First experience of panic

[TSandM]

Honestly, this story is the reason that I try to find all the threads where novice divers ask about the cenotes, and tell them it's a bad idea to do the tours until they have enough experience to know how they react under stress. It sounds as though you were uneasy from the beginning because of the gear problems, made more uneasy by your inability to get a response to your signal (which is one inexcusable thing on the part of your guide) and by being off the line (a second inexcusable action on the part of your guide). You may have begun to breathe shallowly, and then CO2 snuck up on you and finished the slide into panic. You were extremely lucky that you were under an air pocket -- there are many points in those cavern tours where there is NO option to surface. The essence of overhead diving is the ability to maintain your poise and cope with whatever happens without going up.

I remain concerned about the guide's part in this, though. How many of you were there? One of the reasons the groups are supposed to be kept to four is so that a guide CAN see the signals from the last diver, as one cannot depend upon the team to pass the signal up the line, as trained cave divers would do. And when you say you were off the line, how far from it were you? Could you still see it?

Cenote tour operators are self-policing. There is a class which they are supposed to take (although there is no regulation to require it) and there are rules by which they are supposed to abide (but again, this is voluntary). I have seen most of the rules broken down there, with ratios greater than 4:1, no lights on some of the guests, and leaders in single tank setups. It is truly caveat emptor on guiding.

 

[RiverRat]

I had some friends come back from Mexico recently. They did Cozumel and then put in a day or 2 of Cavern and Cave Diving (one of my buddies is Cave certified) on the mainland. My buddy that did the "cavern" dive, a good diver with lots of experience, said that it was really a cave dive for the most part. There are long stretches of solid overhead. Yes I worry when they take new divers in these places. When the "guide" has on a set of doubles that should tell you something.

Yeah that guide should have better situational awareness especially when taking in new divers. I don't have cave training yet, working on trimix and wreck skills. But from what I understand, when taking new students in a cave you ALWAYS put them in the middle of the pack with the most experienced in the front and back to guard the weakest divers. And this is with cave students, nevermind untrained OW divers.

As far as the panic thing, I learned early ANY diver can go into that situation even if one's been diving for 30 years with thousands of dives and never had an issue. CO2 is a BAD gas. And anxiety can build up in us DAYS in advance of the dive. The stresses of life, bills, medical issues, family issues. Maybe we got no sleep for 2 days before the trip etc. etc. We go into a dive stressed, maybe not realizing that we are setting up for the cycle. You worry about gear, the fact it's an over head dive, you start breathing more rapidly, taking on CO2, now more worry, more rapid breathing and the cycle begins. Once you notice it, and that takes a little more experience and some more dives maybe, you have to arrest it immediately. STOPPING, and getting control of your breathing, maybe just several nice long complete cycles is all it takes to get it under control. The thing about CO2 is, from what I understand, is that it takes a long time to start to flush it out. It does not happen immediately. So it's important to monitor how you feel on a dive so you can head it off early. Again, getting in as many dives as you can in your comfort zone helps you get that experience. As others have said I think all divers should at least go to the Rescue level fairly soon.

 

[flots am]

Started panicking during my second cenote dive today in Mexico. Was wondering if anyone else has experience of loss of control/panic and if they have had any problems since.

If you can't stop the dive at any point and return to the surface, you're doing what is known as an "overhead dive." According to your profile, you're not trained for that. This means that in an emergency, you're scre***.

What happens, for example, if you tilt down to look at something, and you're suddenly OOA? (this has actually happened due to tank contamination). It's dark, Where's your buddy? Where's the DM? Can you get to the DM on what's left in your lungs? If this was OW (what you were trained for), you could head for the surface, but you're not, and you can't.

Open Water training is not sufficient for an overhead environment, since nearly all it's safety procedures end with you and your buddy on the surface. If you can't surface, you're pretty much scre***.

We had left the guideline and it was getting pretty dark. I tried signalling him for about 2 minutes moving light up and down in front of him, and shining at him. I did not signal too rapidly as I did not want him to think there was an emergency.

You were having an emergency and should have tried to signal the DM. He would certainly want to know you're having problems before you panic and do something really dangerous. On The Other Hand, there's no special reason to beleive he actually could or would do anything. SB is full of stories of DMs that ignore divers, do dangerous things, or are simply incapable of rendering assistance.

Luckily we just happened to be near the point of a planned ascent into an air pocket

You were lucky. Just because something isn't water doesn't mean that it's breathable air.

Anyway congratulations on your continued existence, and don't ever follow anybody anyplace that you don't feel qualified to dive alone.

Flots.

 

[Hypno-toad]

My third certification dive (a whopping 5 dives ago), I felt panic. It wasn't nervousness or anxiety, it was sheer my-brain-stopped-working panic. And I was still on the surface.

The day before, I had a bit of trouble descending as I was under-weighted. The morning in question, we did a buoyancy check in a bout 5 feet of water. Empty BCD, floated at eye level, dropped when I exhaled. Everything seemed fine. I stood up and put air into my BCD to kick out. When I sat into the water, I heard massive bubbling behind me. I assumed it was the dump valve on my BCD because I did pump a little more air in than I meant to. I started kicking out pretty hard to catch up with the group and I could feel myself struggling to stay above water. My BCD was still bubbling and at that point I knew it wasn't the dump valve. I called to my instructor that I couldn't float and I don't know if he didn't hear me right or ignored me, but he called something about kicking my feet and continued out towards the group.

At that point I went vertical and kicked like hell to stay up. I was reaching for my reg because before my brain shut down completely I figured if I couldn't stay on the surface, I had a good hour worth of air on my back and if it came to it, I'd just sit on the bottom and figure it out. I couldn't grab my reg. I tried the arm sweep, I tried reaching over my shoulder, I just couldn't grab it. Each time I reached, my head would bob under water. That's when my brain shut down and I felt panic. I didn't even think to ditch my weights. I was hyperventilating and exhausting myself trying like Hell to stay above water. Luckily, the divemaster with us saw me and saw that a nut had come loose on the BCD and caused the leak. He grabbed my valve, stuck my snorkel in my mouth, tightened the nut, and inflated my BCD. The whole time, he talked me through it telling me what was wrong and what he was doing. As soon as I felt the lift from the BCD, my brain turned back on. I calmed down and he towed me out to the group so I could relax. I was actually pretty mad at myself for getting to that state of mind. I know better, but it's a strange thing what panic will do.

You learn from your mistakes, right?

 

[RiverRat]

One thing I've learned is that, as long as you have air, you're golden, for the most part. Calm down, then begin to sort things out. Like you said "I figured if I couldn't stay on the surface, I had a good hour worth of air on my back and if it came to it, I'd just sit on the bottom and figure it out"
Not that you should need to do that, but yeah the reality was you had that option, no reason to panic. I've also heard that many times during diver stress that they DON'T drop their weights many times. MANY accident statistics report that. That needs to be practiced so that it's muscle memory. So in a real situation like yours you just do it automatically. Had you been totally alone and the DM never came to assist what would you have done at that point? Make sure you are not overweighted. It's better to have a little extra on, versus too little. But many new divers have WAY too much lead on. As you gain more experience and comfort you will be able to shed a lot of weight.

Don't beat yourself up too much, I had an issue early on in my OW training that freaked me out a bit and I kicked myself for a few weeks. Did the same thing, got here on Scubaboard to deal with it. I actually got some very good advice from a member here that helped me move on and I learned something. Basically to STOP, THINK, BREATHE and then ACT. I still do this on occasion (just stop for a bit to regroup) even on deep tech dives. It's one of the best tools I have in the kit.

 

[tstormdiver]

One thing I've learned is that, as long as you have air, you're golden, for the most part.

My technical instructor taught me: "The only true emergency is when you take that last breath of air, the rest is only an inconvenience. Air is time, time is air"

 

[RiverRat]

My technical instructor taught me: "The only true emergency is when you take that last breath of air, the rest is only an inconvenience. Air is time, time is air"

Well put!

 

[Hypno-toad]

My technical instructor taught me: "The only true emergency is when you take that last breath of air, the rest is only an inconvenience. Air is time, time is air"

I kind of want to put that in my signature. It's a good lesson.

 

[Skydiver1]

There were not more than 4 in the group so all guidelines were followed, as far as I can see (except going off line)

I did not think of the CO2 thing. Ironic as I bought the PADI deep diver manual and was reading about turblent air flow etc last night . I normally do consciously take deep breaths in and long steady exhalations. Perhaps I did start to breathe shallow when it got dark, when I was signalling, etc. Normally I am always aware of my breathing but its like I said in my original post about zoning out or something. I probably lost focus of my breathing here too.

I don’t have any training of overhead environments. I have done AOW, and Nitrox is the only other course I have done. I have done some short swim throughs in open water.

I did not realise the cenotes would have such long stretches of overhead environment. Even driving to the cenote, I asked my guide if there would always be day light. I checked with my buddy who verified this was not the case and it was completely dark in places with no obvious exit. We left the line for around five minutes. I hope I am accurate in the facts I have presented - I was a novice in this environment.

To be honest, I looked at all the fancy pics of cenotes and various online pics of cool light shows. I did not realise there would be long, dark, stretches of overhead environments. I don’t really enjoy overhead environments and am not one to do a dive I have prior knowledge of being beyond my ability (I had no absolutely no interest in doing Devils Throat in Cozumel last week, I skipped doing the Thistlegorm in Egypt last year until I get more experience with strong currents).

People are talking about calling the dive, which I accept. However, this can be difficult when you don’t know how the situation is progressing. Like if it gets a bit dark for a second, I am thinking okay is it going to get worse or will there be a huge opening with light just around this next corner. Obviously I realise now this thinking is flawed . I had no reference point for normal in this new enviroment.I did put too much trust in my guide and was way out of my experience level.

I am wondering why open water is the only experience dive shops ask for to do these cenotes. It was not sufficient for me, but overall statistically they have a decent safety record with just OW divers?

The CO2 explanation probably makes most sense to me. Fair enough about the contributing psychological factors but its seriously scary how physiologically it then hits you all of a sudden.

 

[tstormdiver]

I am wondering why open water is the only experience dive shops ask for to do these cenotes. It was not sufficient for me but overall statistically they have a decent safety record with just OW divers?

I can not answer this, honestly. Could be sheer luck. Or possibly the skills of the guide. There have been deaths though, in groups of untrained divers (to overhead environments), led by guides. Overhead environments certainly command a healthy respect (As I amost learned the hard way), but, at least in the caverns/ caves,.... they are magical & beautiful in their own ways. Wrecks even have their own allures (typically historical). They can be dove, but IMO, the training really lets you enjoy the beauty/ allure of the overhead environment while minimizing the risks. I am not saying the risks aren't there, they are, but you learn in training to deal with them.