Unknown Woody From “Dive Talk” DCS and Medical Journey

[L13]

Hindsight is always 20/20. A headache coming up? Must have sinuous issue…

Given the depth at which it occurred (~70ft), the headache was very unlikely to be DCS related. His tissue N2 pressures were still likely at or below ambient at that point. So he definitely should get a pass on that.

Though it might be a hint as to why he got DCS on a dive that did not seem that aggressive. Obviously something made him more susceptible than normal.

 

[L13]

Headache is also a classic sign of CO2 buildup.

This is a much more likely reason for the headache than DCS given the depth at which it occured.

 

[CT-Rich]

That's the hangup for the majority of us here. They knew better. I think they all let they ego's citi the situation rather than looking at it with concern. An incident turned into an emergency because they were fụcking around. The emergency became life or death because the evac insurance was no longer capable of contacting the island evac sources during working hours. Now they are putting their sob story on YouTube while blaming DAN instead of accepting responsibility for their disregard to DCS symptoms. A single phone call, free of charge, would have set them in the right path but the chose food and fun.

Watching the video and listening to them gripe over paper work, I thought of two things. First, the cost of being med-evac’d for a non-covered medical event. You see that with ambulance transport in the US all the time. My mother needed to be transported from the hospital to another facility during the height of the pandemic. There was no other way to do it. It was declined and we were on the hook for $1,600. Air Evacaution by helicopter typically cost much more than the $8,000 Woody put on his card. He, at least, could have covered it.

The second part was why they waited. Getting back to a recompression chamber would have sh!t the pants on a trip they had invested thousands in and spent a lot of time setting up. This is an example of an “undeserved hit.” Woody hadn’t significantly gone outside the dive plan and his computer said he should be okay. How often do you hear about people having a relatively minor fall or seemingly innocuous thing like numbness or tingling only to find out later that it was a heart attack or stroke. My father got his pacemaker only because he had a heart attack while hooked to a machine for an unrelated medical procedure.

At what point after a fall, fender bender, shortness of breath do you realize it isn’t just a a minor annoyance? Our US medical system encourages us to “just sleep it/ walk it off.”

 

[L13]

They did. I understood what happened.

So, when he makes it sound like he was in serious condition exiting the water, you understood that it was exaggerated just part of his shtick? And when he says DAN was unresponsive, you understood that he was stating the literal facts?

And DAN and the rest of us are just too clueless in our sense of humor to know the difference, so should just accept your judgement.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

They did. I understood what happened.

Me too.

2 guys go to a cave in a remote destination without any contignecy plan (no one called CC companies to let them know, no one planned where the nearest chamber was or logistics to get there) and decide to do a deco dive through a tight restriction that's never been done before with their current gear setup. 1 guy gets a hit and then they buy steaks and laugh about how ****** up the day was, wait 6 4 hours to call DAN and then get irritated that they can't get an immidiate evacuation off an island that's all but shut down for the evening. Sound about right? Those are all facts based on their video, but that's not how they presented it at all.

What I didn't hear them talk about was what they would do different (if anything) to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. That would be the "meat and potatoes" of any discussion worth having.

^^^everything written above is factual without any bias at all, so there's no need for this post to be deleted.

 

[Baker_Dive]

Me too.

2 guys go to a cave in a remote destination without any contignecy plan (no one called CC companies to let them know, no one planned where the nearest chamber was or logistics to get there) and decide to do a deco dive through a tight restriction that's never been done before with their current gear setup. 1 guy gets a hit and then they buy steaks and laugh about how ****** up the day was, wait 6 hours to call DAN and then get irritated that they can't get an immidiate evacuation off an island that's all but shut down for the evening. Sound about right? Those are all facts based on their video, but that's not how they presented it at all.

What I didn't hear them talk about was what they would do different (if anything) to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. That would be the "meat and potatoes" of any discussion worth having.

^^^everything written above is factual without any bias at all, so there's no need for this post to be deleted.

Calling credit card companies is a thing of the past. Atleast with my current chase cards. So that’s a weird knit pick

 

[Boarderguy]

Watching the video and listening to them gripe over paper work, I thought of two things. First, the cost of being med-evac’d for a non-covered medical event. You see that with ambulance transport in the US all the time. My mother needed to be transported from the hospital to another facility during the height of the pandemic. There was no other way to do it. It was declined and we were on the hook for $1,600. Air Evacaution by helicopter typically cost much more than the $8,000 Woody put on his card. He, at least, could have covered it.

The second part was why they waited. Getting back to a recompression chamber would have sh!t the pants on a trip they had invested thousands in and spent a lot of time setting up. This is an example of an “undeserved hit.” Woody hadn’t significantly gone outside the dive plan and his computer said he should be okay. How often do you hear about people having a relatively minor fall or seemingly innocuous thing like numbness or tingling only to find out later that it was a heart attack or stroke. My father got his pacemaker only because he had a heart attack while hooked to a machine for an unrelated medical procedure.

At what point after a fall, fender bender, shortness of breath do you realize it isn’t just a a minor annoyance? Our US medical system encourages us to “just sleep it/ walk it off.”

Woody is a millionaire, this trip was a drop in the bucket and likely highly subsidized by their sponsors. Gus is his sidekick and falls under the subsidies. The only thing that would have been a problem is time. It would have been alleviated with a simple phone call to DAN upon emergence from the water while Woody was displaying highly erratic behaviors and DCS symptoms. That would have gotten the ball rolling. They cared more about subsequent dives and video for their channel than they did for safety. They tout safe diving protocols on their channel and their react videos and completely disregarded that for Woody.

I can 911 after an accident if I can't handle myself. Woody couldn't even get his gear off.

I took a 2.3 mile ambulance ride back in June for kidney stones and my ambulance bill was $1200. They only transported me, no aid given other than a gurney and a puke bag.

 

[SlugLife]

I think some people are getting the wrong impression, as to what the video was about. This is basically a livestream for their core audience who watches the long-form livestreams. I'm not into that kind of content myself either, regardless of who it's from, and I started watching their stuff back when they had a couple hundred subscribers. This isn't a dedicated video to attacking DAN. This isn't a dedicated video about accident analysis. This isn't even their normal and somewhat more polished "reaction" or analysis content. This is a unstructured livestream about a series of unfortunate events.

I personally wouldn't mind if they did create such a video that was more focused, because the video they did publish was not intended for or ideal for the topics of whether "Dan is worthwhile" (other thread) or even accident analysis (this thread).

 

[Baker_Dive]

Calling credit card companies is a thing of the past. Atleast with my current chase cards. So that’s a weird knit pick

Look it up man. Chase cards you don’t need too. I believe someone else brought it up in the other thread as well.

 

[Boarderguy]

Look it up man. Chase cards you don’t need too. I believe someone else brought it up in the other thread as well.

You need to look up what was used and stop conflating your experiences with theirs and others. VISA and Mastercard were both denied. Amex was finally approved. It doesn't hurt to call your CC companies prior to a big trip and ensure they are aware of your travels and contingencies. You also probably blame DAN for Woody and Gus not following DCS symptom protocol and going off to plan activities while sucking down an O2 bottle. They screwed up and Woody was only saved because of his wealth and the contacts they had in the islands.

They didn't call DAN until after 8:30 pm. They finished the dive at 4:47 pm. 4 hours to eat and dick around while sucking O2 and stumbling around.