On 18 Dec 2000, at 9:33, David Strike wrote:


>
> It's probably trite to sugest that with proper planning nobody should be in
> that sort of situation where they're likely to be low on gas.  (Being out of
> gas completely, of course, could be because of a catastrophic equipment
> failure.)  Becoming stuck in a narrow passage is something else again.

I don't think it's trite. Poor planning is a fact with diving. It happens.
IN the case of catastrophic failures, I would suggest that the
following diver would be aware of the possible biggies, a reg
freeflow, shot oring, bent/damaged valve/manifold, by the amount of
bubbles suddently coming from the lead diver, even in a tight
restriction. Now what he could do about that, in a tight restriction is
a whole nuther thing....

We do have light signals to indicate a problem. That would be my
best suggestion for this situation.


>
> It's easy to conceive of  a range of gizmos - audible signalling devices;
> tail light signalling devices, etc. - but these would all rely on the lead
> diver being in a position to activate them.  They are also additional
> failure points and - from that point of view - unreliable.

Adding another failure point here is undesirable and imo, not
needed.


>
> Assuming that the legs/fins of the lead diver are easily visible to those
> behind - and that there is sufficient room for the distressed diver to move
> them - then some sort of leg signals would be an obvious method.  The
> problem there is that in an out of gas situation there is little time for
> calculated thought on the part of the stuck diver.
>
> If it was me in that situation, all that you'd notice was some frantic
> thrashing followed by a few twitches and then no movement at all! :-)

:-)


>
> Strike


~~~~~~~~~
Mike
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