Diving Accident, Self-Responsibility and Balance

[T.C.]

I am on a bus to a place where in addition to the external training you are accustomed to they adopt internal training and code the primitive brain.

so while you're there, why don't you expound on your theories that panicking is what helps divers survive? I'm sure you instructors have a lot to teach you.

There is is a HUGE difference between training to master and use your instincts, and letting stress and fear overwhelm you. You are not going to a class that will teach you how to use panic, the class will teach you how to master your instincts and use the to respond better.

Panic is is what results when stress and fear overwhelm a person. This is never helpful underwater- or in any situation in life I can think of.

Again, your weird views that panic is good are not supported by any agency or organization, and should not be listened to. I worry some new diver would read your nonsense and think panic is not a bad thing, when it is the WORST thing a diver can do.

You REALLY need to take a stress and rescue class.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Please stop now. You two have punched each other bloody and now Gianaameri is on a bus.

 

[gianaameri]

so while you're there, why don't you expound on your theories that panicking is what helps divers survive? I'm sure you instructors have a lot to teach you.

There is is a HUGE difference between training to master and use your instincts, and letting stress and fear overwhelm you. You are not going to a class that will teach you how to use panic, the class will teach you how to master your instincts and use the to respond better.

Panic is is what results when stress and fear overwhelm a person. This is never helpful underwater- or in any situation in life I can think of.

Again, your weird views that panic is good are not supported by any agency or organization, and should not be listened to. I worry some new diver would read your nonsense and think panic is not a bad thing, when it is the WORST thing a diver can do.

You REALLY need to take a stress and rescue class.

The fight or flight response helps us to survive.

Fear and panic are part of the experience when the amigdala triggers the response.

That is what happened to Thea that dive that day and it is normal biologically.

You can't fault her for that.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

[T.C.]

The fight or flight response helps us to survive.

Fear and panic are part of the experience when the amigdala triggers the response.

That is what happened to Thea that dive that day and it is normal biologically.

You can't fault her for that.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

you see, this is where you are badly confused. The fight or flight response is NOT panic. The fight or flight response is normal. Everyone who experiences high levels of stress feels this. It is how it is managed that is the issue.

Panic results when stress and fear overwhelms a person, when the fight or flight response overwhelms the person. It is NOT HELPFUL.

But, it can be avoided. It can be managed. This is what is taught in the open water courses. This is what anyone who deals with high stress is taught to do. This is the correct response to stress.

Your advice that panic is what allowed her to survive is complete and utter nonsense, and should not be followed by ANYONE

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

I'm going to step in here for a moment.

Great post TSandM, hopefully the parties involved take the time to read it in its entirety and appreciate the knowledge and experience behind it.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[gianaameri]

you see, this is where you are badly confused. The fight or flight response is NOT panic. The fight or flight response is normal. Everyone who experiences high levels of stress feels this. It is how it is managed that is the issue.

Panic results when stress and fear overwhelms a person, when the fight or flight response overwhelms the person. It is NOT HELPFUL.

But, it can be avoided. It can be managed. This is what is taught in the open water courses. This is what anyone who deals with high stress is taught to do. This is the correct response to stress.

Your advice that panic is what allowed her to survive is complete and utter nonsense, and should not be followed by ANYONE

The fight or flight response helped her to survive.

There is a state where the primitive brain is dominant and all the performance enhancing stuff is released without any accompanying emotions, but this is for the warriors like you (selection process, training, your genes...), and you can't expect it from the average recreational SCUBA divers like Thea.

She panicked due to her environment and physiology that dive that day, but it worked.

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[tech_diver]

There is absolutely no doubt that the fight or flight response has been an advantage to human survival and we can find actual examples where the panic response gave a person what they needed to survive a specific situation.

However, in the early 1990's tech diving, one of my buddies divined what we took then to be the #1 rule for tech diving:

Tech Diving Rule #1 "You Panic, you die."

Which gave rise to the 2nd rule:

Tech Diving Rule #2 "In case of extreme emergency during a tech dive, see rule #1."


Yes... it's harsh but it was the days of Aquacorps.


One could argue that there is a time and place for panic, but there is also a time and place to not panic.

 

[T.C.]

The fight or flight response helped her to survive.

You're getting closer, fight or flight COULD have helped her survive, but in this case it did not. It did not help her, because it devolved into panic. That panic is what prevented her from utilizing her training, and what necessitated a rescue, instead of simply picking up a diver on the surface.

There is a state where the primitive brain is dominant and all the performance enhancing stuff is released without any accompanying emotions, but this is for the warriors like you (selection process, training, your genes...), and you can't expect it from the average recreational SCUBA divers like Thea.

Wrong! This way of thinking can be learned by anyone. It is not exclusive to military forces, or anyone who regularly encounters high stress. It can be learned to react to stress without panicking. The methods of interrupting the stress response cycle are taught early and often in stress and rescue classes. I highly suggest that you actually take one in the future, preferably before you go on your next dive.

She panicked due to her environment and physiology that dive that day, but it worked.

NO. IT DID NOT WORK. The panic prevented her from responding according to her training. Her training, is what WOULD have saved her. Since she panicked, she was not able to use her training, and had to be rescued by other divers, who could think, and could act according to their training and rational thought.

Panic is what almost killed her that day. It did not assist or help her in anyway. The thought that panic is what helped her survive is utter foolishness, not endorsed by any organization or agency, and should not be practiced by anyone.

Rational thought and action in accordance with a person's training and experience is the proper response.

Panic is what kills divers. Managing stress properly is what keeps them alive.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

The fight or flight response helped her to survive.

There is a state where the primitive brain is dominant and all the performance enhancing stuff is released without any accompanying emotions, but this is for the warriors like you (selection process, training, your genes...), and you can't expect it from the average recreational SCUBA divers like Thea.

She panicked due to her environment and physiology that dive that day, but it worked.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

I'm going to jump into the panic debate, possibly to my detriment. Having seen a good number of commercial diving students in full panic mode, I agree almost 100% with the T.C.'s perspective (if not the delivery via club

)

Thea panicked and she survived, so there is correlation between the two but you're jumping to causation, i.e. her panic helped her survive, which IMO is incorrect. The human panic reaction is an evolutionary response to help us on land, e.g. running from TSandM's proverbial T-Rex. Outside a controlled training environment, panic underwater is universally detrimental. Thea got lucky.

One of a diving instructor's more important tasks is to raise a student's panic threshold to the point where he or she can survive an underwater emergency that occurs while diving within the scope of his or her training. I'm too lazy to scroll through the thread to quote him directly, but T.C. mentioned something earlier about divers going slightly outside their comfort zone (my own addition: in the company of a competent buddy) in order to gain experience. In other words, the job of the novice diver is to gain experience in order to further raise the panic threshold.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[Thea Strassburg]

It is more than ok to admit getting panicked in the water. Had this just been a panic attack, my post would say "I panicked in the water and needed help, but once on the boat, I calmed right down and felt stupid."

I would not have still been gasping for breath and turned blue and have low O2 sats and BP dangerously high 40 minutes after getting pulled out of the water.
I wish it WAS just a panic attack. I am scared to death of what all these tests may reveal about my physical health.

Harbor Island has no ambulances. The clinic not meeting us at the dock is irrelevant to the seriousness or lack thereof of the incident, they had not evaluated me and had no idea WHAT was wrong. Nor would I have so quickly recovered my breath after O2 and an albuterol treatment. In the midst of getting a physical.

What frightens the heck out of me is that a boat operator will assume it is just panic and not administer O2. O2 isnt expensive. And it could save a life.

---------- Post added February 28th, 2014 at 10:05 AM ----------

Pulmonary testing and a cardiac evaluation are absolutely essential before I EVER put myself and other divers at risk of going through what I went through and the stress and trouble I caused the other divers. I should have done it before the dive, but, I feel fine and am not in "poor health" as someone stated earlier.

And even being overweight, I clean up pretty well can can still catch an old man's eye on occasion . But I will NEVER allow this to happen again. I feel so bad about putting the DM's and other divers through that, and cannot forgive myself or make excuses for it. Thank you so much for your post!

---------- Post added February 28th, 2014 at 10:14 AM ----------
https://www.facebook.com/thea.strassburg

This is a pic of me on that vacation (if interested). My hair is a mess, but I am no invalid. Clearly, I have offended you TC. Not at all my intention. So, I will re-introduce myself. Hi, I am Thea Strassburg, nice to meet you! The floating big guy is my wonderful husband.