Out of Air at 84 ft

[DandyDon]

In the event of it happening, Simbrooks bail-out will give you some chance.

Mostly, I think your buddy skills are weak if you let it happen. If he won't follow you, you follow him. (This from someone who once thought he was good enough to solo dive - NOT!)

 

[pilot fish]

A little gas management review might be good too...

The presmise of the question is which way, not why. Pick any reason, error, your fault, their fault, gear fault, fish fault, whatever, do you swim horizontally or vertically?

 

[ShakaZulu]

Don't know what I will do. In a situation like this, suffering from narcosis, who knows what you will do. I make a consciences effort to stay close to my buddy, because he is my alternate air source. Tell you one thing, if I make it, I will kick his A afterwards for leaving me. The navy divers practise CESA from 90ft I think.

 

[simbrooks]

In the event of it happening, Simbrooks bail-out will give you some chance.

Mostly, I think your buddy skills are weak if you let it happen. If he woj't follow you, you follow him. (This from someone who once thought he was good enough to solo dive - NOT!)

I have been known to have a buddy turn away and swim off, as soon as i realised this i swam over to where he was to keep within a reasonable buddy distance. Turns out he saw something and didnt contact me about it. If it were to have happened again i would have had UW "words" with him or called the dive (at least my part of it). Just an example of listening to their bubbles, having an awareness of where they are and of course doing something about it before this kind of thing happens.

 

[Quarrior]

It doesn't matter what the reason is, you are at 84 ft and you're out of air. In the real world of diving we all know that at times your dive Buddy and you will be more than a few kicks from each other. It happens. You are not that familiar with each other. It's not a designated Buddy you went diving with. It's one you teamed up with on the boat, or a Buddy that was designated for you by the situation on the boat. All the other divers are also, like your buddy, about 20 to 30 ft away, below you, above you, on either side. You are sucking an empty reg, nothing is coming out. No air! As might be expected, you start to panic, get real concerned. You have to think very fast. You don't have minutes, you have seconds. What do you do?

Ok, guess I'll take a stab at answering the scenario posed.

You state there are divers above me. That would be where I'd head first as I was working toward the surface. I wouldn't waste time asking for air, I'd take it.

As you ascend, the air in both your bc and lungs is going to expand. This is a good thing. You need to be letting air out of your lungs to prevent harm. You can also take some of the expanding air out of your BC to breath from. You now have some extra air you didn't have before. As you continue to surface you can continue this process. It'll be tight, but it will get you there and reasonably healthy in the process.

Sure, you might get some DCS depending on how long you were at 84 ft since you are not going to be making any stops, but your BC will probably end up giving you the equivilant of 1 or just under 1 full breathes. That's a lot of air.

Ok, now you've heard my .02 worth.

 

[Scubakevdm]

Crappy buddy skills, bad gas management, whatever. If I found myself in that situation I'd head up. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

 

[springdiver]

Maybe if you are going to put yourself in this kind of situation and not prepare by having good buddy skills and/or redundant air, you should try to prepare in other ways? Go take a chamber ride for fun, get the feel of it, this might come in useful in the future when this situation occurs and you go up like a missle for the surface? Maybe lie on your floor at home breathing O2 with someone kicking you in the ribs to feel the kind of pain you might be in from such a ride to the surface?

 

[MikeFerrara]

It doesn't matter what the reason is, you are at 84 ft and you're out of air. In the real world of diving we all know that at times your dive Buddy and you will be more than a few kicks from each other.

Maybe you do it that way but we don't. Good luck.

It happens. You are not that familiar with each other. It's not a designated Buddy you went diving with. It's one you teamed up with on the boat, or a Buddy that was designated for you by the situation on the boat.

I don't do that either.

All the other divers are also, like your buddy, about 20 to 30 ft away, below you, above you, on either side. You are sucking an empty reg, nothing is coming out. No air! As might be expected, you start to panic, get real concerned. You have to think very fast. You don't have minutes, you have seconds. What do you do?

Ummm flash a quick signal to my buddy with my HID. They turn extending their primary (on a 7 ft hose) knowing that all any one needs underwater is gas?

As Chatterton puts it, do you bolt for the sun and seagulls and go straight up vertically to the surface, or do you try to connect with one of the divers that are 20 to 30 ft away by swimming horizontally? You have to realize your actions are near panic level so the book is probably not foremost in your mind. You want air and you want it fast! [try holding your breath in a pool till you run almost out of air and then think about what you might do with your air cut off?]

My advice is not to listen to Chatterton

I think my first instinct would be for the surface and not waste precious seconds going horizontally? It's one thing to speculate about what you would do while you are on the surface but all of the training MIGHT go out the window once you have no air at depth?

Take a good class or two. Some actually teach some survival skills. As an example one of the things you are required to do in an IANTD Advanced Nitrox class (well in most of their classes) is to swim 30 ft to a buddy to get gas without breathing. Oh...you have to do it without being able to see too. You also have to overtake a buddy from behind while the buddy is swimming away to get gas..while not breathing of course. That way if it ever does happen that way, it's something you've done before.

And what do you do if you find your car not between the lines? Never mind how it happened but this time there's a cliff on the other side of the white line. The drive master just told you to drive without mentioning the cliff. Do you take the time to stick you head between your knees and kiss or just immediately start crying and praying?

 

[dwright]

I've had buddies like that. That's why I bought a pony.

It still pissed me off, and you seem to be a lot more accepting of it than I am.

You've been the buddy out of air Don.....so I don't want to hear it

 

[simbrooks]

Good to have you back Mike, been away? There is a talk on IT's and ITC candidates you might want to look at