Out of Air at 84 ft

[jbd]

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?

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?

20 to 30 feet is not all that horribly far to swim horizontally to get air from another diver. The key though is that you must not be overcome with panic. You don't have much time to get to an air source but you also aren't going to die the instant you run out of air either. The decision as to what to do must be made in a few seconds and action taken immediately thereafter. I taught this in the OOA section of the OW class.

As for what I might do if this were to happen to me--I would look for a nearby air source first. If it was not available then I would do a CESA. I train for each option and I make sure I don't put myself in such situations so I won't need those skills.

 

[DandyDon]

With an unknown buddy, I try to run it as a good buddy dive but will rig for a solo dive. He and I will have already discussed our dive plan so he will know what I'm going to do if he wants to get stupid.

That's what I'm striving for.

Again, the premise is to find out which direction do you swim for air, horizontal to find a buddy, or vertical to the sunshine and seagulls? Buddy skills is a different question, not getting yourself in that type of a situation is different question

If I know I can get to another air source, I avoid the emergency ascent. Done it once, survived uninjured. Tried to learn from the screw up.

Otherwise, go for the sure air above, releasing air as you go, and hope there's someone good to save you, like the diver I saw floating down current last month. He made it with pulmonary embolism. Lucky fellow.

 

[simbrooks]

Again, the premise is to find out which direction do you swim for air, horizontal to find a buddy, or vertical to the sunshine and seagulls? Buddy skills is a different question, not getting yourself in that type of a situation is different question

Pilot fish and others, i would invite you to look at Quarrior's thread Grrrr for a quick discussion on why the preventative answers are just as relevant as the cure answers, in fact they are more beneficial to any of you as divers. I am not goig to rehash the entire discussion on there except to say that although you can find a myriad solutions to this hypothetical question, the most important thing is to know why you are there. That is what you prepare for, train for, practice - you dont practice the how do i get myself out of this situation moves, you practice not getting into those situations as you can prevent it 99.99999% of the time. It is worth concentrating on that and is an integral part of the debate here.

 

[SueMermaid]

You reached back and shut it off, or slipped out of your bc? That was great prescense of mind.Why did you feel you had to shut the air off first before getting that octo?

I took off my backpack because I didn't know what was happening, and wanted to see! It really didn't take that much wherewithal, since I still had air. The noise scared the doodoo out of me though!
Why did I shut off my air? Hm. Good question. I dunno. Training, I guess.

 

[liberato]

20 to 30 feet is not all that horribly far to swim horizontally to get air from another diver. The key though is that you must not be overcome with panic.

I notice that I can hold my breath for quite some time if I am completely motionless but to kick 30 feet on one breath would be problematic and panic inducing. So, I would have a noisemaker of some sort that is never used for "hey look at this fish" but only for "come here now!" Then I would sit tight, make a racket, and have my buddy rescue me. Getting the attention of the buddy would be the first goal. A few people have mentioned lights but sound is the key. But then again if they are a lousy buddy to begin with by being so far away how do I trust they will immediately respond? (I normally have redundant gas so this is actually a hypothetical for me.)

 

[simbrooks]

I notice that I can hold my breath for quite some time if I am completely motionless but to kick 30 feet on one breath would be problematic and panic inducing.

Remember you have fins on, this makes things a lot quicker and easier. 30ft is barely the width of a standard short course swimming pool, i should hope you could do that on a single breath with no fins on at all. The fins will mean you could get there at a breakneck speed in about 3 seconds (but with a big amount of CO2 from that push - making you want to breath) or at a reasonable pace in 5-8 seconds. Essentially can you walk across a good sized room or two on a single breath, if so, you can make 30ft with fins on.

I would have a noisemaker of some sort that is never used for "hey look at this fish" but only for "come here now!"

Try a knife on your tank, tapping.

Then I would sit tight, make a racket, and have my buddy rescue me.

If i were in trouble i wouldnt sit tight, i would be starting to swim whilst making noise and flashing my light! You will get air quicker if you swim to them whilst they swim to you, twice as quick more than likely.

Getting the attention of the buddy would be the first goal. A few people have mentioned lights but sound is the key.

Remember sound is ok, but its not going to tell them where you are as it sounds like it is coming from all around/above, so making a noise will alert them, but that is all. A light might well help them find you and of course as used in the examples before, the practice is to keep an eye on your buddies beam so you know where they are without looking at them. I find a quick glance is usefu, but that if i can hear their bubbles then they are close by, when i dont here that i know one of two things, they arent close by or they have had some air problem. Buddy awareness will make you look in the direction of where they last were according to your last glance at them.

 

[DandyDon]

I notice that I can hold my breath for quite some time if I am completely motionless but to kick 30 feet on one breath would be problematic and panic inducing.

On my infamous screw up, I was about 20 feet short of a horizontal swim to the hang line when I went totally dry. I held my breath and ensured that I went slightly down - to make sure I didn't go up, as I was then only 20 feet down - as I continued to the line. Got there, and politely requested a share, from whichever reg? Panic was just never an option; next right thing, best that I could quick plan. Ascent was always an option, but had some deco owing.

Hope I never screw up like that again.

 

[pilot fish]

I took off my backpack because I didn't know what was happening, and wanted to see! It really didn't take that much wherewithal, since I still had air. The noise scared the doodoo out of me though!
Why did I shut off my air? Hm. Good question. I dunno. Training, I guess.

Seems you handled that situation very well. Yes, that would have scared me too.

 

[jonnythan]

Buddy skills is a different question, not getting yourself in that type of a situation is different question

No, it's not a different question. It's possible to dive in such a way that the situation is about as unlikely as finding yourself jumping out of a plane with no parachute.

There's no excuse to dive any other way. You're in NYC, I can name a dozen people off the top of my head within an hour or two of you that would never, ever do that to you. It simply should not happen, and you should not put yourself in a position where it can happen.

 

[Windminstrel]

I'm quite the newbie diver; I have a grand total of 14 dives under my belt, including my checkout dives. I also have the benefit of having my brother (who went through class with me) as my dive buddy. We can read each other's minds, and are all of 3' away from each other each dive.

That being said, I'm doing a New Year's cruise to the Caribbean, and I hope to take in 4-6 dives. I intend to brief my (assigned) buddy that if he gets more than 10' or so away from me that I'll signal him and abort the dive. I'm a newbie, but that doesn't mean I deserve to die. There's nothing (other than the lives of my family) that's worth that.

If I were to dive with a stranger as a dive partner, I'll make every effort to stay close to him/her. It's not all that hard to do, really -- especially if you go into the dive expecting chaos. In any event, I'll certainly thumb the dive if my partner makes an effort to separate per your example.

We've all been trained to look out for our buddies, and that's the way I dive. If I were set up with a buddy who won't make that effort, I have no problem with thumbing the dive just to keep both of us safe. Does that make me a jerk?