Running out of air- a perspective

[merxlin]

I'd like to suggest that everyone read the statistics in the study that Osric posted: STATS. What is interesting to me is how many divers are over-weighted (again no surprise), and how many died at the surface. If you look at the root causes it paints a picture not only of divers who ran low/out of air, but then did not know how to deal with it. Not dropping weights on the surface was a huge contributing factor.

This is not an "experience" issue: there were 1/3 new, intermediate and experts in this study. Excessive depth only played a part in 12% of the death according to the study.

It is striking to me that what deaths there are can be identified and that they seemingly can be reduced by better education in my opinion. This is not a jab at any one agency, these deaths cover the range of those. And I know there are individual instructors and programs that do an excellent job at teaching and covering these points. We need all of them to.

 

[BoltSnap]

NWGratefulDiver,

I am not sure that the "failure" of the buddy system is a cause of the deaths in OOA. Also, I don't think that the type of the buddy system you are advocating is a practical system nor do I believe it will actually help in eliminating these fatalities due of OOA. What you are saying sounds good and many folks will get all excited about (sort of a politician speech that get everyone supporting him but no substance), but it isn't really a grass root solution nor it is the right solution for the right problem. What you are advocating would create a dependent diver instead of independent self reliant diver.

If anything, students must be taught to solve their problems/issues without any anticipation of somebody else helping them. Essentially teaching them "solo Diving" skills and mindset without saying or calling it "Solo Diving" (perhaps "Self Sufficient Diver" is a better term).

I am of the thought that we need to rethink what this "Buddy System" should be all about, what expectations, procedures and protocols need to be for the buddy system. It is obvious that there is some thing that is not working with what we are doing today and if we keep doing it over and over it would only have the same results over and over no change.

 

[nolatom]

Going back to the original quote from Ken Kurtis:

"And that may inadvertently put into divers' minds that even though we SAY don't run out of air, it's not the end of the world... because you have options. We further imply that it's relatively easy to make a successful ascent to the surface. But the data indicates that the reality may be far different from the perception. When you look at the fatality numbers, saying "run-out-of-air-and-you-stand-a-good-chance-of-dying" is probably more honest than saying "you-have-easy-to-master-options."

unquote

But don't many/most boats have rules about what happens if you bust "their" depth limit (sit out the next dive) or go OOA (sit out the whole trip)? It's the "death penalty" you get after managing to avoid actual physical death.

I've seen these rules, and if basic OW training didn't sufficiently emphasize how serious OOA is (debatable), then I'd think the "no more dives for you" hammer (which hammer drops if you can't draw breaths from your reg at the top of the exit ladder) would put the fear of God into the average diver.

It did for me, or at least reinforced it in a very immediate way. Only once (and not as a new diver either) did I come very close--first dive of a trip, I simply underestimated air consumption for the ascent in a current. But instead of trying to push it to see if I could get up in time, I made sure buddy was close and signalled "low air" with fist to chest when the reg started to breathe hard near the end while at 20 feet. Surfaced slowly on his octo, then surface swim on my own, so i was on the dive deck still able to breathe from my reg, though there really wasn't much air left.

The specific lesson: Recognize and work the problem immediately so you don't suck your tank dry before getting assistance.

And the overall lesson: Practice better and more conservative gas management in the first place.


So I think boat rules can reinforce the message that OOA isn't some kind of game or practice-drill, it's a life-support crisis. Are these rules common? They are on the only liveaboard I've dived on. Not sure about the day boats.

 

[Rhone Man]

Probably need to merge this other thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/california-diving-news/370951-out-air-simply-unacceptable.html

into this one.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

NWGratefulDiver,

I am not sure that the "failure" of the buddy system is a cause of the deaths in OOA. Also, I don't think that the type of the buddy system you are advocating is a practical system nor do I believe it will actually help in eliminating these fatalities due of OOA. What you are saying sounds good and many folks will get all excited about (sort of a politician speech that get everyone supporting him but no substance), but it isn't really a grass root solution nor it is the right solution for the right problem. What you are advocating would create a dependent diver instead of independent self reliant diver.

If anything, students must be taught to solve their problems/issues without any anticipation of somebody else helping them. Essentially teaching them "solo Diving" skills and mindset without saying or calling it "Solo Diving" (perhaps "Self Sufficient Diver" is a better term).

I am of the thought that we need to rethink what this "Buddy System" should be all about, what expectations, procedures and protocols need to be for the buddy system. It is obvious that there is some thing that is not working with what we are doing today and if we keep doing it over and over it would only have the same results over and over no change.

I think overall we have a fundamental difference of opinion of what the term "dive buddy" means, or is intended to mean ... because by no stretch of the imagination am I advocating diver dependency. Nor do I think that was ever intended to be a part of buddy diving.

Being part of a team does not imply dependency at all ... ask anyone who plays a sport like basketball, soccer, or baseball. It means understanding your role, how it fits in with the goals of the team and the roles of your teammate(s). Diving's no different ... there are roles and rules, and the purpose of those is to develop a framework for "predictable behavior".

The reality is that every agency advocates buddy diving ... and as long as that continues to be the case, I believe it is their responsibility to train people how to do it. It's one thing to say "here's what you should do" ... it's something else entirely to say "here's how to do it". The latter piece is seriously lacking in most recreational diver training ... and that's what causes people to make poor decisions when something unpredictable occurs.

"Dive buddy" means a lot more than just getting in the water with somebody. It involves mutual participation in the dive plan, active communication during the dive, maintaining an awareness of each other ... and most importantly, it means behaving in such a way that your dive buddy can anticipate what you're likely to do, can understand your communications and body language, and can react to unpredicted events in a way that doesn't leave you wondering what the heck they're doing.

None of that is rocket surgery ... or even particularly difficult. It works the same way as it would on any other activity you do that requires participation from other people.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[pmenear]

If the dive industry wants to take OOA prevention seriously then there is an easy fix.
When I started diving we did not use a contents pressure gauge so no gas monitoring was needed. Cylinders were fitted with J valves, when the cylinder pressure dropped to 300psi the gas supply was cut off, you pulled a rod attached to the valve and the pressure was restored and you surfaced.
No OOA divers.
No deaths from OOA.
No blaming the buddy because he didn't save the idiot he was diving with.
If you want to be serious about saving lives then reintroduce the J valve.

 

[Tortuga68]

 

[2 Big 2 Fail]

This is not an "experience" issue: there were 1/3 new, intermediate and experts in this study. Excessive depth only played a part in 12% of the death according to the study.

Things of this sort are rarely simply experience issues. Very often, the newly trained are still doing things as they were taught - checking pressure because they expected the instructor to ask at any time, doing buddy checks, etc. How many times in the threads where sins are being confessed do experienced divers describe their own omissions of what they were taught? But it often takes a combination of things to kill a diver. Sure, solo and OOA at significant depth has a good chance of being fatal. But isn't it more often the case that it was some combination, such as poor plan+poor execution+low air+poor return route+OOA+poor response to OOA+poor surface procedures. It looks like OOA is the primary trigger, but it's not really. The incident was loaded way back at poor planning and cocked and locked by a poor response to low air. OOA was just the point beyond which it became an emergency. You could break the chain anywhere.

I'm not at all sure that this is something where there's any practical way to make a significant change in numbers. We really can't know how often all but one link formed in the potentially fatal chain. What I mean is that we don't know the frequency with which combinations of factors form that are just one link away from fatal. I think that's a real valuable thing to know. If that nearly lethal chain forms with high frequency but very, very rarely gets lethally complete, it's going to be difficult or impossible to make substantial changes in behavior. Driving too fast can kill you, but driving too fast is extraordinarily common because it only rarely kill you.

How do you limit the formation of lethal chains? While skills practice is some of it, I know what keeps me thinking is having read every account of diving fatalities that I could find. I know I got no structured survey of fatal accidents in my training. Such a thing, focused on recognition of the first links as they form might do a lot of good.

But I do have to say that I agree that OOA just doesn't seem to scare people much. Otherwise, there would be a better market for low air alarms of the SCBA sort.

 

[DevonDiver]

If the dive industry wants to take OOA prevention seriously then there is an easy fix.
...Cylinders were fitted with J valves, ...
No OOA divers.
No deaths from OOA.
....
If you want to be serious about saving lives then reintroduce the J valve.

Which parallel dimension did you pluck these 'statistics 'from??

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

If the dive industry wants to take OOA prevention seriously then there is an easy fix.
When I started diving we did not use a contents pressure gauge so no gas monitoring was needed. Cylinders were fitted with J valves, when the cylinder pressure dropped to 300psi the gas supply was cut off, you pulled a rod attached to the valve and the pressure was restored and you surfaced.
No OOA divers.
No deaths from OOA.
No blaming the buddy because he didn't save the idiot he was diving with.
If you want to be serious about saving lives then reintroduce the J valve.

... this is a joke ... right?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)