Posted by MHK on September 04, 2001 at 16:01:19:
In Reply to: Re: Oh, the old my air is my air deal posted by joe chandler on September 04, 2001 at 14:40:12:
Joe,
I've done many accident anaylsis respecting situations exactly the same as this one. For certain we'll never know for sure, but there is a fair amount of information and support for the following theory:
When you have a buddy breathing situation, absent an oral inflation by the OOA diver, what you often have is the donor controlling the ascent. He does so by *overinflating* his BC to compensate for the lack of inflation of the OOA diver. Many fatalities have occured this way because what you'll find is that the OOA diver lacks the wherewithal to ascend, he is over breathing and could perhaps have a C02 buidlup. Moreover, he is paniced to begin with. To that end if the donor is overinflated and the OOA diver has no inflation source it is very easy to create distance if they pair isn't practiced or skilled in this scenario.. The result will be the donor shoots to the surface and the OOA diver sinks.. It APPEARS that is exactly what happened in this fatality...
I have been beating this issue to death in teh last few weeks, but all the instructors seem to think that teaching this skill on the knees is teh way to go.. I, obviously diagree, and sadly I have yet more support for the position.. I, once again, find it interesting that the defenders of this practice are very vocal when the issue is theoretical in nature, but the silence is defeaning when the issue becomes a real fatality...
Later