with a new diver and during the pre dive check his way of an OOA situation was totally different to mine would that not lead to confusion, speaking as a new rookie diver ? I have only dived with my son and instructors and like SKITTL321 i would be very nervous. I suppose i do not have the mindset of a 400 plus diver experience...
Just a thought !!!!!

I am sorry that I did not notice this question before.

If you are buddied with someone you never met, then you definitely should make your process for handling an OOA situation part of the pre-dive check. However, that is no guarantee that things will happen the way you plan. Not only that, it might be some random person you have never met coming to you for air. You therefore have to have the presence of mind to deal with whatever situation develops as it develops. One way to do that is to do plenty of practice. I have been working on a continuing education student recently, and as a part of that process I have done a number of air share drills, either with her or having her do it with another student. So far, every time she has donated air, she has given the OOA diver her alternate regulator upside down. I have corrected her every time, and every time she has a "Duh! How stupid!" moment. I assume that back when she did her OW class (somewhere else), she had it mastered and has since forgotten. Eventually she will figure it out. Most people get it faster than that, but it shows the necessity of practice. This is a skill with which you want to be perfectly comfortable when it happens so that you can react confidently and appropriately.

 

[TSandM]

If i was on a trip and was buddyied with a new diver and during the pre dive check his way of an OOA situation was totally different to mine would that not lead to confusion, speaking as a new rookie diver ?

I don't think so, as long as the two of you go over how you are going to do things.

When someone runs out of gas, they can either remain calm (in which case they will probably do what has been previously briefed) or they can get panicky. In the latter case, they will either go for a reg or bolt. No matter what air-sharing strategy you use, you can cope with either someone removing the reg from your mouth, or going for your backup reg, because YOU aren't panicky or out of gas.

Configured the way I am, it's almost certain that someone who is desperate for air will go for the reg in my mouth, because it would be difficult for them to see my backup reg, which is just under my chin, and not very visible when I'm horizontal (which I almost always try to be). I've had someone pull the reg out of my mouth while we were doing a lights-out exit from a cave -- I just calmly reached down for my own backup and put it in my mouth. It IS a good idea, though, to practice switching to your own backup, especially if you donate the octo, because a lot of people don't ever think of that as an option for any problem.

 

[fozzy]

Going through old threads so i'm reviving a few...

I've long thought about making my primary reg with a longer hose and YELLOW and keeping the secondary on my chest.... not standard for anybody really but i think it would be quite clear what reg to take... and i'd be used to what "normally" happens.

On a side note i tend to keep my hands near my chest (lamp and secondary reg are there if there's no camera so basically i know where the things i need more often are, a bit insecure?) during dives, this came quite useful when during my rescue course my instructor played it hard and took my mask, pulled at my reg and dropped my weights within a couple of seconds... took my secondary reg, dump valve and slowed down the ascent... it was one of the very few times i saw him grinning under water, going for the secondary seems to be a not considered options by most divers... (probably not here on the boards, talking about the average "in water" diver).

 

[tracydr]

I deal with panicked divers much differently than this. He was calm through most of it, but yeah you'd think he would choose to hold onto one at least. We did a few practice drills after that too.

I think the fact that he spit out the regs indicates that he was indeed panicked early on.
this is an example of why I think buddy breathing should continue to be taught, too.
My husband and I practice buddy breathing and removing our reg to take a sip off the camel back frequently. When I was a new diver and for quite some time, I didn't like to drop my reg, even in the pool.