The Fatal Flaw
This leads us to the fatal flaw in the whole idea of a left-mounted octopus:
In the two most likely out-of-air scenarios, the out-of-air diver ends up with your primary second stage — either because you passed it voluntarily or the out-of-air diver simply took it from you. If your only remaining second stage is mounted on the left hand side, you won’t be able to use it.
If you try to, there is a good possibility you will get it in your mouth upside down, start inhaling water — and then you will be the diver in distress…not the guy who is hogging your only usable second stage.
Years ago, I asked then-NAUI Training Director Jim Hicks if he had a preference as to which second stage you should pass an out-of-air diver. “So long as both divers end up with a working second stage,” he asked, “does it matter?”
That’s really the bottom line: You can’t always control which second stage the out-of-air diver may get. So, whatever you do, make certain that the second stage you are left with is one you can breathe from. In that respect, a normal, right-hand second stage mounted on your left side just isn’t going to cut it.
In fairness, I’m not aware of a single diving accident attributed to which side of a diver’s regulator the alternate-air-source was located. This may be due, to a large degree, to the fact you rarely see divers with left-mounted octopuses any more. They were more common in the 1970s and 1980s, when a now-extinct training organization was promoting them — chiefly as a way to be different from everybody else. This is why the left-mounted octopus gets a mere Bronze Turkey Award (instead of the more prestigious Gold or Silver Turkeys).
One a final note, if you are truly concerned about the possibility of you or another diver putting your alternate air source in upside down, there’s an easy and safe solution: Simply switch to a side-exhaust octopus, such as those made by AquaLung, Apeks, Poseiden, Dacor and others. It is physically impossible to put one of these second stages in upside down, no matter which side of the regulator it is on.
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