Scuba Dive West is a diving centre in the beautiful Connemara area of County Galway, anyone wanting to dive in Ireland, this is an area not to be missed.

On the first day of diving I was buddied up with Ken, this was to be a boat dive.  On the way to the dive site the skipper gave us a brief of the dive, we then kitted up, performed our buddy checks.

On entering the water we descended the shot line and at the sea bed took bearings and then went off round the reef.  As planned at 100bar we turned about and headed back to the shot line.  Ken showed me he had 50bar left and I responded with the 'up' signal which he acknowledged and we slowly ascended.  Then all of a sudden he descended for no apparent reason so I followed suit - finding him on the sea bed.  He signalled he had cramp then signalled to his chest also giving the 'out of air' sign.  I responded by giving him my octopus, after a couple of minutes asked him if he was OK - he signalled OK.  I signalled 'up' and we returned to the surface with a controlled buoyant lift, not stopping at 6m (checking my computer it indicated no stops were required).

On surfacing I signalled to the boat, the skipper pulled alongside and we de-kitted Ken and got him into the boat.  Once on board Ken seemed OK!, during the de brief Ken said that at  50bar he had got cramp, his chest tightened and he could not breathe on his DV.  On checking his gauge later he realised he was on zero air.

Two months prior to this incident I had gone through my Open Rescue training as part of my Sport Diver qualification with Carl Wilkinson.  The training I received had allowed me to go into 'automatic mode’ and rescue of my buddy.

Thanks to our excellent instructors at an excellent club, I feel that the training probably helped me to save someone’s life –thank you.