Thought I'd share one of my close calls

[trogg]

about 5 months ago I was diving in my lake practicing some 8 meter ditch and recovery's
i dropped everything just fine and swam to the surface.. I took a breather for a second and dove back under to retrieve my gear, my buddy holding onto it at the bottom.
i must have worked hard to get down to the bottom because i was out of air when i touched. so calmly (but rather quickly fumbled for my reg, picking up my octopus i fumbled it and it began to free flow. im at the bottom out of air and gasped and took in a bunch of water. My buddy grabbed me by the hand and gave me my reg..i stayed on the bottom and gathered my thoughts for a second before putting on my mask and everything.

morals of the story:
you can survive a little longer than you thought you could without air.
if you have a free flow, dont freak out. have a buddy help you out while you fix it.
always dive with a buddy and have fun

that to date was the closest call i've ever had with anything.

 

[Tortuga68]

Glad to hear it worked out okay. It's true, taking a gulp of water doesn't mean it's all over

My initial thought: If I was doing that drill, I'd have wanted my buddy to be waiting there with his secondary in his hand, ready to donate it to me in case of the above situation

 

[gcbryan]

What is the purpose of this drill?

 

[PvtStash]

anytime your doing Anything outside of the norm (swimming around looking at stuff) your gaining experience. Certainly there are very few situations where one would Have to ditch his/her gear an go for the surface (unresolveable entanglement?) ,but doing so in a practice situation, whether you Ever need to actually use it or not, will (I think) get you more comfortable with your gear and what you can/cant do... you'll Know you can do that because you've Done it... its the same reason you may decide to practice a ESA or air-sharing... doing those things build on your experience/comfort level.

The only concern is that you design your exercises to be done as "safely" as possible. For instance as suggested perhaps the Buddy could have been positioned a lil' more advantageously and ready for the octo hand off...

 

[tstormdiver]

I had something similar happen to me during my Adv. Nitrox class. While down at 90 ft in the quarry, my instructor gave me a problem to work out. He held up a slate saying that I just had a primary regulator failure & to switch to my back up & shut down my primary (I was using double tanks). I switched regulators & when I went to shut down my primary, I discovered that I was quite stiff from the cold. I wound up having to grasp my wing with my left hand over my head to pull the right valve up to where I could easily reach it (normally I can, just not in this instance). I shut the primary down & about that same time I must have bumped the purge button on the secondary, causing it to start free flowing. I started breathing off the free flowing regulator (thank goodness it had just been covered in my instructor class a couple months before- I hadn't done it since my OW class 3 yrs before). Here I am at 90 ft breathing off a free flowing regulator, left hand now tied up & not able to help me to get back to the right primary valve, trying to figure out what to do next. My instructor was there in a flash, grabbed a hold of me & was trying to give me his primary, but I couldn't see it through the wall of bubbles & didn't know it was there. He said he was going to turn my secondary off, but didn't because he didn't want to freak me out, since I was successfully breathing off of it. He then decided to take me up to the surface, to get things back under control. I never even knew we were going up until we were about 10 ft from the surface. At the surface, we got the free flow stopped & things back under control & then immediately went back down to complete our decompression obligation. He said afterwards that he was quite surprised that I never freaked out & bolted on him (if he only knew how close I was....). After the dive, we debriefed what had happened & what other options I may have had ( I never thought about switching to my 50/ 50 deco bottle & immediately beginning my ascent to get above the MOD, about 20 ft shallower, I assumed it was off limits). It was definitely a lesson well learned. It happened so fast that I really wasn't real sure what was going on until it was all over. I learned a few things in that episode,... Like the OP posted, you can go without air longer than you think, you usually (but not always) have more options than you think & the secret is just to try to keep a cool head to work things out.

 

[trogg]

yes, the purpose of my drills are to get to know my limits, i have military training and we were always told to know your limits, this is a prime example of something that could be solved very quickly by my buddy if needed. but if you are in an entanglement situation from a wrecks riggings or something else you may find here in the great lakes, id want the assurance of knowing i can ditch my stuff, come back up and wait for my buddy to send it up to me.
the same theory as treading water for an hour, its highly unlikely it needs to be done, but remember keep a clear head and i advise you all to get in a pool with a buddy and go under and see how long you can go. and dont gulp


Edit: buddy was ready with air in hand, i had asked him previously have it ready and if i reach for it, give it to me.

he saw me struggling and gave me the extra boost i needed to complete the job

 

[49thdiver]

It's true, taking a gulp of water doesn't mean it's all over

Yep in my out of air experince it was the gulp of water that provided the incentive to quit screwing with the regs and gauges and find my buddy NOW !
If I take a line from TSandM else where in this forum "situational awareness" is the skill you need to develop as a diver and it's a useful skill in the rest of your life to.

Happy diving

 

[nereas]

This ditch and recovery drill is now normally only taught in the pool for some ITCs.

ITC = instructor candidates. Ergo, not for ordinary divers, but for people who think they are ready to become scuba instructors.

Doing it deeper than a pool, such as in a lake, is asking for trouble. You asked, and you got it.

I would not recommend doing other such tricks in the open water.

 

[battles2a5]

This ditch and recovery drill is now normally only taught in the pool for some ITCs.

ITC = instructor candidates. Ergo, not for ordinary divers, but for people who think they are ready to become scuba instructors.

Doing it deeper than a pool, such as in a lake, is asking for trouble. You asked, and you got it.

I would not recommend doing other such tricks in the open water.

I did this as part of my OW training, and again in Rescue. I don't think it's limited to ITC and personally, I think its a great drill. The more comfort you have with your equipment, the better. You never know what situation you will find yourself in, and practice like this may one day be the difference between a slight inconvenience and a major catastrophy.

 

[nereas]

I did this as part of my OW training, and again in Rescue. I don't think it's limited to ITC and personally, I think its a great drill. The more comfort you have with your equipment, the better. You never know what situation you will find yourself in, and practice like this may one day be the difference between a slight inconvenience and a major catastrophy.

It can get you killed in the open water. That is my definition of a really bad idea.

In a pool with an instructor watching you, then fine.

Otherwise, not only no, but ... no.