Buddy breathing is a rescue technique used in scuba diving "out of gas" emergencies, when two divers share one demand valve, alternately breathing from it. To a large extent it has been superseded by safer and more reliable techniques using additional equipment.
Running out of breathing gas most commonly happens as a result of poor dive planning or failure to adequately monitor remaining gas supply during the dive. It can also happen due to unforeseen exertion or breathing equipment failure.
Equipment failure resulting in the loss of all gas could be caused by failure of a pressure retaining component such as an o ring or hose in the regulator or, in cold conditions, a freezing of water in the regulator resulting of a free flow from the demand valve.
Read more about Buddy Breathing: Technique, Alternatives, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words buddy and/or breathing:
“So, my sweetheart back home writes to me and wants to know what this gal in Bombay’s got that she hasn’t got. So I just write back to her and says, “Nothin’, honey. Only she’s got it here.””
—Alvah Bessie, Ranald MacDougall, and Lester Cole. Raoul Walsh. Sergeant Tracey, Objective Burma, to a buddy (1945)
“You have been here only a short time, Mr. Barnard. You cannot know what it is to live here month upon month, year after year, breathing this infernal air, absorbing the miasma of barbarity that permeates these walls, especially this chamber.”
—Richard Matheson (b. 1926)