@Leigh Downey nice one Leigh. Fingers crossed the the divers will stick together and get this over the line. You're stronger together than as individuals

Nice one Leigh, we need more coordinated unions in the industry. We've seen it work well in the offshore sector of the UK. Hopefully everyone gets onboard with this

Hey mate, good on you for posting this. It takes guts to talk about aborting a dive, but straight up: if you can’t breathe, do what you can to correct it, if you cant get ahold of it, open your bailout and abort. You did the right thing, 100%. Honestly, I’m pretty surprised your instructor or supervisor didn't sit down with you properly afterward to figure out if it was mechanical, psychological, or just overexertion, and give you another crack at it. ​To be honest, what you’re describing sounds a lot less like claustrophobia and way more like gas starvation and CO2 buildup from overbreathing the hat. ​Going straight from tropical waters into the freezing cold is a massive shock to the body. Throw in heavy workload and high breathing rate, and it’s super easy to start out-breathing what the regulator can deliver. When your lungs want air and the hat isn't giving it fast enough, CO2 builds up fast, your brain hits the panic button, and it gives you that horrible suffocating, trapped feeling. ​Here’s what I’d recommend doing next time you feel the hat getting "tight" or you start feeling short of breath under a heavy workload: ​Flush the hat: Open up your steady-flow / defogger valve on the side block and crack it for a few seconds. Giving the hat a good flush dumps any trapped CO2 that’s building up in the dead space and gives you fresh air straight over your face. ​Back off the Dial-a-Breath: Unwind the adjustment knob on the reg until it just starts to free-flow, then nip it back until it just stops. ​Pause and reset: Stop what you're doing for a second. Try to overcome the urge to gasp. Take slow, deep breaths to let the gas catch up through the umbilical and get your heart rate back down. ​Talk to your supervisor: Don't suffer in silence down there. Call up to the surface and ask them to bump up the line pressure from the panel. Sometimes LP compressors just struggle to keep up on deeper or high-workload dives. Getting switched over to HP gas means they can bring that line pressure up.