Should all divers have a redundant air source on every dive?

[gcbryan]

I always wonder about these infallible buddies I hear so much about. I understand that some buddies are "better buddies" than others but ***** happens regardless of who the buddies are from time to time. Updraft,downdraft, health problems, two people with problems stemming that the same situation.

I wonder if great buddies exist only until something unforeseen happens.

 

[Scuba-Stu]

I always wonder about these infallible buddies I hear so much about. I understand that some buddies are "better buddies" than others but ***** happens regardless of who the buddies are from time to time. Updraft,downdraft, health problems, two people with problems stemming that the same situation.

I wonder if great buddies exist only until something unforeseen happens.

I also wonder about this issue relative to the popular internet opinion.

 

[Steve in Seattle]

I don't believe redundancy ever becomes mandatory in recreational limit dives and on planned decompression dives it is not redundency it is just another piece of required equipment.

fair enough... assuming a CESA is possible... if not, that "rec dive" just got a whole lot worse.

I tend to believe in some instances redundancy on rec limit dives may at the most encourage pushing the limits and comfort zone and at the least give a somewhat false sence of security.

Totally... helmets and seat belts should be voluntary or even BANNED... they breed bad drivers who think they can survive accidents. Same goes for air bags, automatic transmissions, ABS... pretty much every safety device we have. :-/

So your idea is that (n+1) is a great idea for data centers where down time costs money, but if you jump out a plane one parachute should be enough? Its clear you don't do crisis management/mitigation for a living. (I swear I wake up with night sweats imagining a back-up generator maybe low on fuel ).

I don't look at redundancy so much as a solution to an equipment malfunction as it is a solution to failure in gas management.

fair enough... though does it really matter if you're dead either way?

The argument is made that you may need extra gas to to allow time to solve a problem such as entangelment but no one can know how much time or gas may be needed, so if that is the logic just carry as much as you can every dive and hope it is enough.

Yep. There's no problem with twins, wings, and no decomp diving.

Frankly I've always thought its crazy people slap an octo on a tank and think they're good to go as long as they have a buddy (who hopefully uses less gas/min than you). Have you ever been at 100' and realized your buddy just dropped 20' to checkout an octopus? Start any scenario from there and see how that extra reg works for ya.

 

[captain]

fair enough... assuming a CESA is possible... if not, that "rec dive" just got a whole lot worse.

Totally... helmets and seat belts should be voluntary or even BANNED... they breed bad drivers who think they can survive accidents. Same goes for air bags, automatic transmissions, ABS... pretty much every safety device we have. :-/

So your idea is that (n+1) is a great idea for data centers where down time costs money, but if you jump out a plane one parachute should be enough? Its clear you don't do crisis management/mitigation for a living. (I swear I wake up with night sweats imagining a back-up generator maybe low on fuel ).

fair enough... though does it really matter if you're dead either way?

Yep. There's no problem with twins, wings, and no decomp diving.

Frankly I've always thought its crazy people slap an octo on a tank and think they're good to go as long as they have a buddy (who hopefully uses less gas/min than you). Have you ever been at 100' and realized your buddy just dropped 20' to checkout an octopus? Start any scenario from there and see how that extra reg works for ya.

You can't compare parachutes to diving. No one can fly without a parachute, there is no CEFD (controlled emergency flying decent) but as a survival item one parachute is enough. All military air crews rely on one parachute for survival. If you are jumping for fun then two is a good idea.

 

[jeckyll]

I always wonder about these infallible buddies I hear so much about. I understand that some buddies are "better buddies" than others but ***** happens regardless of who the buddies are from time to time. Updraft,downdraft, health problems, two people with problems stemming that the same situation.

I wonder if great buddies exist only until something unforeseen happens.

Your post came after mine, so I'm guessing it was in reference to it.

I did point out that my response was based on 1 failure (you clearly assume multiple problem in your post above).

I was also pretty clear that no matter what your response to an emergency, you need to practice it frequently. Whether that's your 'infallible' buddy, your doubles, your pony etc.

Didn't think that would be so controversial

 

[Steve in Seattle]

You can't compare parachutes to diving. No one can fly without a parachute, there is no CEFD (controlled emergency flying decent) but as a survival item one parachute is enough. All military air crews rely on one parachute for survival. If you are jumping for fun then two is a good idea.

Well, I will give you points for deftly avoiding the helmet, seatbelt, airbag examples.

But I have to point out the fundamental flaw to your example of military air crews. This is a major issue and THE reason we even have this discussion. For years, my jobn involved life safety emergency response operations... basicially we run the show when the ***** hits the fan. Procedural analysis, and incident "hot wash ups" teach a very important aspect of emergency prepardness... risk frequency.

The rarest of events would validate ZERO time, cash, or personal attention if the consequences were minimal, but if the frequency of the event is high even a moderate impact can validate preparation/mitigation.

High value loss events however don't suffer the same sliding scale of cost vs benefit. Lethal results warrant extensive preparation. It is in these instances where a 1:10,000 or even a 1:1,000,000 event can warrant mitigation steps which can seem "overly costly" for such a rare event.

Small businesses rarely survive the downtime from fire damage, and as a result sprinkler systems, smoke and flame detectors, alarm monitoring, or even flame-retardant/resistant materials can be justified to a fairly high level. Inventory losses from internal theft will rarely cripple the company unless it impacts production or sales. As a result of this, security is not warranted by most small businesses as the cost is too prohibitive.

When it comes to the loss of life, everyone will/can put a different value on this loss, and by direct relation, the amount they're willing to spend in prevention.

The reason a military air unit may use 1 chute instead of 2 is not that a second chute is pointless, but instead, their risk analysis shows its less costly than just paying the survivor benefits. The fact that most military pilots will NEVER use a chute/ejection seat makes the low incident factor suitable for 1 chute use. Keep in mind however that they will ensure to use the SAFEST chute design (no airfoils) and open them on automatic systems to remove human error. Jumpers on the other hand will carry a second chute. There may be examples of single chute jumpers (say low altitude, static-line jumps) where reliability is high, and even in the event of a failure the time involved would be too low to deploy a second chute anyway.

I'm of the personal opinion however than unlike insurance companies, military policy makers, or injury lawyers... I don't believe a value can be placed on MY life.
Even a rare fatal incident seems a little to frequent for my taste. As a result, I'll gladly carry gear that can reduce the event of incidents occuring, as well as those that allow me to mitigate the impact such possible events may have.

Carrying a pony bottle is not a significant cost for the benefit it can provide. Would I use one at 20' of seawater? yep. 20' of pool water? Probably not. Why? because pools have few entanglements, visibliity issues, sharp rusted metal, or random sea/plant life to deal with.

Outside a controlled environment the pony bottle or even twins are easily justified.

Just because "everyone else" does something for years with 'minimal' fatalities, doesn't mean doing so prudent. Fatalities happen because of a series of breakdowns occurs in series (which applies to a lot more than diving BTW ). Mitigation of risks can help break that chain of death and save a life.

 

[Blackwood]

^^

 

[newman_diver]

It all comes down to risk and how much you are willing to assume to dive. If you are willing to dive with a buddy and hope that he is there and able to help you in an OOA situation, then all the power to you.

Personally, I don't rely on a team member to save my a**. My dive equipment is such that I am self sufficient in most emergencies and my team member is there to assist. Same thing goes for anyone I dive with.

A redundant air source is a great thing to have but you may not want to assume the responsibility of additional equipment, maintenance and training.

There are so many things that could happen which could result in serious injury or death. If you can accept the risks then you have no need for such redundancy.

I on the other hand, am not willing to accept the risks and as such, my equipment configuration reflects this.

 

[scjoe]

Keeping a buddy within easy reach is a task that in my experience is not performed nearly as often or as well as people act like it is. If you can't get to the surface on the remnants of one breath (no one every discovers their tank is out of air with a full breath in their lungs), then fine. If not, it is time to consider a redundant air source.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Keeping a buddy within easy reach is a task that in my experience is not performed nearly as often or as well as people act like it is.

Then perhaps you just need better dive buddies. Nothing is ever possible if you don't put effort into making it happen, or even believe that it's important. There's lots of divers out there who pay lip service to buddy skills without putting much effort into developing them ... many don't even know how to go about developing those skills.

Doesn't mean it's not important ... or that it can't be done. Of course, it can ... in my experience, we do it daily. But my diving circle makes proper buddy skills a priority ... not an afterthought.

If you can't get to the surface on the remnants of one breath (no one every discovers their tank is out of air with a full breath in their lungs), then fine. If not, it is time to consider a redundant air source.

Or perhaps it's time to consider that there are more than two alternatives ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)