Scuba Diver Out of Air and Emergency Ascent - Catastrophic Buddy failure
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- Scuba Diver Out of Air and Emergency Ascent - Catastrophic Buddy failure
This event was sent to me by Louise R, an out of air emergency from 2017. Two divers on a working dive, one runs low on air and cannot communicate this to the more experienced diver. Shortly after this miscommunication, the diver runs out of air totally, loses his buoyancy and is unable to reach the unaware buddy for an air share. The only option left for this out of air diver is an emergency ascent to the surface (from 13m), which he does successfully with no lasting injuries or effects.
Original video:
• Real Diver Out Of Air ...
Background information from the original video description:
The water temperature was 3C / 37.4F, this was during winter and in salt water. The diver shown in the video was in a sidemount configuration with two 12 liter / 85 cuft tanks while his buddy who ran out of gas used a single 12 liter / 75 cuft tank (85cf?). The purpose of the dive was underwater work, more specifically running a line from shore to several underwater items that were marked for removal. The diver who took the video did not participate in the work portion but tagged along to take video. The average depth was around 13.5 m / 44 ft and the total dive time just over 50 minutes. Gas mismanagement by the OOA diver was the leading cause of the accident. He simply breathed his single tank dry. The attempt to signal the upcoming OOA is shown in the video, the actual signs are not visible. After getting his buddy's attention by grabbing the fins, the OOA diver moved a hand to touch his neck seal. After a delay, he touched his second stage regulator. All movements were extremely slow and as a result, the buddy thought the diver was just cold, plus maybe re-seating the second stage in his mouth. He clearly did not understand and made that very clear. While the communication between the two divers was going on (and failing), the diver ran out of gas. Losing his buoyancy and being above his buddy made further touch- and visual contact impossible. The only resolution at this point was an emergency surface ascent. Luckily, he remembered his training and controlled his ascent as best as possible constantly exhaling from his lungs. He remained unhurt.
#outofairdiver #emergencyascent #scubaaccident #scubaairshare #scubabuddayfailure #scubaincident
Chapters
00:27 Incident description (from RUclips)
02:42 Incident video
04:18 Incident analysis
10:22 Diver scorecards (something new)
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Score Cards idea
Audit the Audit channel. I liked this style, even though from a very different channel genre. Thank you, AtA, for a great idea.
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Safe diving!
Jim
Big Dog, DDT
DiscoveryDiversTokyo.com
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Agree or disagree with the diver scorecards? Let us know here.
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1000 dives and and you do yourself and your students a disservice if you don’t understand a basic concept that I was taught in my very first dive class at age 14.
I love these videos so much. It’s one thing to learn what not to do, but it’s another thing to see a demonstration of how things can go wrong. I feel like watching these makes me a better diver, so thanks for taking the time to break it down and make it an awesome learning experience.
Thanks so much for the support, Chelsea. These vids keep me sharp, too 👍
I think a pretty good analysis. I am always concerned when divers enter the water with large differences in gas supply and wonder if there was good pre-dive communication. However, every diver must be responsible for their own gas supply and curious about their buddy's gas supply so each diver failed there. I wouldn't be as hard on the sidemount diver in terms of not recognizing an emergency since the out-of-air diver gave completely inept hand signals. This is something that instructors must drill into trainee's heads: if you don't communicate well underwater using agreed upon hand signals, bad things can happen. In addition to knowing the configuration of the buddy's equipment, these two should have reviewed emergency hand signals and air-sharing technique before entering the water.
Thanks, Dan. Good lesson to all of us to make our signals clear and insist that they are received, understood and acted upon.
With dive buddies like that, better get new ones, I ran out once (Nubie mistake) I had a qualified dive instructor gave me air and I learned from then on to watch my gages
Good lesson, Ivory 👍
One time on diving in Cuba… I preset a emergency surface from 80’ with a Divemaster assistance, so from 80’ down going up beading the air from my BCD….. getting a slow assenting to the surface the air taste awful…. But a surface with little air in BCD I had to inflate it at the surface cause in my tank remained 900psi…. So If you think that your out of air at the bottom…. Think that your BCD is full of it….. it could save your life.
Great point, CWH…thanks for posting 👍 (and Cuba must be amazing!)
Love your videos, thanks for sharing. SUBSCRIBED...
OK, as you say we just don't know enough of the surrounding circumstances to analyse this properly but we can define some assumptions and draw lessons from the assumed scenario.
Let's say they were diving as a pair and the OOA diver had agreed with the working diver that he would film the dive. What should have happened:
Dissimilar rigs are a crucial issue to be discussed before you get in the water. I generally dive with twin back-mount 12s or single 12. My buddies may have twin sidemount ali 80s, sidemount steel 12s, single 12s, single 15s or even twin 7s. There may also be a variety of jacket BCD, backplate, harness and wing, or sidemount harness and wing, which is actually quite a bit different. There may also be weight pouches, weight belts or no ditchable weight. What this means is that as soon as the divers realise they have different rigs they need to explain to each other exactly what gear they have, how it works and what the emergency drills are. In this case I would expect that to have been led by the sidemount guy, both because he has the more complicated gear and because of his greater experience.
Included in this must be a discussion of gas time available and turn-back/ascent minima. This should take into account the higher gas consumption likely in very cold water, and emphasise that the single-tank diver is undoubtedly going to be the one who is going to call time!
As a side note, a water temp of 3C also has the potential for icing issues in the regulators, even assuming they are cold water-rated. This will exacerbated by the higher SAC rate mentioned above.
Cameras: Cameras are the bane of newly qualified divers as they suck you into creating the imagery and narrow your situational awareness. Task focus on filming has to be well up there contending for the number one cause of out-of-air or depth exceedence events!
Signals: The signals for low on air and out of air should be part of the brief, together with the process for air sharing. As above the dissimilar rigs make this particularly important as the single tank diver with 60 dives may well never even have seen a technical rig. The correct procedure by the way is for the sidemount guy to donate the regulator he is breathing from, offering it on the long (7ft) hose that is kept round his neck. He then switches to his alternate which is on a bungee necklace and immediately to hand below his chin. One of the reasons for this is that a panicked diver will often rip the reg from your face anyway, so make it SOP! As a sidenote (LOL) sidemount divers do have to switch regulators regularly throughout the dive so they breath down the cylinders equally. If the guy is already on his alternate necklace the primary will be clipped off and need to be released, and that should also have been in the brief.
Thinking: In diving there are only a few things that will actually kill you immediately. In this case, assuming that you haven't been paying attention and keeping a regular eye on your gauges, you can exist quite happily with no air for a minute or so at 13m. Think about situations in advance, eg by watching these sorts of video, and use your training to select the best option. Number one has to be getting that buddy air! Get his attention, use the correct signal, be insistent, rip that regulator!
If number 2 is an emergency ascent, remember your training. At 13m you are only 45 seconds from the surface, even with what will feel like a slow rate of ascent, except instead of holding your breath on the bottom you will have more than twice the volume of gas in your lungs by the time you get to the surface so you can actually let a lot of it go in a steady stream as you were taught. That's why we do the training, to show you that these scenarios aren't as scary as you'd think!
Plus points:
Despite sub-optimal actions from the start, the guy lived.
It was good to see how close these 2 guys were. If your buddy is more than 2 or 3 seconds away they're not your buddy, they are just a spectator!
Excellent comment, as usual, Tim. Spot on analyses. Thanks for adding this to the comment thread 👍
SM diver also fails for lack of curiosity (ie buddy monitoring) during the dive. He should’ve been aware of the gas situation of the most restrictive diver on the team (least gas) throughout the dive. Simply asking for an air check of his partners a few times throughout would’ve alerted him to the rapidly developing situation (short of a catastrophic equipment failure being the ooa cause)
Another good point, ooga booga 👍
In a typical sidemount configuration, it is primary donate, sort of. Since we breath off of both regs, sometimes we have the necklace in our mouth, sometimes we have the long hose. When I did my sidemount training, when we get an OOA signal from our buddy, the first thing we do is run our finger down our cheek to see if it is necklaced or not. If we are breathing off our necklace we reach down and unclip our long hose and donate it. Ideally your long hose should have a QD system of some sort instead of a tied on bolt snap, that way if you have bolt snap issues, or if your buddy simply needs it in a hurry they can just rip it off your d-ring. Of course the QD has disadvantages, it can come off. I just lost one the other day, I was at 20 feet in a 100+ feet deep sink hole, switching back from my oxygen reg, and the QD slipped off my long hose, into the murk below. $20 down the drain. *cry*
Of course that is a typical sidemount configuration with a short left hand hose, and a long hose to the right. Some run double long hose, and those that don't dive with their buddy (or simply dislike them) you sometimes see double short hose. Those guys with the weird Sweedish sideways regs sometimes don't just bolt snaps and just stick their regs in a bungee loop on their harness when they aren't breathing off them.
The key here is communication. I personally have my long hose with an orange long hose, an orange face plate thingy, and a reg mouthpiece so it sticks out a bit more, and in the photos I see of myself it seems to work.
Thanks for adding the useful context, TPL. I have zero experience with this configuration. Seems a buddy briefing is def in order.
@@DiscoveryDiversTokyo Definitely particularly since there is a somewhat solo mindset among sidemount crowd. We do gas matching, and the briefings but the general expectation is that a sidemount diver, like a CCR diver, should never need gas. As it would take two gas failures for them to have to rely on a buddy. If my sidemount or CCR buddy is working on an issue, I generally will watch and wait either until they tell me what they need or it is clear that they need help (like if your CCR buddy is shaking like he just watched an episode of Pokemon).
But that might be a cave thing, I don't interface much with the tech crowds outside of cave country. And we do have a somewhat unique mindset.
@@Teampegleg That's a very fair point, that since the SM diver had independent redundancy, he might have had that solo diving mindset.
This is why I always strap a 30cft pony to my main whenever I’m diving cold green water on a single tank.Know your equipment and you’re buddies. If you don’t know, ask. Always tell your buddy where to get air if he needs it before the dive.If you’re not communicating with you’re buddy before the dive they aren’t your buddy and you need to dive with a redundant air supply.
The OOA guy should have bailed on his “buddy” long before this happened.
I’m assuming he was in a dry suit too... a CESA in a dry suit is not something I ever want to experience.
They both Get an F from me.
Fair enough, StoneNT...I have #1 the pass for the well-executed CESA. You've got another good point about doing that CESA in drysuit...extra kudos...
new subscriber here, sir! really appreciate your video content as i do find them informative and engaging for both new and experienced divers so kudos!
now regarding the dive, i think the key point here is all about the quality of dive planning being observed. this is especially crucial if one is going to be diving with a buddy or a team with different dive gear configuration and level/s of training.
so given the pre-dive scenario,
- a clear set of hand signals should have been established or agreed upon together with discussion of possible emergency scenarios.
- part of the plan due to having a different dive gear configuration between diver 1 and diver 2 is an air-sharing drill or practice on the surface; most double sidemount divers follow a long hose primary with necklace 2nd stage config so air-sharing will be different for an OW-trained single-tank diver.
- diving coldwater can mean more work to keep warm so air consumption should have been regularly monitored with each diver signalling for remaining tank pressure from time to time.
Embarrassment !! I think they should try to do more to train that out of the equation.
My trainer was super calm, competent & compassionate.
Sounds like you had a great trainer 👍
Both divers sent back to retake OW 😆
Reasonable suggestion, Jonnie 👍
When any of my buddies does something you are taught not to at depth we make them wear a snorkel on the next few dives.... kind of like a dunce cap as a reminder. They still require you to wear them throughout the OW course?
@@StonedNT Hahaha...I like that 👍
Great learning lesson, Just music was too loud...
Ah, thanks for that feedback, Sam. Hard to get that balance right.
Part of my training in commercial divers class was we had to drain the tank at 80'.. It was in Seattle Washington, in December 1988, at Alki beach, the water temps was 45°, and my depth was 80'. We were wearing wet suits. I was useing an aluminum 80 tank.
I knew it was going to happen but just was not sure exactly when.
After what seemed like a long time, but maybe it was in reality about 40 minutes, I went to take a breath and it was like someone turned the tank off. I looked at the guy I was with and did the out of air signal and he went to hand me his octopus.. I politely waved it off ... Mainly because we were about 7' apart and I couldn't reach it.. so left with an empty tank, and lots of cold water, I decided I just as well head up. I slowly made my decent. And I did stay slower then my bubbles. Actually it was pretty much a normal accent. I was not panicking, or even excited. I simply went up as normal. Once at the surface my buddy appeared right next to me. He looked at his gauge and was really close to being empty, but still had air. Our instructor was telling us to empty our tanks on the bottom for training. He wanted us to get real life feeling of our of air outside of the swimming pool. Only four out the nine of us did it.
The amazing thing was I got to about 20 feet and I had air in my tank again and once on the surface, I said I wanted to go down to see if I could reach the bottom (just experimenting).. but after a short dip, I was out of air again. Lol.
It was part of the commercial dive training. By time the class was over I could easily free dive in a wetsuit to 33' and pick on the other divers that were practicing on the bottom. Lol.
I've never tested this personally, but first stages work on a pressure difference principle and a tank that is "out of serviceable air" at depth, will deliver more air at a shallower depth as a function fo the altered pressure difference between inside and outside of the tank. Also, the air in our hoses expands, yielding another small bonus.
Awesome!
@@DiscoveryDiversTokyo I was a little surprised that it expanded that much, but I got a couple breaths out of it at the surface. Lol.. of course I was a lot younger, and was diving everyday, swimming everyday, and a lot skinnier. Hehe
@@hearsejr We were all a lot skinnier!
@@DiscoveryDiversTokyo hahahaha
Analysis is spot on. I would say that there are OOA situations that are surprises. I certified my wife for Advanced diving and she was my first emergency in my career , because ofcourse she was...lol. Anyway she had an O-ring failure and her tank drained, but the failure wasn't explosive so no one noticed the bubbles between breaths. I had a class of around 10 students and 2 divemasters on tour. She grabbed my attention and showed me her gage and it was 0. I gave her the octo and up we went nice and controlled. One of my DMs followed the other stopped the group and held on the bottom. Made sure she was OK and tasked my DM to take her to shore went back down and completed the dive with my students. At first I was a bit miffed because my first thought was she missmanaged her air, but I still had 1500psi and my students were all around 1000-1200. After the dive we debriefed and she said she was checking her air, her last check had 600psi and she thought the dive was almost over, it wasn't until it became hard to breathe a few minutes later she checked her gage and realized she was OOA. An post mortem on the equipment found the O-ring almost cleaved into but not completely. Plenty of possibilities from a poor equipment check, poor seating of first stage, and just blind luck. Was a learning experience for all and best of all she didn't panic knowing she had air all around her closer than the surface.
Hi Weston...agreed, catastrophic failure is a (rare)possible and different animal 👍
Love your accident analysis series. Can you please not add audio onto the dive footage clips though? Just a suggestion.
Agree with score!
Thanks, ETP...I guess so far, consensus is I scored diver #1 too high at D+. I thought saving his own life counted for something. Maybe a flat D would have been better...
You need to be responsible for your own gas management 🤿🤦🏽♂️
Truth right there...
That annoyed response from the SM diver really is all I need to never want to dive with that person. I guess everyone gets some miscommunication during a dive every now and again, but responding in such a cranky way and then simply turning away and continuing, brr! I've had miscommunications we couldn't clear up, but turning away before your buddy at least gives a 'never mind' kind of gesture is, as you mentioned, inexcusable. Of course the camera man failed on his gas management big-time. Maybe he was intimidated or didn't want to be a burden or something? Still, low gas is low gas, not really much you can do, right?
Agreed, Ron. That was pretty shocking, huh? The only way I can frame this to think he might have had some justification was it diver #1 was "bothering" him the whole dive...
That's a fun one. We shoud do a video together one of these days! I think we both agree that we don't need to insult in order to educate.
Hey, Dive Vibe...sure thing...what kind of collab did you have in mind? I subbed your channel.
42ft running out of Air good accent, kept his head in the game not to panic. Side mount guy sometimes things aren't clear to people.
Good, concise summary...👍
How many CESAS have you done?
Ah, as an instructor for 15+ years, I guess I've done hundreds in a training setting, but none in an emergency. You?
@@DiscoveryDiversTokyo 0
I feel like it's easy to sit here and say 'he should of done this or that' without all of the stressors that the diver may have felt.
However I do feel like both divers were a little (very) ignorant.
Hard to believe someone went out of air rather than bother his buddy too much...
As an experienced diver, I know that a free ascent can be made safely from 60 feet (18.3m). Also, monitoring air consumption is the regular habit of an experienced diver. This is a "panic" move by someone I would not want to dive with!
That’s still 1 or 2 minutes (depending on the agency and their guidelines) for a safe ascent, I can’t even hold my breath for 30 seconds let alone doing a slow exhale for that time period or more. There’s few of us that can actually do this but it is possible. In an OOA situation, I doubt there is usually time to get a good lung full beforehand so I would argue that making a safe controlled ascent from this depth, although possible, is quite tricky and not likely to happen for most divers.
Moreover, as I’m sure you’d agree, it’s better gas management, redundancy and prevention of OOA situations that are key.
That’s why dive training is essential! You shouldn’t even be thinking about holding your breath on accent. No matter what air is in your lung spaces YOU can blow a slow stream of bubbles out as you surface from 60’ you just have to have the FAITH in science and yourself! Try it with supervision the first time, to put your mind at ease! It’s mind blowing! Read this link about Boyle’s law of gases! Cheers!
www.google.com/search?q=boyle's%20law&tbm=
@@SailtoUtopiaAdventures - PADI Controlled Emergency Safe Ascent (CESA) is from 9m, like I stated above, conducting a CESA from 18m is tricky and, yes, never hold your breath when diving (number 1 rule) especially on ascending as there is a risk of lung expansion injury or arterial gas embolism. What I meant was, try doing this on dry land and make the ‘arrrgh sound’ as you would during a CESA, it’s extremely difficult. Granted, ascending from 18m the air in your lungs will expand providing their was air there in the first place.
Under stand human physiology and know if you have been breathing normally at 60’ and your tank goes empty you will have enough air to slowly surface (which means staying below your smallest bubbles).
An embolism can occur if your ascent is too rapid!
@@SailtoUtopiaAdventures - and how does that work on an out of air situation? If the tank is empty there is no air left.. And yes, an embolism is from rapid ascent, that’s what I also said! PADI ascent rate is 18m per minute and SSI is 9m per minute so from 60’ / meters you’d would next to slowly exhale for 1 or 2 minutes, even with the air in your lungs expanding most people cannot do this, hence why a CESA training is 9m depth.
Agreed with the assessment of point 1: With the sole exception of a catastrophic failure of equipment (which is well-beyond extraordinarily rare), there is zero excuse for running out of air.
Point 2: Absolutely, part of your pre-dive briefing is briefing gear configuration, signals, the plan, gas management, and acknowledgment of an understanding of the brief. That being said, “long hose” is “long hose”. Doesn’t matter if it’s back mount or sidemount. Donation of a long hose is the same. Whichever one is not on a neck lace.
Point 3: The out of air signal is pretty universal... Honestly, there’s also zero excuse for diver 1 to simply ignore diver 2’s signals. Pay attention, take time to understand, and acknowledge your buddy’s communication. It’s all part of crew coordination.
Point 4: Spot on about traveling at the speed of the slowest bubbles.
Thanks, Pinnacle. Hope the channel is doing well 👍
Diver one at fault. 1 There is never a reason to run out of air. You have a gauge. 2 Out air signal is very clear. I side mount. I see the signal he gets my regulator. He does not have to search for it.
Panic throws that out the window. Side mount should have recognized that, especially a diver with 1100 dives. Sidemount is a dick. Ooa diver is poorly trained and inexperienced.
when I first started diving in early 1970s all we had was a J valve no gauges of any kind that was when men were men!!!!
I’ve seen those, but never tried!
Still have 2 on my old steel 72's
@@DavidKozinski Cool! What (if any) were the downsides of that system in your experience?
@@DiscoveryDiversTokyo No real downside for me other than dirty looks and stores that don't want to fill them. The J-Valve was as simple as you can get for a safe bailout of a bad situation.
@@DavidKozinski OK< got it...I have a vague recollection that one risk was that the value might be accidentally actuated before the end of the dive. Is that possible? In transport, gearing up or during the dive?