Me and three buds decided to take a weekend trip of spearfishing at pensacola. We chartered a boat with a great captain who knew where to put us on the fish! Our first dive was a russian barge resting at 110'.
My buddy and I began shooting AJ as soon as the wreck came in sight. Fish were everywhere so it was a matter of securing your shot and preparing for another. Near the end of our dive,my buddy shot a fish and got his gear all tangled up. I was down to 900 psi and knew we needed to head up, he gave me a signal to hold one sec while he untangled his gun. I turned my back to sightsee a sec., all at once he tackles me and takes my reg out of my mouth!
I knew the problem, he was out of air and we were at 110'. He was panicking and I knew his survival and mine would depend on me keeping my head calm. I had no opportunity to grap my oct. because he was ascending with my reg.. I immediately grabbed his hand to control the reg sharing. and his BC to control our ascent. We safely ascended to 30' buddy breathing when he shook loose from me and swam to the surface.
Not being sure of our ascent I made a 3 min safety stop at 15' and then ascended to find him already in the dive boat shaken but OK. Later he found that he had bruised his ribs from lung overexpasion from the 30' ascend but it was nothing major. I found out later from a dive instr. that the survival rate for an incident like that is 5%.
I give all the credit to God for keeping me calm and giving me the sense to take control. I don't recommend anyone learning anything this way but it is a lesson that He nor I will ever forget and since then it has never come close to happening again b/c He watches his air more than the fish now!
Three months later I was in destin bay diving the jetties when along comes another diver requesting to dive with me. I did'nt have a buddy with me so i said sure! I asked him if all his equip. was ready to go and checked his gear to make sure.
I made a mistake because i failed to check his air gauge. I don't know what he went down with but it sure was'nt a full tank or else he sucked it down like nobodys business. Anyhow after diving 30 min. He comes up to me givning me the out of air signal. i give him my oct. and we go up!
Whew!!
twice in three months, I don't know maybe i'm bad luck
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