11 y/o Surfaces with Convulsions

[fisheater]

Jeesh despite 1600 lifetime dives @Dr Simon Mitchell you're scaring me from getting back in the water at all. I "knew" a very shallow ascent could be an issue but to see 1.2m in print is scary. Since this publication seems to be behind a firewall can you tell us the calculated/modelled minimum depth AGE might be a risk? Less than a meter?

Our lungs can only stand about 1.5 psi of overpressure. If you do the math, you'll find that that is about 4 feet of seawater. Use your standard one atmosphere (15 psi) for 33 feet of seawater.

 

[OTF]

Interesting case. Sounds very much like a shallow water blackout that can occur after deliberate hyperventilation for a breath hold dive even though he was using scuba.

Full recovery with no apparent cause found at the hospital for a seizure is not unusual for kids. Kids can seize when they have a fever, adults usually don't. A hypoxic episode can trigger a seizure in kids that they fully recover from.

So to me, it sounds like he probably held his breath too long, for whatever reason, and his oxygen level dropped enough for him to pass out and have a seizure. Being on the surface, he was able to breath on his own until his oxygen level increased and he woke up. The trip to the hospital was still a good idea to make sure nothing else was going on (like AGE, or hypoglycemia or a brain tumor unrelated to the dive).

Given that we're doing wild speculation going on very little evidence in this thread... I think the above quoted message is a tantalizing possibility. Blackout + seizure on the surface with a good recovery does sound a lot like shallow water blackout. The "seizure" could have been a relatively minor one just like passed-out freedivers experience. Kids are prone to all kinds of silly breathholding, hyperventilating, and freediving shenanigans.

@Dr Simon Mitchell thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge with us on scubaboard.

 

[uncfnp]

As mentioned earlier.


Differentiating Between Syncope and Convulsive Seizures

NEJM Journal Watch: Summaries of and commentary on original medical and scientific articles from key medical journals

 

[tursiops]

As mentioned earlier.


Differentiating Between Syncope and Convulsive Seizures

NEJM Journal Watch: Summaries of and commentary on original medical and scientific articles from key medical journals

Can you summarize what the article says, since we can't see it?

 

[uncfnp]

Can you summarize what the article says, since we can't see it?

Sorry. I never know what will and will not go through.

I linked it to show that reported convulsions are not always clear cut. Something like 12 percent of adults may show seizure like activity with syncope (fainting). I think I read that “The boy blacked out and began convulsing.” If so the child’s primary medical issue may have been syncope and not the convulsions.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Our lungs can only stand about 1.5 psi of overpressure. If you do the math, you'll find that that is about 4 feet of seawater. Use your standard one atmosphere (15 psi) for 33 feet of seawater.

This is coherent with the information I had in 1992, when we first gave an air tank to our first son. The pool was 80 cm deep, which means that his lungs were no more than 60 cm deep.
This is usually considered a safe depth for training young children to breath from a regulator, and to always exhale after leaving it and surfacing...
Only after two years of training weekly in the pool we did bring our son deeper. And we checked that, wathever accident we were purposely causing to him, he was always exhaling during ascent.
I and my wife were very concerned of AGE. In our risk assessment, this was by far the most relevant risk to address, when training a young child to scuba diving.
We did evaluate other possible risks, such as drowning, cramps, getting entagled, etc. as much less probable than AGE...
So we focused training and exercises mostly to prevent this.

 

[DandyDon]

This is coherent with the information I had in 1992, when we first gave an air tank to our first son. The pool was 80 cm deep, which means that his lungs were no more than 60 cm deep.

I don't generally support your training them that young, but it sounds like you had a safe control. I wouldn't support a 12 year old driving tractors or loading and truck hauling cattle on public roads either, but that's how my dad trained me. He had a rougher start plowing with mules.

Your pool was only 80 cm or 2.6 feet deep tho? I don't see a learning opportunity there?

 

[Akimbo]

Related but slightly off-topic:
I have been looking for historic references to the "discovery" of air embolism in diving. I have to wonder how many inventors and salvors died before it was figured out.

 

[Superlyte27]

I don't teach kids younger than 16 years old anymore.


If you don't trust them to drive your most expensive car, you can't trust them to dive...

Kids are often much brighter than their parents. I judge on a case by case basis.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Kids are often much brighter than their parents. I judge on a case by case basis.

Currently I find much more easy and safe to teach children around 5 years to technical sports than children which are 12-16, the worst age for starting, in my opinion!
It must be said that my wife is an instructor with a special training for young children (3 years and above). This required to follow a 6-months long course (most diving instructors instead are trained in a course which is just one week, as it was in my case).
In practice, a mini-master. There was a lot of psychology, pedagogy, physiology, etc.
When teaching to young children, everything should be presented as a game. You do not explain theories, you tell them stories. They are like a sponge, they absorb everything quickly and firmly.
What they learn at 5-6 years stays with them for the life. It must also be understood that training children to technical sports also causes significant behavioural and psychological modifications. What is actually done can be described as plagiarism.
Or reprogramming their behaviour as with Pavlov's dogs. I say this because, years later, when we had our first dogs and we went with them to a course for training the dogs to proper behaviour, the instructor was using EXACTLY the same methods that my wife did learn for training small children...
All this means that, in my opinion, this technical training applied to small children makes sense only in a case as our one, when the instructors are the parents. We had not accepted to leave our children in the hands of another instructor, knowing that he had the task of reprogramming their brains, and their behavioural response to events, without our control.
Said that, in the same period we also introduced our children to other technical sports, potentially much more dangerous than scuba diving in a few meters of water: motocross, mountain bike, alpine sky, mountain climbing, tree climbing, underwater wing, free diving, boating, rafting, canyoning, etc.. All sports that my wife and I did practice when young, so we enjoyed a lot practicing them again together with our sons.
The most dangerous one revealed to be the bicycle. It is the only one where both of them had severe injuries.
This is due to the fact, instead of other similar sports, such as motocross (or, later, trial) on a bicycle the only protective device used is just a light polystyrene helmet, leaving arms and legs almost unprotected.
I confirm, indeed, that teaching these sports at 5-6 years is much easier and safer than at 12-14 years. But, again, we did this always under our control, except for alpine ski, where we used professional instructors as neither me or my wife are qualified for this.