Breathing directly off cyl valve-useful?

[Finless]

Having nearly killed myself (own stupid fault) I can confirm that breathing off the cylinder valve would be far more preferable than trying to breath water.

Having said that, if everything I take in the water failed at the same time (as a now solo diver) then I'll be very surprised and soon to be dead I suppose.

[Tigerbeach]

Back in the old days, I taught the "ditch and don" exercise with tank and BC vest.
Padi, at the time disallowed it, but Naui allowed me to teach "Above" the standards, so I did it anyway.

One day, On Oahu, while on a final dive with a class, a student found an octopus.
I caught it, and made a little cave in my hands for it to hide while I showed it off to the class.
That octo must have seen something it liked, because it took off and jetted right towards the prettiest girls crotch. We were all torn, I'm sure as to whether we should try to grab it...The octo, I mean.
It ended up swimming up into her Scubapro BC, and squeezing it's way out the opening the tank band went through.
I had her do the ditch and don exercise while we got the little guy out, and swam him back to the reef.

I never doubted that I taught valid skills to my students.

[Papa Bear]

It is amazing to me the number of people who can't or wont do a bailout in the pool! I understand not bothering with such skills at the Basic levels, but I think they should be in the Master Diver and any Senor certification as well as instructor course! Just my feeling about making better top notch divers beyond the basic!

[seasnake]

The self appointed SCUBA guru in my area often boasts about being able to do this, and for that reason it gave me a chuckle when I saw them doing it in the movie "Into the Blue". So there is a good reason right there to know the skill: you may have to emergency free dive into a sunken plane after a pretty but greedy cocaine addict ...

It would be nice to learn and practice just as a mental exercise of staying calm and collected underwater and being able to complete a difficult task. I have to agree with the thought, though, that in real life if you have had such catastrophic failures with all your equipment and are left with no team mate to help you out, so that your only option is to now strip your gear off, remove your first stage from your tank and breath directly from the tank valve, you are having a very, very, very bad day. I guess if there is no other alternative, it'd be worth a shot. Same as breathing the air that might be in your BCD, if that's all that's left, might as well give it a shot. But whew, how bad are things if it has come to that?

[Papa Bear]

As I have said it is an exercise only, that is how it was presented to me, a confidence builder!

[acelockco]

That octo must have seen something it liked, because it took off and jetted right towards the prettiest girls crotch. We were all torn, I'm sure as to whether we should try to grab it...The octo, I mean..

Ahh Mr. Bond this must be your 13th film.