Diving Accident, Self-Responsibility and Balance

[flots am]

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.

My O2 class taught to always give O2 when requested, and for any diving incident where it might possibly be helpful, even if you're not sure.

In any case, It's pretty much impossible to hurt a diver with the contents of a portable O2 bottle, so there's no reason not to use it.

flots.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

... and Thea, hopefully you don't take offense at people (myself included) talking about you like you're not here. Dissection and debate ad nauseum are common in this forum. I'm very happy to hear that you're going to get a medical workup.

Nothing to do with the incident, but thanks for the work that you do.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[razorbackdiver]

This thread has mainly dealt with how Thea should have responded once she was in the incident pit. TC's position is that Thea should have manage her stress and relied on her training. This makes the assumption that Thea was infact properly trained. I'm not trying to offend Thea or her instructors, but since Thea's weight belt was loose and she wasn't able to properly ditch this belt I think this area should be explored. Thea did you perform a predive check? I ask this because my observation is that most divers only pay lip service to predive or buddy checks. To be honest I didn't take predive checks seriously until I stepped off a boat and immediately experiened a wing failure? This is also was when i began to question the quality of my own OW training and determined that the quality was less than what I think it should have been.

 

[gianaameri]

ACTH, adrenaline, noradrenaline.... helped Theas' luck that dive that day.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

 

[Hawkwood]

... To be honest I didn't take predive checks seriously until I stepped off a boat and immediately experiened a wing failure? This is also was when i began to question the quality of my own OW training and determined that the quality was less than what I think it should have been.

What about your failure to take pre-dive safety checks seriously made you question the quality of your training?

 

[razorbackdiver]

What about your failure to take pre-dive safety checks seriously made you question the quality of your training?

You mean besides the fact that my instructor never mentioned it. Or the fact my instructor never demonstrated it. Or the fact that I learned about begin with review friend from the Internet after I had my certification.

 

[nimoh]

You mean besides the fact that my instructor never mentioned it. Or the fact my instructor never demonstrated it. Or the fact that I learned about begin with review friend from the Internet after I had my certification.

you should retake OW from a better instructor. Your instructor probably missed other things as well, and if it was relatively recent, I would fill out a report to PADI (I am assuming PADI because of the reference to the pre-dive check acronym).

By the way, if you use "begin with review friend" for your pre-dive check, you will likely find one day that you forgot to turn your air on

 

[Hawkwood]

You mean besides the fact that my instructor never mentioned it. Or the fact my instructor never demonstrated it. Or the fact that I learned about begin with review friend from the Internet after I had my certification.

I asked a fair question, didn't I. How was I supposed to know it wasn't mentioned or demonstrated to you?

 

[razorbackdiver]

I asked a fair question, didn't I. How was I supposed to know it wasn't mentioned or demonstrated to you?

Yes it was a fair question. I apologize for answering in a confrontational way.

 

[fsardone]

Originally Posted by T.C.
You can manage stress, or let it overwhelm you. Panic is when it overwhelms you and dictates your actions.

Bingo. Could not have put it any better. If that statement isn't already in a textbook, it should be.

It is in text books!
In those you can read that the natural response to 'issues' is stress.
More stress increases the level of performance (physical and/or mental) to an extent variable from individual to individual. Passing that point the level of performance drops and we might have incapacitation or panic if the situation is considered risky ..... training moves the break point further up (stress management) and lower the amount of stress generated by events (learned responses and familiarity with situations) giving us the capability to handle more with reduced stress levels.

Few read books nowadays Please keeps things in perspective! We are here to improve ourselves and help others in the same process.

Cheers
Fabio