# Talk:Buddy breathing

If anyone has a nice photo of buddy breathing, please upload to commons and link here. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The article does not seem likely to expand much. Should it be merged with a redirect? If so, into what article? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 11:04, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

About the only thing I'd like to see added is the research indicating that the first technique learned often becomes the default response in panic situations, so buddy breathing should never be the first air-sharing technique taught. But I'd have to find the reference for that.
I looked through the list of articles linking to Buddy breathing and came up with these candidates for a merge:
Buddy diving - has a possibly suitable section, Provision of emergency breathing gas, but you'd have to look at the balance between buddy breathing and the Donating the primary/octopus sections (which are far more important, IMHO).
Diver rescue - relevant section would be Providing emergency gas, but it's an overview and a merge would give it WP:UNDUE weight, I think.
Scuba skills - in the section Emergency air sharing, there's a paragraph already that could be expanded. I'd still be concerned about UNDUE, though.
Recreational diver training - an overview article.
So, I think my recommendation would be to leave it where it is. The technique is not favoured by any agency that I'm aware of, and merging it into another article, especially at the same level as 'donating the primary/octopus' gives it more credibility than it deserves nowadays. At least within its own article, there's space to explain why it's a bad idea in general and at best considered as a last resort. --RexxS (talk) 14:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, If you find that reference about default response, please let me know. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:48, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

 

Although quite small, it seems to fit the criteria, so I am promoting. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:28, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

When you have more than three citations in a row, you might want to use Template:Sfnm to aid readability. This template supports the inclusion of multiple sources in a single footnote. BorgQueen (talk) 20:41, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

... that buddy breathing is the only emergency air sharing technique that can be used with the most basic scuba diving equipment?

ALT1: ... that the buddy breathing technique, which was invented in the military, has been used since the start of recreational diving? Source: 
ALT2: ... that one study suggests that the buddy breathing technique needs to be practised twenty times to be reasonably successful? Source: Egstrom, Glen H (1992). "Emergency air sharing" (PDF). South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal. 22 (4). Retrieved 2013-12-18.
Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Ruth El Saffar

~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:16, 10 October 2025 (UTC).

 @Pbsouthwood, AirshipJungleman29,  and It is a wonderful world: Article recently brought to GA and in overall good shape. QPQ is good; used on three other noms, but it has four boldlinks. Hooks are interesting and cited appropriately and inline. However, Earwig flags a few sentences: a diver could respond to running out of air at depth, in which the incompetence of one diver can, and submersible pressure gauges made reliable air supply monitoring possible and running out of air became less common are all flagged as being exact copies or almost word-for-word. This needs to be resolved, and should be looked into further to see if there are more plagiarism issues. ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 03:47, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
I have rewritten the listed statements and they no longer show up on Earwig. I don't see anything else flagged that appears problematic, but let me know if you find anything else. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:51, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Four boldlinks where? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:01, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
The boldlinks comment refers to AirshipJungleman29's QPQ. Not an issue, no worries! ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 15:29, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Looks good now.  ~Darth StabroTalk • Contribs 16:59, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
@AirshipJungleman29, Pbsouthwood,  and Darth Stabro: As I reviewed for promotion, it looked like there's some WP:CLOP in the "History" section from [1]; see here. Dclemens1971 (talk) 04:31, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
Dclemens1971, Which of the very ordinary and commonly used in this context phrases highlighted by Earwigs tool do you consider too close to the source phrasing? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 05:00, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
Compare the examples below. The ideas are repeated virtually in identical order, even if some of the words have been changed (and a few text strings are repeated verbatim). Dclemens1971 (talk) 06:06, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
Source passage 1: This technique has been used since the earliest days of recreational diving, and along with the emergency ascent (originally termed the “blow and go”), it became one of the two ways a diver could respond to running out of air at depth. Back when recreational diving began, all regulators were of a double hose configuration... One advantage of this design was that it made it easy for two divers in a face-to-face position to share the regulator mouthpiece. Article: The procedure has been used since the beginnings of recreational diving, and along with the free ascent, it was one of the standard responses a diver could use if they ran out of air underwater. At that time twin-hose regulators were the norm, and it was reasonably easy for two divers to share the regulator mouthpiece while facing each other.
Source passage 2: Buddy breathing was a particularly important skill in the early days of diving because running out of air was a common occurrence (so common it wasn’t even considered an “emergency”). Lacking reserve valves or submersible pressure gauges, divers had little idea how much air was actually in their tanks while they were underwater. But by the mid-1960s, with the introduction of submersible pressure gauges, continual and accurate sir supply monitoring was possible. And running out of air became much less common.Article: Buddy breathing was an important skill before reserve valves and submersible pressure gauges were generally available, and running out of air was so common that it was not considered an emergency. By the mid-1960s the commercial availability of submersible pressure gauges made it possible to reliably monitor the remaining air supply, and it became less common to run out of air during a dive.
Source passage 3: By the late 1960s... single-hose regulators made buddy breathing a more complicated technique. Article: In the late 1960s single-hose regulators started to take over as the standard, and this complicated the buddy breathing procedure.
They are simple concepts and those are logical orders to describe them, but if you can describe them in different orders, this is Wikipedia, and you are free and welcome to do so as long as the meaning is accurately preserved. Please note that the text strings that are repeated verbatim generally tend to be standard terminology, and in some cases lose or change their meaning if not repeated verbatim. For example, a submersible pressure gauge is a specific type of thing. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:55, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
These examples are similar to previous instances of paraphrasing that have resulted in nominations not getting promoted or queued (or getting pulled at a later review point), which is why I didn't feel comfortable promoting any of these hooks when I reviewed it. Perhaps revising these passages to less closely paraphrase the source would help. That said, I'm not pulling the tick, and if another promoter wants to move this forward, they can at their discretion. Dclemens1971 (talk) 14:29, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
 marking as on hold while issues are resolved. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:55, 21 November 2025 (UTC)