Jloren9
Registered
Now, I may be fairly new to scuba diving, but I know that one of the easiest ways to get into trouble into ascend too fast. Unfortunately, a new dive partner for me and my friend ended our day early.
I dove down with him first, a 30 minute dive to 65 ft. Upon the ascent, I noticed that he just rocketed towards the surface, without any regard to controlling his ascent or to perform a safety stop.
I said something to him back up in the boat and he replied that "It was impossible to really control your ascent." At this point I realized that I both did not want to dive with him anymore, as he clearly did not know what he was doing, and that I was going to have the extra stress of worrying about his safety.
The next dive he went down with my buddy to a deeper reef at around 75 ft. Him and my buddy were down there spearfishing, and I was in the boat in charge of pickup. I see my buddy surface first and go to pick him up. He tells me our friend was going to stay down and try and get a few more fish. About 5 minutes later, he surfaces about 100 yards from where my buddy came up. As soon as we get close to him I can see something is wrong. He's bleeding from his left nostril and is gasping for air. He was incredibly out of breath. He complained of a killer headache and was fair unresponsive to conversation. He seemed to be just staring into space or at random objects. And he is usually a pretty loud fellow, always with something to say. The fact that he didnt even acknowledge all of the fish hed shot was very worrying. And he kept saying how his headache was getting worse.
At this point, me and my buddy both realized something was wrong. And we immediately started running in to get him to the nearest hospital. Luckily the ocean was flat and it was the first day the the "no wake zone" time ended for the Summer, so we made good time. By the time we made it back, he appeared to have returned to normal and said he felt fine and his headache had gone away. He honestly did appear to have done a 180 turnaround. We said we should drive him to get checked out anyway but he refused.
Luckily, he turned out OK. But if this is the closest I ever come to diving accident I would be very happy. I guess this is a good example of how ignorance can be truly dangerous. I won't be diving with him again needless to say.
However, does anyone have any information as to why someone would present such serious symptoms and then have them disappear?
I dove down with him first, a 30 minute dive to 65 ft. Upon the ascent, I noticed that he just rocketed towards the surface, without any regard to controlling his ascent or to perform a safety stop.
I said something to him back up in the boat and he replied that "It was impossible to really control your ascent." At this point I realized that I both did not want to dive with him anymore, as he clearly did not know what he was doing, and that I was going to have the extra stress of worrying about his safety.
The next dive he went down with my buddy to a deeper reef at around 75 ft. Him and my buddy were down there spearfishing, and I was in the boat in charge of pickup. I see my buddy surface first and go to pick him up. He tells me our friend was going to stay down and try and get a few more fish. About 5 minutes later, he surfaces about 100 yards from where my buddy came up. As soon as we get close to him I can see something is wrong. He's bleeding from his left nostril and is gasping for air. He was incredibly out of breath. He complained of a killer headache and was fair unresponsive to conversation. He seemed to be just staring into space or at random objects. And he is usually a pretty loud fellow, always with something to say. The fact that he didnt even acknowledge all of the fish hed shot was very worrying. And he kept saying how his headache was getting worse.
At this point, me and my buddy both realized something was wrong. And we immediately started running in to get him to the nearest hospital. Luckily the ocean was flat and it was the first day the the "no wake zone" time ended for the Summer, so we made good time. By the time we made it back, he appeared to have returned to normal and said he felt fine and his headache had gone away. He honestly did appear to have done a 180 turnaround. We said we should drive him to get checked out anyway but he refused.
Luckily, he turned out OK. But if this is the closest I ever come to diving accident I would be very happy. I guess this is a good example of how ignorance can be truly dangerous. I won't be diving with him again needless to say.
However, does anyone have any information as to why someone would present such serious symptoms and then have them disappear?
