Out Of Air

[debajo agua]

Newly OW certified, me, my girlfriend and her cousin decided to do a drift dive in West Palm Beach. It turned into a scary situation. Here's what happen:

Early in the morning, we set off from a West Palm Marina to lobster just off the coast in 60' of water. This would be my first dive with my brand new equipment (BC, Regulator/Octopus). After hooking up my equipment for the first time, I started helping my girlfriend with her rental equipment. I admit, I was a little annoyed that she seemed content with me setting up her equipment. I didn't feel she was taking this dive seriously.

In the process of setting her equipment up, her psi gauge read 3500 psi. I thought to myself, "perfect, she has a slightly over-filled tank, even if her air consumption is greater than mine, she has an extra 500 psi buffer." We dropped to the bottom, gave each other an "ok" and I took off in the direction I thought I'd find lobster. This was a drift dive, so there was a current. I was swimming at a pretty good pace and she was tagging along about 10' behind me. I would stop every so often and let her catch up. After about 10 minutes I checked my gauge and realized I was flying through my air, almost 1/2 a bottle in 10 minutes. Once she caught up, It was obviously that she was angry with me, and rightfully so, I was focused on getting lobster, while moving too fast for her. I realized what I was doing and slowed down.

After getting a lobster, I checked my air psi again. "Oh no, 700 psi!" My girlfriend gave me the out-of-air hand sign and I look at her gauge to double check that I got the signal correct. I looked back at her and she was breathing off my octopus. "How did this happen?" We ascended to 20' and I tried to spend at least one minute at the safety stop, then decided it would be best, to go ahead and inflate my BC to support our weight. My psi gauge read 100 - 0 psi.

Once on the surface, we were both a little rattled. Our first dive on our own and she ran out of air. During our Surface Interval, she informed me her depth gauge wasn't working. I didn't think much of it because we were staying together, so I could keep track of our depth. We worked out a plan, where our second dive we would make a little longer safety stop, she would monitor the time and I would monitor the depth. Once again I hooked up her equipment for her... "3500 psi on the second tank too." It didn't dawn on me at that time, that both her gauges (psi and depth) were malfunctioning; however, despite faulty equipment, our exit plan on our second dive, allowed us plenty of air. Dive # 2 went much smoother.

This experience taught me and her both some valuable lessons. For some reason, I had complete trust in the rental equipment psi gauge and was sure that the tanks were over-filled. It was some time later, before it dawn on me, what had been the culprit of our problem. This incident could have killed someone who's prone to panic; fortunately, my girlfriend was calm and collective.

I hope sharing my mistakes, might help someone else not make the same mistakes.

 

[Scott]

In the process of setting her equipment up, her psi gauge read 3500 psi. I thought to myself, "perfect, she has a slightly over-filled tank, even if her air consumption is greater than mine, she has an extra 500 psi buffer." We dropped to the bottom, gave each other an "ok" and I took off in the direction I thought I'd find lobster. This was a drift dive, so there was a current. I was swimming at a pretty good pace and she was tagging along about 10' behind me. I would stop every so often and let her catch up. After about 10 minutes I checked my gauge and realized I was flying through my air, almost 1/2 a bottle in 10 minutes. Once she caught up, It was obviously that she was angry with me, and rightfully so, I was focused on getting lobster, while moving too fast for her. I realized what I was doing and slowed down.

Maybe you should forget about lobstering for a few dives and think about situation awareness.

After getting a lobster, I checked my air psi again. "Oh no, 700 psi!" My girlfriend gave me the out-of-air hand sign and I look at her gauge to double check that I got the signal correct. I looked back at her and she was breathing off my octopus. "How did this happen?" We ascended to 20' and I tried to spend at least one minute at the safety stop, then decided it would be best, to go ahead and inflate my BC to support our weight. My psi gauge read 100 - 0 psi.

First of all glad both of you made it to the surface safely. How about the cousin, where were they in all of this?
So in a situation where one diver is OOA and another diver is very low on air, there was a safety stop of one minute at 20 feet, after a dive to 60' max for maybe 15-20 minutes, arriving at the surface with 100 psi.
In an emergency situation unless I have a very good reason that safety stop is going to be omitted.

Once on the surface, we were both a little rattled. Our first dive on our own and she ran out of air. During our Surface Interval, she informed me her depth gauge wasn't working. I didn't think much of it because we were staying together, so I could keep track of our depth. We worked out a plan, where our second dive we would make a little longer safety stop, she would monitor the time and I would monitor the depth. Once again I hooked up her equipment for her... "3500 psi on the second tank too." It didn't dawn on me at that time, that both her gauges (psi and depth) were malfunctioning; however, despite faulty equipment, our exit plan on our second dive, allowed us plenty of air. Dive # 2 went much smoother.

YOU DID A SECOND DIVE? Holy crap!! That dive should have never happened.

I hope sharing my mistakes, might help someone else not make the same mistakes.

Read your post again. Maybe you should list the mistakes you made, I really do not think you understand how many there really were.

 

[g1138]

Agree with all the things Scott has said.

There were a lot of mistakes. I'm going to break it down for you and then explain what I think could be done to prevent this.
Mistakes made by both divers (you and your girlfriend):
- Not being Proactive
___Lack of:
- Dive Plan
- Communication
- Buddy Contact
- Situational Awareness
- Experience (Not your fault on this one)

First and foremost, it should be your girlfriend responsibility to set up her own gear and check it herself. This keeps a diver proficient and catches any malfunctions before the Buddy Check and before splashing in. You won't catch a broken Depth Gauge this way however, I'll get to that in a minute.

Secondly you need to have a Dive Plan, this includes planning your air usage. With experience you'll be able to calculate how much air you need on the bottom, on ascent, on your safety stop and to solve any unexpected problems at depth. You can still do this now, but it won't be accurate because your avg SAC rate is either changing or not constant yet. So therefore as a new diver your air plan should be very conservative.
Check out this link to get an intro into Gas Management/Air Planning.
NWGratefulDiver.com

At 60ft I would already be back at the anchor and beginning my ascent at 1200psi on an Al 80. At 1000psi if you're not ascending from 60ft you better get yourself sorted and go up right then and there; Safety Stops and all still. At 1000psi if you encounter a problem before ascent you may be pushing your air supply.
700psi IMO is not adequate enough to support 2 divers safely to the surface, let alone even doing a safety stop. Your experience proves that to me. I'm curious as to how fast you two ascended?

Communication and Buddy Contact were extremely lacking. You should be within arms reach of your buddy at all times. Not only that, but you should be communicating. Give you buddy a look in the eye and ask if they're "OK" every once in a while. Initiate an Air Check while you at it.

This goes into being Proactive. On entry did you and your girlfriend check your own gauges before or during descent. I always do just to make sure everything is still working in the water. It's at this point, during descent that you can quickly do a scan on all your gauges to catch for floodings or inoperable gauges.
Most importantly though, keep buddy contact during descent. If you're descending too fast to check all your gauges and/or keep contact then inflate your BC and control your descent.
And on the note of gauges, every diver should have their own devices for:
- Depth
- Timing
- Tank Pressure
There should be no sharing of these things between two or more divers. The first dive should have been aborted long before the OOA incident.

Another note on being Proactive, when someone signals OOA, GIVE THEM YOUR AIR! Don't go "Oh are you sure, let me double check". From what you wrote I gather she took your octo herself. What would have happened if she took your reg from your mouth? It's just another problem to solve before your ascent.
What if she started dragging you up before you got your octo? Yet another problem to solve.
What if she kicked your mask off, while you had no air and now no way to see your octo? You see how this can easily snowball? Remember, divers rarely die from just 1 problem alone.
It's this very reason why I REALLY dislike the "turn your hip and cough" method for OOA shares. You as the OOA donor should be giving out an air source, not standing by idly. By sharing air you have made yourself a rescuer and need to take control to avoid an escalation of the situation. You have the air, you should have the clear mind, the OOA diver often times won't have either.

Being Proactive goes two-ways. You and your girlfriend should be able to plan each others dive and perform your own equipment and air checks on your own as well to each other.

Above all else, what makes a safe diver is one who plans on how to avoid problems from ever occurring.
I've given you my 2 cents, and I'm sure other will chime in as well.
Count this as a good learning experience and learn from it.
Glad all 3 of you are alright.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

Wow.
Others have already gone into great detail. The mind boggles wondering how you (as a group) managed not to get someone killed or seriously injured.

You're upset because your GF let you setup her gear, but at the same time you're OK with her diving without a working depth gauge?

Where was the 3rd member of your buddy group while all this was going on?

You're breaking a lot of very basic safety standards. If you're doing this knowingly, I can only hope you don't get someone else killed. If you're truely ignorant of how many things were done wrong on these dives, then your instructor ought to be ashamed of themselves. Please please PLEASE rethink and retrain before someone is killed.

 

[dkktsunami]

That's quite a list .................

 

[AfterDark]

Learn from this, all the info you need is listed in this thread. Experience is a good teacher as long as it doesn't kill you or somebody else. I may have missed it but you did tell the LDS that the gear malfuntioned, right? There are divers that have ran out of air and some that haven't....yet. I don't know how many times during a one hour dive I check my SPG but I know you would need more than 2 hands to count them on. I've always believed that is one of the + of a console, when you check your depth you check your air when you use the compass you check your air......check your air and when yours is getting to the half way point check your buddies.

 

[stairman]

Yea Id get some more experience with sightseeing , buddy awareness and proper gear checks. Its too rare to have 3500 psi in an aluminum 80 I can tell you, so I would have checked the tank with another reg and either abort the dive or figure in the new thumbs up pressure. Your both lucky of the outcome and if she was upset with you because of your unattentiveness to her safety, shame on you!

 

[Bombay High]

WOW !!
2 newly certified divers doing a drift dive while hunting lobsters ... this was the best possible outcome.
I suggest the top of the line insurance from DAN.

Newly OW certified, me, my girlfriend and her cousin decided to do a drift dive in West Palm Beach. It turned into a scary situation. Here's what happen:

Early in the morning, we set off from a West Palm Marina to lobster just off the coast in 60' of water. This would be my first dive with my brand new equipment (BC, Regulator/Octopus). After hooking up my equipment for the first time, I started helping my girlfriend with her rental equipment. I admit, I was a little annoyed that she seemed content with me setting up her equipment. I didn't feel she was taking this dive seriously.

In the process of setting her equipment up, her psi gauge read 3500 psi. I thought to myself, "perfect, she has a slightly over-filled tank, even if her air consumption is greater than mine, she has an extra 500 psi buffer." We dropped to the bottom, gave each other an "ok" and I took off in the direction I thought I'd find lobster. This was a drift dive, so there was a current. I was swimming at a pretty good pace and she was tagging along about 10' behind me. I would stop every so often and let her catch up. After about 10 minutes I checked my gauge and realized I was flying through my air, almost 1/2 a bottle in 10 minutes. Once she caught up, It was obviously that she was angry with me, and rightfully so, I was focused on getting lobster, while moving too fast for her. I realized what I was doing and slowed down.

After getting a lobster, I checked my air psi again. "Oh no, 700 psi!" My girlfriend gave me the out-of-air hand sign and I look at her gauge to double check that I got the signal correct. I looked back at her and she was breathing off my octopus. "How did this happen?" We ascended to 20' and I tried to spend at least one minute at the safety stop, then decided it would be best, to go ahead and inflate my BC to support our weight. My psi gauge read 100 - 0 psi.

Once on the surface, we were both a little rattled. Our first dive on our own and she ran out of air. During our Surface Interval, she informed me her depth gauge wasn't working. I didn't think much of it because we were staying together, so I could keep track of our depth. We worked out a plan, where our second dive we would make a little longer safety stop, she would monitor the time and I would monitor the depth. Once again I hooked up her equipment for her... "3500 psi on the second tank too." It didn't dawn on me at that time, that both her gauges (psi and depth) were malfunctioning; however, despite faulty equipment, our exit plan on our second dive, allowed us plenty of air. Dive # 2 went much smoother.

This experience taught me and her both some valuable lessons. For some reason, I had complete trust in the rental equipment psi gauge and was sure that the tanks were over-filled. It was some time later, before it dawn on me, what had been the culprit of our problem. This incident could have killed someone who's prone to panic; fortunately, my girlfriend was calm and collective.

I hope sharing my mistakes, might help someone else not make the same mistakes.

 

[Bombay High]

This is my favourite part ...

Once on the surface, we were both a little rattled. Our first dive on our own and she ran out of air. ......... however, despite faulty equipment, our exit plan on our second dive, allowed us plenty of air. Dive # 2 went much smoother.

I hope sharing my mistakes, might help someone else not make the same mistakes.

 

[MichelG]

You should get used to your new equipment before going on a deeper dive, like in a quarry, pool or just a shallow dive in a calm spot. A 60 foot drift is not what I call a safe way to do a first dive on your own. The thing that impresses me is that you have gone for a second dive with faulty gauges??? I won't go that far for a lobster dinner...Go easy, there's always going to be another dive after that one to go deeper, catch more lobster... unless you want that one to be your last.