(15 APR 04) Have you ever been close to meeting your maker while diving

[laivindil]

My first OW dive I ate too little too early. My body starts getting hungry 2.30-3.00 hrs after I eat last. I ate 2 hours before I even arrived at the dive site. 30 min later in the water and I bought it. On dry land it's slight hunger pains I can push aside easily. In the water, because one's metabolism rises my hunger pains translated into the equivilant of a sugar high crash. I'm so glad I called the dive when I did. If I'd gone down again I might have had to been rescued. It's NOT easy to call a dive but my instructor drilled this into us: "anyone can cancel any dive for any reason". I encourage all of you to follow his advice.

 

[almitywife]

I remember just coming out of my open water, had about 8 dives only and went (shore) diving with my boss, his brother and 2 of his buddies (3 dive masters and 1 rescue diver).

being so new and still having nerves, i did this constant diver count check every minute or so, "one, two, three, four and me is five...... one, two, three, four and me is five...".

about 5 mins in, a group of divers, coming from the opposite direction came pass us - we waved and continued on our way... and i kept counting... "one, two, three, four, five and me = six"... hang on! SIX.. we're a group of 5, where did the other diver come from??

i signaled to the diver, pointing, signaling and trying to say "hey, where is your buddy, where is your goup?". i then asked for his gauge to check his air - added bonus to this event - he was almost out of air, at 15mtrs (approx 45ft) deep and lost.

i then did the sensible thing - handed it over to divers more trained than me. signaling for my boss, i pointed out the new diver plus held up his guage showing very little air. During all this time, this lost diver didnt seem to show any real interest in what was going on. so dive was over (i had counted 16 sea dragons by this point so the critter count was finished for the day), my boss buddy breathed the lost diver to the surface and we went with him.

when we got to the surface, we could hear yelling and arguing. I heard one guy say "what am i suppose to do, treat them like sheep", and another voice yelling, "yes, thats exactly what they are", instantly telling us this was an open water course. My boss yelled out "hello, are you missing someone?'

i swear - i know some scuba instructions say they can walk on water - but i swear i actually saw it that day when one of these guys came running into the water towards us. He grabbed our found diver's tank valve and practically pulled him out of the water yelling "get into the car park!" as they both headed to the shore.

then there was total silence for the next 30 seconds in our group, and then my boss turned to one of our group, held out his hand for a handshake and said "well done mate, we did good".

and that was it, no "thanks mate", no handshake - nothing except for the yelling coming from the shore.

LSL

 

[ealbert]

WOW- these are some great stories. Mine are things that could have turned into something but didn't. Mostly because I had the most Awesome instructors.

Incident 1 - Belize ( will post the other incident at another time)
This was on a cruise and I had one chance to dive there in belize. I had had a sinus infection the week before and was worried about my ears. I was breathing fine and had no issues so I decided I should be OK. (can you see the mistake coming lol)

So, I boarded the boat and headed out. BTW- this was my very first salt water dive. I had done lake dives for checkout and a trip to the florida springs for a weekend. Max depth had been about 40ft up to this point.

I was a little nervous but excited as well. We began our descent on the first site and I had a hell of a time getting my right ear to clear. I was going slowly but I blew and blew trying to get it to clear. A little air came out of my eye I think. Then the ear cleared and I was OK.

Once it cleared- I was OK and was able to keep clearing as we went down. Went along a wall at about 60-65 feet and it was awesome. I relaxed and enjoyed the show.

About 3/4 of the way through the dive, I was wipping my head back and forth a little too much trying to take it all in and I got this massive vertigo. It was dizzy like you would get when you were a kid and would spin in place for 5 minutes untill you fell over and nearly threw up. my eyes were jumping back and forth - left and right while my brain tried to steady the spinning feeling I was experiencing.

So- I said to myself, "self, you better get this stopped or you are goint to start hurling at 60 feet!" I checked my boyancy and made sure I was not moving up or down, forced myself to close my eyes and breathe verry deeply and calm. I repeated " breathe deep and be calm" to myself and after about 30-45 seconds. It passed.

I finished out the dive but felt like crap after we got on the boat due to the dizziness. I rested and felt fine in plenty of time for the next tank.

Things went just fine that dive and I had already decided that if the ear gave me trouble- I was not going to do the dive.

Stupid thing- forced too hard to get my ear to clear. I am sure that the pressure I put on my ear was the root cause of the problem. I should have aborted but I wanted sooooo much to do the dive. Dumbass-I could have ruptured the ear drum.

Smart thing- Did not panic. The dive guide never knew I had a problem and my buddy was a little ways in front of me. I was able to calm myself even though I was still very much a newbie.

So- I learned a couple of valuable lessons. Now I wonder if I should practice throwing up under water just so I could deal with it if it ever came up - so to speak (grin)

Ed

 

[Sunshine22]

I am relatively new to diving having only been certified 7 months ago, but have gone out of my way to seek different diving experiences in both cold and warm water environments - reefs, wrecks, caverns, etc. I am in DM training now which is highly unusual for my LDS to endorse for such a new diver. But I am the star - working hard to learn and gain experiences, helping students, and diving at every opportunity.

Yesterday I went on my 57th dive. I was in the St Lawrence Seaway diving the Keystorm. This is a beautiful wreck and I was really enjoying the dive. I descended at a reasonably slow pace down the front of the wreck - peering in the various cargo holds and checking out the masts. We decided to come around the end toward the prop where we achieved our greatest depth (111ft). I started the dive with 3300psi and was still above 3000psi at that point. So, my respiration was good and I was very comfortable with the dive in general. In fact, I was LOVING it!

After I saw the prop, I got narced to the point where darkness was closing in and I felt that I might blackout. Right before that happened, I did have the presence of mind to know that I needed to be more shallow and that I should ascend at some reasonable rate. My buddy was ahead of me and I could not get her attention in time for my need to ascend, so I just began the ascent. I was able to watch my computer to control my ascent. Between the point where I felt the strangeness coming on and the time that the effects were gone, I believe that I was perilously close to all out panic. I don't know if I can say that completely because I did manage to maintain control of what I was doing. However, my breathing rate got the point of hyperventilation and I felt like I was not getting anough air. I even recall starting to "tear" at my reg, but then left it alone and focused on getting control of the breathing. I honestly thought I might die. By the time I recovered my senses, I was at 80 ft and down to 1500psi. I stopped there in a hover and waited for my buddy to ascend up the front of the wreck which was pretty much what everyone does. We hooked up and I finished the dive by exploring wheelhouse.

Once aboard, I did share what happened and felt good enough to go on the second dive. This dive was to the America. Much shallower (70 ft), but somewhat different because it rests directly in a shipping channel. Essentially you follow a line to the wreck and don't surface at the wreck under any circumstance. The only way back is back across the line or you will be run over by a tanker. So essentialy its an overhead environment. I got down to the wreck without incident, but when coming around the back at about 68ft, I started to feel like I was going to black out again. And once again I began to feel that panic coming on. I signaled to my new buddy (an experienced instructor) that I was NOT OK and wanted to go up. He held my hand to the anchor line and we ascended.

I'd love to hear about other experiences like this and how divers have overcome what is obviously now a psychological issue. I keep telling myself that I did everything right and solved the problem (a good thing!), but I'm just so worried that it will happen again.