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It was a 97-foot dive, and
I was very embarrassed.
My dive buddy was holding
it back, but I could tell he
was upset with me. I never
told him how close I came
to running out of air, but I
apologized profusely, telling
him I would never do that
again. I spoke with another
diver, a former instructor,
and told him what had
happened. He told me he
had made the same mistake
once — got carried away
with what he was doing and
forgot to watch his gauges.
I was thinking, “Wow, and
you’re a dive instructor!” I
was shocked at how easily
you can lose sight of your
depth. I mentally vowed
to stay with my buddy on
future dives and to watch
my gauges.
ANALYSIS
This diver was lucky that she
realized how low her tank pressure
was when she did. Much longer
at that depth and she would likely
have run out of air before she
made it back to the surface. At
DAN®, we receive fatality reports
every year about divers who
weren’t so lucky. Running out of air
doesn’t automatically lead to death,
but when coupled with panic and a
rapid ascent, which may be
more common among
inexperienced divers, the
consequences can be grave.
An Australian study followed a
thousand recreational scuba dives
and determined that, compared with
divers who surfaced with plenty of
air remaining, divers who surfaced
low on air were more than 20 times
more likely to be surprised by how
little air they had left. In other
words, like the diver involved in
this incident, they were simply not
paying attention to their gauges.
Recently I took up underwater
photography again after a long
break. In the past few years I’d been
diving plenty but without a camera.
The first thing I rediscovered was
how utterly distracting a camera
can be when you find something
you want to photograph. It is very
easy to forget to keep an eye on
your depth or air, and this is one
reason why DAN resolutely suggests
recreational divers dive with a buddy.
In this incident a buddy signaled the
diver before she ran out of air and
accompanied her to the surface, able
to render assistance if needed.
This diver had a close call,
learned a valuable lesson and lived
to dive another day. Staying calm
during her ascent, staying near her
buddy and inflating her BCD at the
surface were all essential elements
in her incident being harmless.
Another aspect of this case is
particularly relevant to modern
divers. In the earlier days of
underwater photography, when
divers used rolls of 24- or 36-shot
film, waterproof cameras were
quite an investment, and it was
far more common then for divers
to be very experienced before
buying their first camera. Today,
however, as this diver showed, even
newly certified divers pick up the
now relatively inexpensive hobby
of underwater photography —
before they have developed keen
situational awareness through many
dives. This relative inexperience
and the distraction a camera offers
make for an unsafe combination
underwater. Therefore, newer
divers who want to take their
cameras underwater are advised
to discuss the dive plan with their
buddies before entering the water
and to carefully consider the added
risk of distraction. AD Tel: +(680) 488-1062
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