Diving Accident, Self-Responsibility and Balance

[flots am]

1) a diver diving without a buddy, or a diver diving with a buddy and the diver and the buddy having Zero buddy skills.
2) a diver on the razor's edge of physical fitness and when the SHTF the lacking in physical fitness almost kills the diver through a compounding of 2 or more events that drown them - yours was a triple - a lack of absolute ideal diving conditions combined with poor physical condition combined with a panic attack.

You're so lucky to be alive, thank God you did have the presence of mind to drop your weights and thank God your dive operation saved your life.

Please stop diving unless you can increase your physical condition and learn what proper buddy diving protocols and procedures are. It's only a matter of time before you aren't this lucky if you keep doing what you're doing.

The other option would be for the diver to just be honest to themselves about capabilities. I'm a little shy of 60 and there are things I just won't do anymore. Like swimming against a stiff current to get to a boat. It's a boat. It can just come pick me up when everybody is back on board.

And suddenly, I was tossed to the surface and all hell broke loose. The Master in training was gone, the Dive Master was gone, I was alone. And breathing way harder than I knew I should be. 2-3 foot waves were washing over me, at some point, I topped a wave and saw the boat looking smaller than it should have been. Somehow, right about now, my camera turned on and began recording. Purely incidental, I had no idea it was recording. The first think I hear on the video is myself, shouting "help!"

When the dive started going badly, surfacing then becoming positively buoyant, signalling the boat for pickup and inflating a surface marker or safety sausage would have turned this into a non-event.

Swimming against the current and getting beat up by the surf were all completely unnecessary, and almost certainly made whatever was happening worse. Just relaxing and floating on the surface and waiting for pickup would have de-escalated the situation

flots.

 

[T.C.]

Well, a trained nurse would know how to take a reading correctly and take action to rule out a faulty/erroneous reading.

I doubt it. They may recognize a bad reading. But the pulse-ox is not really hard clamp to a finger, read. And if they had better equipment, they'd use it

This is so uncalled for.

BS, it's precisely what needs to be said. She WAS lucky people were there to help. She DID NOT take the proper steps to help herself. She DOES need to learn/ relearn these steps.

And the FIRST thing rescue divers are taught is never endanger yourself. Better one victim than two or three.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

No. You did NOT have a medical event underwater. The more you repeat that, the hollower it sounds. You have not been diagnosed with any medical cause; you self-diagnosed from the internet, and you are not qualified to do so.

The clinic did NOT treat you or diagnose you. O2 is not treatment, and they did nothing other than let you breathe their O2 and calm down.

You panicked. You even admit it. Until you admit that your case was SOLELY a panic reaction, and not a hypochondriactic excuse; you will likely never progress as a diver. You will remain in denial as you blame a non-existent medical condition instead of the mistakes you made.

T.C.,

First of all, thanks for your service. Hats off to you from an old sailor.

I respectfully disagree with your statement here. None of us was there, and if you're an Army medic you're used to dealing with pre-screened, relatively physically fit individuals. Recreational divers are a microcosm of the population. They come in all shapes, sizes, fitness levels and with all kinds of comborbidities. While it's certainly possible that her incident can be attributed completely to panic, it's also entirely plausible that she did have a medical event underwater. You have come to a conclusion about the lack of a medical condition based entirely on one individual's understandably biased report on a social media site, which is in effect committing the same error that you're pointing out in the OP in your post above. You seem to be trying to steer her away from being evaluated by a qualified diving physician who can examine her, elicit a complete medical history and order labs and tests. Let's encourage her to follow through on her physician appointments instead.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[Peter69_56]

I doubt it. They may recognize a bad reading. But the pulse-ox is not really hard clamp to a finger, read. And if they had better equipment, they'd use it


BS, it's precisely what needs to be said. She WAS lucky people were there to help. She DID NOT take the proper steps to help herself. She DOES need to learn/ relearn these steps.

And the FIRST thing rescue divers are taught is never endanger yourself. Better one victim than two or three.

We can teach with a carrot, or teach with a stick. I personally find teaching with a carrot more effective.

 

[gianaameri]

The C-card system is designed to produce dependent divers of this particular skill set.

She did what she was taugth and the way she did it is not to be unexpected under the circumstances.

Better training, rather than more training, could have helped marginally.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

[Mike]

The C-card system is designed to produce dependent divers of this particular skill set.

She did what she was taugth and the way she did it is not to be unexpected under the circumstances.

Better training, rather than more training, could have helped marginally.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

Which is it, that the current certification system creates train wreck divers like her or better training would help her marginally? You seem to be contradicting your own statement.

What parts of the current training system exactly weren't taught to her also that would have changed anything?

She didn't dive with a buddy, she thinks dive masters are life guards and extensions of her OW instructors. Buddy diving is taught in OW and the dive master relationship she falsely believed in was not taught. Being over weight, out of shape, smoking and drinking is not taught in OW either.

You are 100% under the belief her incident was caused by the onset of a medical breathing incident. Even if we buy into that, how does that negate everything else?????

I'm sorry, but where there is smoke there is fire and the OP was just an accident waiting to happen.

 

[gianaameri]

Which is it, that the current certification system creates train wreck divers like her or better training would help her marginally? You seem to be contradicting your own statement.

What parts of the current training system exactly weren't taught to her also that would have changed anything?

She didn't dive with a buddy, she thinks dive masters are life guards and extensions of her OW instructors. Buddy diving is taught in OW and the dive master relationship she falsely believed in was not taught. Being over weight, out of shape, smoking and drinking is not taught in OW either.

You are 100% under the belief her incident was caused by the onset of a medical breathing incident. Even if we buy into that, how does that negate everything else?????

I'm sorry, but where there is smoke there is fire and the OP was just an accident waiting to happen.

If I went in respiratory distress now in my living-room in front of this keyboard/screen I'd be a train wreck (i.e. incapable of self-rescue) as well.

As to training, she had no Solo or Self-rescue training and in those circumstances she did what she was trained to do - activate the buddy system and expect rescue.

It worked.

 

[Mike]

uh huh.

 

[T.C.]

If I went in respiratory distress now in my living-room in front of this keyboard/screen I'd be a train wreck (i.e. incapable of self-rescue) as well.

As to training, she had no Solo or Self-rescue training and in those circumstances she did what she was trained to do - activate the buddy system and expect rescue.

It worked.

BS. She did NOT do want she was trained. She was trained to drop her weight belt and inflate her BCD. She did neither.

Second, self rescue, to a degree IS taught in OW. It is to ascend safely (She didn't), get buoyant (She didn't), drop her weights (She didn't) and assess the situation, without panic. Again, she didn't. These are all part of OW.

No no diver I know is taught to 'activate the buddy system and expect rescue', like the buddy is some sort of scuba 911.

Bottom line, she was lucky that there were calmer and better trained divers present to deal with her panic and save her life.

---------- Post added February 26th, 2014 at 01:40 PM ----------

The C-card system is designed to produce dependent divers of this particular skill set.
She did what she was taugth and the way she did it is not to be unexpected under the circumstances.
Better training, rather than more training, could have helped marginally.

No, it is not. Dive training is meant to produce thinking divers who know their limitations and abilities. But every so often, you see the divers who think this is all easy, safe fun, with no worries...until they run into a small difficulty. (Current that the other divers handled with ease is a small difficulty.) then they panic, like she did.

This is HER fault- NOT her instructor. Stop trying to shift the blame. She already is trying to do that herself

 

[gianaameri]

BS. She did NOT do want she was trained. She was trained to drop her weight belt and inflate her BCD. She did neither.

Second, self rescue, to a degree IS taught in OW. It is to ascend safely (She didn't), get buoyant (She didn't), drop her weights (She didn't) and assess the situation, without panic. Again, she didn't. These are all part of OW.

No no diver I know is taught to 'activate the buddy system and expect rescue', like the buddy is some sort of scuba 911.

Bottom line, she was lucky that there were calmer and better trained divers present to deal with her panic and save her life.

If you are in respiratory distress, you can't do all those things to self-help.

You can't breathe, you can't fight.

You can't fight to save your life, that of your buddy, that of your kids...

Panic is integral part of respiratory distress.