Bent in Belize--Blue Hole Incident

[ktomlinson]

I show that with a 25% nitrox mix you could do a 6 minute bottom time without incurring a deco obligation, of course at a normal descent rate that only leaves 3 or 4 minutes of actual time at 150'. With a RMV of .7 you would need 36cuft of gas. Personally I wouldn't do the dive unless I could have doubles and make it a real deco dive.

 

[flots am]

I show that with a 25% nitrox mix you could do a 6 minute bottom time without incurring a deco obligation, of course at a normal descent rate that only leaves 3 or 4 minutes of actual time at 150'. With a RMV of .7 you would need 36cuft of gas. Personally I wouldn't do the dive unless I could have doubles and make it a real deco dive.

Do you know that you're describing a dive that requires precision depth control, gas management, relaxation, timing and ascent and decent speeds, that's marketed to people who can't stay off the bottom and many times "accidentally" end up on the surface or out of air?

flots.

 

[JTemple]

peterbj7, I think it was very kind of you to go see the OP and spend some time talking with him. Having been in a similar situation as him (bent and alone in a foreign country), I'm sure he appreciated the company and the chance to talk to some one. Thanks for doing that!

 

[peterbj7]

Well, it was a three hour round trip walk up the beach, and my young dog absolutely loved rushing in and out of the water.

If I'm honest, I wasn't very sympathetic when I set out, but after talking to him and finding out lots of things that I haven't posted here I felt quite differently on the way back. He'd done lots of things very wrong, insanely wrong, but I think nonetheless he was unlucky in what happened to him. He said he'll come back to Belize to dive in due course and I'll dive with him.

 

[tmp]

Wow.....thats all I can really say. Glad you are ok and like everyone else said there are alot of lessons learned here.....

In the end I completely agree with Dive Bug Bit Me: I dove the Aggressor with my wife last year. We are very conservative and calculating divers. That being said we are good divers, with well maintained equipment and decent dive experience from depth to drift to carribean, the Phillipine muck diving etc etc. My wife who does not like Depth - choose to abort the dive. I was there and figured "lets do this" We dove on tanks with a Nitrox Blend (I think 26/6% - somewhere in there) and the profile was guided and 8 mins (approx at depth). That being said I buddied up and down we went. There is NOTHING down there, we saw no sharks no nothing and I agree the stalactites are big, you swim past them and up you go....not impressive in my book.

I hit 146 on that dive......The only thing I got out of it was being able to say "I dove the blue hole". I would have been better off spending the time topside with my wife enjoying the sun and a quiet boat.


We must always make decisions that are right for ourselves (hence my wife aborting the dive) Safety is our own responsibility....dive smart and be around the next day or week to do it again....

 

[Ayisha]

But it usually - almost invariably - becomes one. Just work out the profile to see why. As normally performed it is NOT a recreational dive, but is described as such by most operators, and very inexperienced divers are taken on it.

Bold added.

This is the crux of the problem that has been pointed out here and on other threads about the Blue Hole particularly. "Very inexperienced" divers, sometimes freshly certified, should NOT be "taken" to 130 feet, let alone 150 feet or greater. Instructors are not Dive Gods, although freshly minted divers think they are.

When I chose to do the Blue Hole in 2006, I had been diving for 4 years in many conditions, mainly the extremely cold deep Great Lakes. They watched us dive for the first day before giving permission to do the Blue Hole, even for my experienced Instructor buddy. It was sold as a recreational dive to 130 feet, which it almost was - 7 feet over.

I am wondering if non-deco dives to the Blue Hole were typical for the masses in the past and have been steadily increasing in depth and time over the years? All without the corresponding changes in training, equipment and experience required.

BTW, for those wondering about life in the Blue Hole, it seems to be hit or miss. We saw huge lemon, reef and bull sharks, as well as huge grouper, so for us it was a hit.

 

[Mr. Black]

I'm glad to hear you are doing better. But, I'd agree with you if you decided never to dive again. I have very little faith that someone who dives the way you do could suddenly make an about face, you're missing some very basic and fundamental conservative attitudes toward diving that simply don't exist in you. I can't see you changing those beliefs unless you suddenly started diving exclusively with a group of experienced divers who stressed safety and you bought into and became like them.

-

One could argue that a near-death experience is a life-changing event. You'd be surprised just how much the OP's attitude to everything can change after this experience has been "digested".

 

[themagni]

OP here.

It is 1am local time and I am very tired. I took the time to tell the flight crews about the recent DCS hit, and they were all really nice. The pilot out of Houston took the time to call a doctor, and interviewed me before taking off. One of the attendants had done a chamber ride herself, years ago. (Not the Blue Hole) The people around me were a little surprised, but willing to look out for me in case I couldn't call for help myself.

Peter, feel free to discuss anything we talked about in person on these boards. I know you would anyway, but please leave the shop's name out of it.

My underlying medical condition is positional greyouts (hypoxia?). Basically, I have lower than normal blood pressure and a low resting heart rate and when I stand up too quickly my vision greys out. I've been to a cardiologist a few times, done a stress test and Holter, and have an echocardiogram booked for the end of September (the appointment was made in January)

It is unlikely that I have a PFO as I can redline my heart at 190 BPM for 5 minutes at a time. Engines with holes explode when you redline them like that. That ability to yell at people when flat out is why the doctors here aren't too worried about my cardiac health. I will still mention it when I'm getting looked at though.

Years ago, after a particularly challenging dive, I got some heart palpitations, but that ended up being caused by a little anemia. I'd lost a lot of weight (on purpose) over that summer and my iron reserves were a little low. I was given the okay to go back to diving three years ago. (3 months off)

Recent bloodwork (and this is something consistent over the last few tests) shows that my RBC is 5.5 tera/L and my MCH is 27 pg. Other results are within normal. Should anyone with medical interest/training (and there should be like max 2 people there) want to see my bloodwork results, I can send you a copy. If anything, I'm a little too active and a little too healthy. (I actually had the cardiologist say to add a little salt to my diet.)

Anyway, I've been travelling and flying and up for the last oh man 21 hours. So I'm going to bed. I made it home, I'm alive, and let me tell you, there's nothing quite as scary as that first flight after you've been cleared to go home.

Well, maybe a chamber ride. That was pretty scary too.

And maybe posting about it on scubaboard.

The chamber gave me a badge. I'm going to sew it onto the cover of my dive log.

 

[AWMIII]

OP here.

It is 1am local time and I am very tired. I took the time to tell the flight crews about the recent DCS hit, and they were all really nice. The pilot out of Houston took the time to call a doctor, and interviewed me before taking off. One of the attendants had done a chamber ride herself, years ago. (Not the Blue Hole) The people around me were a little surprised, but willing to look out for me in case I couldn't call for help myself.

Peter, feel free to discuss anything we talked about in person on these boards. I know you would anyway, but please leave the shop's name out of it.

My underlying medical condition is positional greyouts (hypoxia?). Basically, I have lower than normal blood pressure and a low resting heart rate and when I stand up too quickly my vision greys out. I've been to a cardiologist a few times, done a stress test and Holter, and have an echocardiogram booked for the end of September (the appointment was made in January)

It is unlikely that I have a PFO as I can redline my heart at 190 BPM for 5 minutes at a time. Engines with holes explode when you redline them like that. That ability to yell at people when flat out is why the doctors here aren't too worried about my cardiac health. I will still mention it when I'm getting looked at though.

Years ago, after a particularly challenging dive, I got some heart palpitations, but that ended up being caused by a little anemia. I'd lost a lot of weight (on purpose) over that summer and my iron reserves were a little low. I was given the okay to go back to diving three years ago. (3 months off)

Recent bloodwork (and this is something consistent over the last few tests) shows that my RBC is 5.5 tera/L and my MCH is 27 pg. Other results are within normal. Should anyone with medical interest/training (and there should be like max 2 people there) want to see my bloodwork results, I can send you a copy. If anything, I'm a little too active and a little too healthy. (I actually had the cardiologist say to add a little salt to my diet.)

Anyway, I've been travelling and flying and up for the last oh man 21 hours. So I'm going to bed. I made it home, I'm alive, and let me tell you, there's nothing quite as scary as that first flight after
And maybe posting about it on scubaboard.

The chamber gave me a badge. I'm going to sew it onto the cover of my dive log.

check your thyroid.

 

[vladimir]

Anyway, I've been travelling and flying and up for the last oh man 21 hours. So I'm going to bed. I made it home, I'm alive, and let me tell you, there's nothing quite as scary as that first flight after you've been cleared to go home.

Well, maybe a chamber ride. That was pretty scary too.

And maybe posting about it on scubaboard.

I'm glad you're okay, and appreciate your posting; I think it has been a very constructive thread.

BTW, for those wondering about life in the Blue Hole, it seems to be hit or miss. We saw huge lemon, reef and bull sharks, as well as huge grouper, so for us it was a hit.

As I understand it, that life is there for free handouts from the day boats. That theory was borne out by my experience; we saw the sharks when I dived it from the day-boat mooring, and didn't see them when I dived it from the mooring that the Aggressor and Peter Hughes boats use.