Buddy breathing.

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:06:31 +0000 (UTC), gordon@lion.drogon.net
(Gordon Henderson) wrote:

>Then.... Once you have practiced it, go and read the BSAC incident
>reports and find out how many divers have made successfull ascents
>buddy breathing in a real out of air situation, and how many have died
>in the process.
>
>Then go and buy yourself an octopus regulator and forget about buddy
>breathing ever again.

Or better yet a pony so you are not reliant on anyone else

Buddy breathing has been confined to the history books for very good
reasons

Pete
diving 'at' melbourne 'dot' me 'dot' uk

"david" <im@fedup.com> wrote in message
news:cft21l$e2l$1@sparta.btinternet.com...
> > > Can anyone outline the correct method for buddy
> > > breathing (i.e 2 divers / 1reg)
> >
> > In a word - DON'T
> >
>
> agree
>
> > It is a pointless skill that is long past its sell-by date, to get into
> the
> > situation where BB is actually required you have to construct scenarios
of
> > multiple failures and/or poor planning and equipment configuration.
> >
>
> not convinced It is a skill that I have and dont plan to use.there might
be
> a slim chance of it helping me or someone else. It is not a skill that
> should be taught to a novice diver.

It is one of those skills that should be kept floating around somewhere -
not as a tool for getting out of situations but as one of those
"watershipmanlyness" things - kind of like in the
PADI-DM-full-kit-swap-while-buddy-breathing test.

Jan made Dave and I (and the rest of the mob) do it on our RD course for a
bit of stress-load as most of us hadn't done it before. I suspect he was
looking to see how we coped with new situations (the "oops there goes my
buddies mask, oh dear I've run out of air" drills that followed seemed to
bear this out!).

At more advanced recreational levels (RD, Sports etc.) it is worthwhile in a
training capacity to get divers working together and thinking about each
other's needs in a stress-loaded situation, it also gives confidence about
being under water with no source of air in your gob.

It is not a skill to be taught to a novice as the skills you learn early in
anything are the ones that you go back to subconciously. Having only
recently had one experience of practising BB I reckon that it won't pop into
my head at a time of crisis. What will, I can't say until it happens, but
I'm pretty sure it my reg goes AWOL I'll just be swapping to an octo rather
than having it back after a couple of breaths!!

> > It was removed from BSAC training some time ago, the reason for that was
> > there is a danger of it becoming a conditioned response in an OOA
> situation.
> > Trawl through the incident reports and you will find examples where
people
> > have died trying to BB whilst ignoring a perfectly functioning Octo/Pony
> > AAS!
> >
> > BB has no place in ordinary recreational diving IMHO, that's a view that
> > I've been arguing for years
> >
> > Keith L
> >
> but Keith do you know how to do it ?
> I cant supply a situation that would suggest using it would be the best
> option.

I think someone on Dnet came up with one feasable but stupendously low odds
situation where it might be the best option but that was for some technical
diving thingy rather than recreational. So in short, no, there are none!

CAS

don't.

it's a potentially dangerous practice unless practised regularly and under a
true simulated out of gas scenario. ascents can be interesting as both
divers need to control rate of ascent. don't forget the buddy oog can't
easily inflate drysuit / bcd.

the 'procedure' though....

1. divers make L shape with donor on the right of the receiver (bottom of
the L) *if* donors 2nd stage comes over their right shoulder. donor grasps
pillar valve of receiver with left hand to maintain good contact. likewise,
receiver grasps pillar valve of donor with right hand
2. both hold onto reg but leave purge button accessible to both
3. establish good breathing pattern - usually 2 breaths then exchange
4. once good breating pattern established, commence the joy of the ascent.

problems to overcome on the ascent is how to dump gas. one hand holding the
2nd stage, other maintaining contact with buddy. gets interesting very
quickly. can be resolved by the donor controlling the ascent and relying on
the receiver to maintain physical contact. unless the buddy pair have
practised this a lot then the management of the ascent gets pretty complex.

octopus is better but redundant gas supply is best.
unless you're into deco, a controlled 'emergency' swimming ascent is easily
feasible from 30m. with the expansion of gas in the lungs there need be no
emergency about it as invaribly you'll have a greater desire to breathe out
than in.

david wrote:

> I cant supply a situation that would suggest using it would be the best
> option.

One of a pair deco diving freeflows their accelerated deco mix so
you just both deco on one cylinder. You could do your deco then
hand the mix over but if you have helium in your back gas you don't
want to go back onto helium however you don't want to leave your
buddy.

I've played it as a drill and it gets boring after a while but you can
keep it up all day once you get into the swing of it.

nigelH

"John Kendall" <news@johnkendall.com> wrote in message news:<2oe687F9i70aU1@uni-berlin.de>...
> "James" <james1212@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> newsmlUc.181930$a8.169274@fe2.news.blueyonder.co .uk...
> > Can anyone outline the correct method for buddy breathing (i.e 2 divers /
> > 1reg)
>
> Firstly, find yourself a suitable shallow site to practice. then:
>
> Hold on to each other.
> Both hold onto the reg
> Diver 1 takes two breaths, and then passes the reg to Diver 2
> Diver 2 takes two breaths, and then passes it back.
> Repeat.
>
> Once you have got practiced doing it like this, then you can start to think
> about doing an ascent while doing it.
>
> HTH
> John

There are 2 errors in this description - both rather important.

1 The donor simply must retain control of the regulator - it is
inevitable that the OOA will grab the reg. to attempt to get his
breath back and cover his panic with the result that the donor will
lose his air supply !! Net result disaster.

2 During the ascent with sharing the person holding his breath
should allow a very small dribble of air out of his mouth in order to
release pressure in the lungs. In order to get this right during the
ascent, this should also be done when the time on the bottom is being
used to calm the panic, etc.

The records show the number of failures of this procedure - what they
don't show is the number of successes. How do the authorities know
just how many divers have actually survived due to buddy sharing.
This sounds to me like a misuse of statistics. It took me several
attempts to get this right from 10m mainly because I dribble air out
ot fast when I was holding my breath, but I'm glad I learnt it even if
I never have to do it.

I'm concerned that dive training is being dumbed down and made too
easy so that trainees do not gain enough confidence through a number
of excercises which stretch them into situations which are less
common.

Rob

Rob

> I'm concerned that dive training is being dumbed down and made too
> easy so that trainees do not gain enough confidence through a number
> of excercises which stretch them into situations which are less
> common.

First A-Levels were being accused of being dumbed down, now its diving...
what next!

Anyway, a common theme you will notice through this thread is that no one
can find any set of circumstances where buddy breathing would be needed.
Possibly preferable to know for deco, but not crucial, and not putting
yourself in danger by not knowing how. You would need such a complex series
of failures to occur before buddy breathing would be at all relevant in
modern sports diving that its not worth the added possibility of confusion
and risk by teaching it.

For those experienced divers it might be a nice excercise to practice, just
for a bit of fun really - i've done it with one reg between three people and
stationary at least it was no problem for three relatively experienced
divers, and that was with no discussion of how to do it, never having done
it before, and just sort of deciding to have a go while sat on the bottom
(two were snorkelling). If there was a situation on a dive where our lives
depended on it, i'm sure we'd manage without too much trouble. For the less
experienced, they might not, but they they're also more likely to misuse it
and try it when they shouldn't.

Like everything in diving, its all about balancing risk. We could all carry
4 independent 3l cylinders rather than a single 12, it would certainly
minimise the effect of failure, but at what cost? It looks like its giving
you more options, but in reality the extra complexity of the setup would
probably cause more problems than say twin 6's. Knowing 10 different
methods to lift an unconscious buddy to the surface might seem like a good
idea, but what happens when you start using the grip of one, the bouyancy
control of another, the positioning of another - before you know it you're
confused, running out of air, and still on the bottom.

Everything has its place - and I think for buddy breathing that it is
something to play around with in the pool when you're bored.

David

"Gordon Henderson" <gordon@lion.drogon.net> wrote in message
> Then.... Once you have practiced it, go and read the BSAC incident
> reports and find out how many divers have made successfull ascents
> buddy breathing in a real out of air situation, and how many have died
> in the process.

How many have there been, actually? The incident reports from 1997 to 2003
are available online. Few fatalities were due to failed buddy breathing
attempts in those years. On the other hand, there were some that followed
AAS attempts. Noone knows how many successful BB or AAS ascents there were.

I agree that using an alternative air source is safer than trying to buddy
breathe, but I don't think the incident statistics (in the years leading up
to the ban by BSAC, at least) necessarily substantiate that opinion.

Philip Smith

> There are 2 errors in this description - both rather
> important.
>
> 1 The donor simply must retain control of the regulator -
> it is inevitable that the OOA will grab the reg. to attempt
> to get his breath back and cover his panic with the result
> that the donor will lose his air supply !! Net result
> disaster.

I would tend to say that the donor should hold the hose next to the reg. By
the time that you have two divers trying to hold the reg itself, trying to
get to the purge button when you discover that you've exhaled a little too
far can be a bit of an issue.

Iain

Iain Smith wrote:
>>I've used BB for real. However it was because of a deco gas
>>failure. BB got us out of the water quickest, and therefore
>>warmest. We did have other options available to us though.
>
>
> That's a good point. I've been fairly happy with the idea that, while we did
> 20 minutes of stops BB'ing, it was actually unnecessary, but given some of
> the suit floods you've had (on a fairly regular basis since!) that's an
> important consideration.

Not exactly regularly. Only twice (That were particularly serious floods)

However If I had to do another 20 mins of Stops during one of those
times, I would have seriously considered binning stops, getting on O2 on
the surface and hoping for the best.

John

> It is one of those skills that should be kept floating around somewhere -
> not as a tool for getting out of situations but as one of those
> "watershipmanlyness" things - kind of like in the
> PADI-DM-full-kit-swap-while-buddy-breathing test.
>
> Jan made Dave and I (and the rest of the mob) do it on our RD course for a
> bit of stress-load as most of us hadn't done it before. I suspect he was
> looking to see how we coped with new situations (the "oops there goes my
> buddies mask, oh dear I've run out of air" drills that followed seemed to
> bear this out!).

I was taught this about 21 years ago when I started diving but then it was
one reg each and no choice.
things have changed. But it is still a skill worth knowing.
>
> At more advanced recreational levels (RD, Sports etc.) it is worthwhile in
a
> training capacity to get divers working together and thinking about each
> other's needs in a stress-loaded situation, it also gives confidence about
> being under water with no source of air in your gob.
>
This maybe the only valid augment in its favour. To create a stressful
situation
> CAS
>
>

And we all had a great time on our Rescue Course.

David