"Dark Narc"

[aaronjweese]

I had a "sporty" diving experience this weekend and thought it to be a good idea to share it, because after all we are here to learn from each other.

Allow me to start off with a little about my background. Been a certified diver for just over a year, in that time I have logged near 200 dives with a respectable percentage of those on the shipwrecks that line the NC coast from the VA line to Hatteras. I have always been a "sponge" for information, tips, and teachings from experienced divers and have learned alot from them good and bad. I have experienced narcosis a handful of times before, but the "look at the funny fishy, hi Mr. fishy" and playing tic tac toe and marking "x's" when I was "o's" type of narced. This was my first experience with what is referred to as "dark narc".

I did all of the correct pre dive prep starting the day before by getting tanks filled(dove air on this one), checking and rechecking gear, healthy dinner, 1 beer with dinner, alot of water throughout the evening, bed by 11pm.

Woke up the next day at 615am, drank a bottle of water and a diet dr. pepper(caffeine is needed at this early hour). I jumped into the truck and was at the dock at 7:30am for an 8:30 departure, which meant my gear was checked, set up, and loaded well before everybody else got there at 8:00. We left the dock at 8:30 on the nose headed to the wreck of the Advance which sat 8 miles NE of the Oregon Inlet in 75-90FSW. The ride out was a tad bumpy in 3-5 foot seas and an SW wind blowing 10-15 knots. We arrived on site and the DM splashed to set the hook, he surfaced and gave the dive report. We had 5 foot of viz on the wreck with a 0.5kt current and some surge. The pool was open.

I started to gear up and got a tad warm getting into my drysuit and rig while wrestling with the boat rocking in the 3-4 foot seas that were slowly building to a solid 4 foot. Check the gear, check buddies gear, watch buddy splash, step to the rail. I donned my fins at the rail, took a few long breaths from my primary and secondary while watching my SPG, 2800 psi it read...."cool the shop gave me an extra 160psi in my LP85". A little air in the wing, Hand over mask and reg, other hand across chest, left foot forward, drop in. The water felt comfortably cool over the surface of my Dive Rite drysuit, I popped back up, spun around and threw the DM on the boat a big "ok" and a smart Navy salute, released the air out of my wing and floated like a feather down to the hang bar. I found my buddy there, looked at him, and ran through a quick bubble check and S drill. We flashed each other an "ok" then proceeded to bomb down the line like 2 fat guys with failed parachutes. We hit the bow of the wreck and added a puff of air to our drysuits and wings to get in that nice neutral buoyancy cradle. I checked my buddies and my SPG's and noted the pressures on my wrist slate. 2600 for me and 2700 for him. I noted the direction of the line laid by the DM, looked at my buddy and flashed him a hand signal for follow me and I proceeded to throw a frog kick in that direction.

This is the point where the dive got interesting. All of a sudden my head started to "buzz" and I got this really pronounced "jumpy" feeling. My breathing broke its nice "hissssssss glub, glub, glub" rhythm and became short and labored, my peripheral vision narrowed and it couldn't tell if I was a foot or 10 feet off the line. My mask started flooding and I couldn't seem to clear it. I felt the panic cycle starting and grim thoughts clamored into my buzzing head, "would I ever see my wife again?" "what if I get swept off this wreck and get left by the boat?". The weird thing was it seemed I still had a rational mind that was fighting with some invading force also in my mind that was trying to kill me. What I did next was probably the first thing that actually made sense in the last few minutes....I stopped! Yeah, that's right, I stopped. I found a cleat on the deck of the wreck and grabbed ahold of it with my hand and forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply and exhaled completely. After a few cycles of this the buzzing, tunnel vision, was still there but I was able to clear my mask, get my breathing rhythm back, and squash the grim thoughts. I then checked my SPG and realized I had killed about 700 psi in my tank on this little episode bringing me within 200 psi of my 1/3'rd allocated for the dive. With the narcosis still swimming around in my head I decided to go ahead and head back to the line and use the extra 200psi for an extended safety stop. So I threw the thumb to my buddy and we went up the line at an extra slow pace and made a nice relaxing 5 minute safety stop which allowed me to gather my thoughts and relax a bit until I had to climb the ladder in the 4 foot seas that awaited me up top. So I boarded the boat, shed my rig, sat down and took a few swigs of icy water from the cooler. despite the experience it was a good day, I overcame a problem and learned from it. What did I learn from it you ask?

• Don't descend so fast when the viz is bad, allow yourself to adjust to it.
• Take your time with everything
  • Even on a familar dive, stuff can still happen, don't get cocky, diving is not a race

In conclusion, I surely learned from this experience and believe this dive was worth its weight in gold. I also hope that someone on here can take away from this.

 

[Troutmaster]

Getting narced at 90ft means you must be a little less tolerant of nitrogen than many of us. Its good you recognized what was happening and acted properly when you realized thing were going "sideways".

You hit the nail on the head, don't decend too fast. In my first real narc event I did my usual "drop like a lawn dart" and then flair and get neutral as I get near target depth. But I did it to 145 feet, on air and in 38 degree water.

I liked the experiance so much I went and got myself a helitrox cert. And I do much more controlled descents now. My deep stuff is mostly all deco diving now, so I am not in such a race to the bottom when I have 240cf of gas, plus 40cf of deco mix and 20 plus minutes of BT.

Glad you learned from it, and thank you for sharing.

 

[aaronjweese]

Well, the weird thing is I have been on this wreck and deeper ones numerous times on air. My first thought would be the depth combined with the limited viz(5 foot at best...2-3 foot in most sections) and the current combined with surge contributed greatly to it.

 

[Spazzy]

Hi Gotbail,

I've had that feeling too, albeit at greater depth - "it seemed I still had a rational mind that was fighting with some invading force also in my mind that was trying to kill me."

I wonder if this is a common experience during nitrogen narcosis?

 

[gcbryan]

I think what you had more than anything else was a buildup of CO2.

 

[aaronjweese]

I think what you had more than anything else was a buildup of CO2.

That thought had crossed my mind. The symptoms seemed to spell out narcosis though.

 

[Zieg]

I've found that a little breakfast does wonders. For me a short stack of pancakes (2)with a minimum of syrup gives my stomach something to work on and doesn't make me feel like I just ate a brick. It also doesn't make me seasick in any way. It is amazing how much a breakfast helps everything. A diet Dr. Pepper is the breakfast of losers.

 

[grf88]

That thought had crossed my mind. The symptoms seemed to spell out narcosis though.

CO2 has a significant effect on narcosis, it can turn a mild case of narc into a really bad dark narc. Decending fast can also have a compounding effect especially in low viz situations.

 

[CDNScubaMoose]

CO2 is very narcotic ... most divers are familiar with nitrogen narcosis but a better term should be "inert gas narcosis". I had an almost exact similar situation a few years ago at roughly the same depth and the speed the panic cycle can kick in is absolutely amazing, especially when you (as I did at the time) consider yourself to be an experienced diver.

Good on you for being able to stop and force yourself to regain control - it is easier said then done for many. When I had my experience, I was able to signal to my buddy that I wanted to ascend and the swim back to the up-line brought me out of my stupor (after colliding with another diver on the way back).

It wasn't until a couple years later that I learned about the effects of CO2 and looking back on that dive, I was able to identify several different practices that probably allowed for a buildup of CO2. It doesn't sound like you had many opportunities for the CO2 to build up based on your account but perhaps there are aspects of the dive (or the prep) that you didn't think as being potentially important at first but may have had an impact. For example - how smooth and easy was the S-drill ... did you struggle even slightly?

If there are no other possible CO2 contributing events for the dive, I might suggest looking at the equipment (is your reg properly tuned, well maintained, or did you have it set wrong causing you to have to work harder to breath?), another possibility - it is rare, would be a bad air fill. You said that your air fill was considerably higher then the rated pressure and this was a pleasant surprise for you - did you get your tanks filled at a different fill station then you normally do?

Another question - have you ever had a headache after a dive? This could be a sign that your body has a natural tendency to retain CO2 and hence you could be more likely to suffer the narcotic effects of CO2.

Thanks for sharing

 

[danvolker]

I had a "sporty" diving experience this weekend and thought it to be a good idea to share it, because after all we are here to learn from each other.

Allow me to start off with a little about my background. Been a certified diver for just over a year, in that time I have logged near 200 dives with a respectable percentage of those on the shipwrecks that line the NC coast from the VA line to Hatteras. I have always been a "sponge" for information, tips, and teachings from experienced divers and have learned alot from them good and bad. I have experienced narcosis a handful of times before, but the "look at the funny fishy, hi Mr. fishy" and playing tic tac toe and marking "x's" when I was "o's" type of narced. This was my first experience with what is referred to as "dark narc".

I did all of the correct pre dive prep starting the day before by getting tanks filled(dove air on this one), checking and rechecking gear, healthy dinner, 1 beer with dinner, alot of water throughout the evening, bed by 11pm.

Woke up the next day at 615am, drank a bottle of water and a diet dr. pepper(caffeine is needed at this early hour). I jumped into the truck and was at the dock at 7:30am for an 8:30 departure, which meant my gear was checked, set up, and loaded well before everybody else got there at 8:00. We left the dock at 8:30 on the nose headed to the wreck of the Advance which sat 8 miles NE of the Oregon Inlet in 75-90FSW. The ride out was a tad bumpy in 3-5 foot seas and an SW wind blowing 10-15 knots. We arrived on site and the DM splashed to set the hook, he surfaced and gave the dive report. We had 5 foot of viz on the wreck with a 0.5kt current and some surge. The pool was open.

I started to gear up and got a tad warm getting into my drysuit and rig while wrestling with the boat rocking in the 3-4 foot seas that were slowly building to a solid 4 foot. Check the gear, check buddies gear, watch buddy splash, step to the rail. I donned my fins at the rail, took a few long breaths from my primary and secondary while watching my SPG, 2800 psi it read...."cool the shop gave me an extra 160psi in my LP85". A little air in the wing, Hand over mask and reg, other hand across chest, left foot forward, drop in. The water felt comfortably cool over the surface of my Dive Rite drysuit, I popped back up, spun around and threw the DM on the boat a big "ok" and a smart Navy salute, released the air out of my wing and floated like a feather down to the hang bar. I found my buddy there, looked at him, and ran through a quick bubble check and S drill. We flashed each other an "ok" then proceeded to bomb down the line like 2 fat guys with failed parachutes. We hit the bow of the wreck and added a puff of air to our drysuits and wings to get in that nice neutral buoyancy cradle. I checked my buddies and my SPG's and noted the pressures on my wrist slate. 2600 for me and 2700 for him. I noted the direction of the line laid by the DM, looked at my buddy and flashed him a hand signal for follow me and I proceeded to throw a frog kick in that direction.

This is the point where the dive got interesting. All of a sudden my head started to "buzz" and I got this really pronounced "jumpy" feeling. My breathing broke its nice "hissssssss glub, glub, glub" rhythm and became short and labored, my peripheral vision narrowed and it couldn't tell if I was a foot or 10 feet off the line. My mask started flooding and I couldn't seem to clear it. I felt the panic cycle starting and grim thoughts clamored into my buzzing head, "would I ever see my wife again?" "what if I get swept off this wreck and get left by the boat?". The weird thing was it seemed I still had a rational mind that was fighting with some invading force also in my mind that was trying to kill me. What I did next was probably the first thing that actually made sense in the last few minutes....I stopped! Yeah, that's right, I stopped. I found a cleat on the deck of the wreck and grabbed ahold of it with my hand and forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply and exhaled completely. After a few cycles of this the buzzing, tunnel vision, was still there but I was able to clear my mask, get my breathing rhythm back, and squash the grim thoughts. I then checked my SPG and realized I had killed about 700 psi in my tank on this little episode bringing me within 200 psi of my 1/3'rd allocated for the dive. With the narcosis still swimming around in my head I decided to go ahead and head back to the line and use the extra 200psi for an extended safety stop. So I threw the thumb to my buddy and we went up the line at an extra slow pace and made a nice relaxing 5 minute safety stop which allowed me to gather my thoughts and relax a bit until I had to climb the ladder in the 4 foot seas that awaited me up top. So I boarded the boat, shed my rig, sat down and took a few swigs of icy water from the cooler. despite the experience it was a good day, I overcame a problem and learned from it. What did I learn from it you ask?

• Don't descend so fast when the viz is bad, allow yourself to adjust to it.
• Take your time with everything
  • Even on a familar dive, stuff can still happen, don't get cocky, diving is not a race

In conclusion, I surely learned from this experience and believe this dive was worth its weight in gold. I also hope that someone on here can take away from this.

Sounds like CO2 effects to me as well.
If you need to go down like a rocket , you should be able to suck all the air out of your bc or wing, and be negative enough to swim down head first at 100 feet per minute or much faster still, with no "cardio" or heart rate load going on. It is an incredibly short effort....Really not even an "effort".
What IS often a big effort, leading to big CO2 buildup, is going down an anchor line fast, in a big current..Sometimes even slowly down in a huge current, can create huge loads on your muscles, and big CO2 issues at depths below 60 feet. You did not say that this was what you did....but you did not rule this out completely either by what I read in to your account.

With all of our big current ( often over 3mph) deep wreck dives in South Florida, we drift them. I would NEVER consider pulling down on an anchor line. A captain pushing us to do this would get me incredibly pissed, and I would not understand being "forced" to do this. The boat could always do a drifting drop for the people capable of descending fast, and then anchor and allow people with equalization problems to pull themselves down the line, if they can.

The drift drop on a dive in S Fl like the HydroAtlantic, can have a current impossible for any scuba diver or even any freediver to swim against, even for a moment. And this does not matter, because a good captain drops you a distance UPCURRENT from the wreck, that he calculates YOU need to get down to the beginning of the wreck, the moment you hit the depth of the top portion ofthe wreck....( the Hydro is about 125 feet deep at top, about 185 at bottom) ...There should be no real exertion swimming down with no air in your bc....you should go down like a rocket, clearing your ears continuously the entire time. It really should be relaxing.....There should be no CO2 after this, whether on your wreck, a wreck like the Hydro, or a deeper wreck like the Skycliffe( huge current wreck sitting in about 225--only drift dive droppable)

Regards,
DanV