Diving Accident, Self-Responsibility and Balance

[Greenjuice]

I went through what Thea went through which is why I undestand it.

If you have not already done so, perhaps you might consider posting your experience and the analysis of the configurations on your return to diving.

I, and I suspect many others, have learnt in this discussion that followed Thea's posting and opportunities like this are relatively rare.

Your contributions are appreciated. Thank you.


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[doctormike]

and the question is whether that was an inevitable chain of events or whether it could have been modified during the course of development to change the outcome?

I think that this sums up this endless thread as well as anything.

Some posters seem to be characterizing the situation as that this was a sudden attack of EIB, following which Thea was a passive actor, dependent on the random good luck of having rescuers nearby, some access to supplemental O2, and access to a clinic that supplied her with a bronchodilator in less than an hour (not sure if this was the case, she didn't specify whether she was actually treated for EIB or not, but I won't go into that since we have no detailed clinical information).

So lets just assume that's the case. There has to be more of a reason for this thread than simply to implore dive boats to carry bronchodilators on board in addition to supplemental O2. Especially since she might just as likely have been diving from a liveaboard, on an offshore wreck, or on a less developed island with no medical facilities.

The reason for the thread is to see what could have been done to break the chain and avoid an injury or fatality - not just for her but for any other diver who wants to learn from whatever errors were present.

So instead of arguing about the amygdala and parsing semantics about whether panic is an adaptive evolved response or not, maybe we should see what we can take home from Thea's story and video so that we make good choices and follow learned procedures.. Even if we have the bad luck to get hit with an unanticipated medical emergency, we still have to be able to do certain things (like dropping a weight belt or inflating a BC). I think that it's great that Thea posted this, the reason we have this forum is precisely this reason - to dissect dives that don't go well and improve our diving in the future. She is brave and conscientious...

Thea experienced a real event which caused her respiratory distress and which triggered the fight or flight response which in turn produces the behavior which she described....We are coded to go into fight or flight response and there is no stopping it, same as you can't stop your heart beating....It is unlikely you'd be capable to carry out anything complex other than continue breathing the gas you already have from the reg in your mouth and continue kicking.

I'm not sure what to make of these statements, especially since I recall from a previous thread that you are a fairly advanced diver (rebreathers, caves), right?

Isn't the whole point of technical training that you need to be able to break a panic spiral and an accident chain by solving a problem underwater? Or are you saying that there are some events which are so bad that they inevitably just switch on a physiological response that makes you unable to do anything more than to keep breathing? I guess there are some events like that - a stroke or a heart attack. Are you putting Thea's story in that category..? Or are you suggesting that as a recreational diver she doesn't have the same obligation to try to break the chain...?

 

[Thea Strassburg]

I am trying to respond to Bowlofpetunias! This Board confuses me a smidge (never said I was the brightest bulb in the pack).

 

[doctormike]

I am trying to respond to Bowlofpetunias! This Board confuses me a smidge (never said I was the brightest bulb in the pack).

The thing to do is go to the post you want to respond to and click on "reply with quote" at the bottom. That way, we can see what you are referring to (if it's a long post, you can edit the quoted text down a bit, to highlight a specific statement). This is especially helpful since some of your replies are direct responses to multiple other posts...

 

[Thea Strassburg]

• Pre-dive check? What is that? KIDDING! Before every dive vacation, I plan to review the steps, write them down on a note pad as a list, then take the notepad with me, and precisely follow every step to ensure the equipment is in good working order before getting in the water.
  I have never actually done that, but I THINK about it every time.
  Never made time to actually do it. Part of me worries that if I DID do that, the DM's would be insulted and I would slow the group down.
  
  The only time I rented a reg from my dive shop is when the dive operation posted on it's site that we should "consider renting your own equipment because ours is not reliable". I swear to the heavens, that is EXACTLY what the site said!
  
  My "pre-dive" check consisted of asking the DM as I checked in if he would double check my equipment since I had not dived in 8 months.
  
  But, when we got to the dive site, everyone kind of hurries to get into the water, the DM's had the equipment set up, I put my weight belt on, but the staff did everything else. And not just for me, but also for the other 3 divers and the Discovery divers as well. I realized once I started the dive, my shoulder straps were not tightened, the DM noticed me and swam over and tightened them for me. But, I did not do any kind of pre-dive check except looking at the O2 gauge.
  
  I remember wondering why my weight belt was so tight it was constricting my breathing, but I could move the weights when they slipped to one side. That was confusing.
  
  And then, we jumped in the water and descended. I check my O2 frequently and knew I was good on that. I remember noticing one of the 3 gauges, the top one, had fallen out and showed the DM. He gave me the ok, and we kept diving. I have seen that before and wasn't concerned, just wanted to double check.
  
  I don't rent equipment because, the time I did it was so bulky and took up so much space in our luggage. Thinking about this (and yes, I still am, a lot) it seems like I was having a bit of trouble breathing as soon as we descended, but blamed it on the weight belt being to tight. Even though in reality, it wasn't.
  
  Another abrogation of responsibility for my own dive.
  
  But like I said, we are all in a hurry to get in the water, the DM's were quite efficient in getting everything ready, and I did not want to be the one to slow the group down. Even if I had my always planned but never executed pre-dive check list, I would have likely hurried through it anyway.
  More food for thought, thank you bowlofpetunias. Not sure how the equipment would affect the dive as long as my air was flowing though, more research to do before all the crankies start fussing at me (I appreciate the crankies though, just posting here shows there concern for safety and passion for diving. I have learned a lot from every single post.)​
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[Storker]

we are all in a hurry to get in the water, the DM's were quite efficient in getting everything ready, and I did not want to be the one to slow the group down. Even if I had my always planned but never executed pre-dive check list, I would have likely hurried through it anyway.

Ugh. Shudder.

My log is roughly as full as yours (some fifty-odd entries, including course dives), but the pre-dive check is something I never cut short. Even when I'm diving with my regular buddy, with whom I've dived at least 30-40 dives, we do an explicit pre-dive buddy check. A couple of times we've uncovered some error or another, like, say a drysuit hose not connected. If I'm not ready and haven't gone through the checks in my regular tempo, I'm not entering the water. I've called out instabuddies on their way into the water and asked for an explicit buddy check, and not even one of them has frowned. At least not to my face...

Both since different gear uses different ways to secure the weights, and since the pre-dive buddy check more than once has spared me an incident that would at the best be rather embarrassing, I'm planning to keep up my routine in the foreseeable future. And if anyone gets cranky about that, screw'em. It's my safety and my life at stake.



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Typos are a feature, not a bug

 

[Thea Strassburg]

The thing to do is go to the post you want to respond to and click on "reply with quote" at the bottom. That way, we can see what you are referring to (if it's a long post, you can edit the quoted text down a bit, to highlight a specific statement). This is especially helpful since some of your replies are direct responses to multiple other posts...

Thank you, got it!

---------- Post added March 1st, 2014 at 10:16 AM ----------

. It seems to me you dive with New Equipment every dive! What role if anything do you think equipment played in this. I know you mentioned dropping your weight belt but it hung up. You mentioned at some point (too lazy to go hunt up the specific post) something about having trouble figuring out how to inflate your BCD. IMHO it seems you did a lot of the right things and I wonder how much the equipment issues effected the event?

• Pre-dive check? What is that? KIDDING! Before every dive vacation, I plan to review the steps, write them down on a note pad as a list, then take the notepad with me, and precisely follow every step to ensure the equipment is in good working order before getting in the water.
  I have never actually done that, but I THINK about it every time.
  Never made time to actually do it. Part of me worries that if I DID do that, the DM's would be insulted and I would slow the group down.
  
  The only time I rented a reg from my dive shop is when the dive operation posted on it's site that we should "consider renting your own equipment because ours is not reliable". I swear to the heavens, that is EXACTLY what the site said!
  
  My "pre-dive" check consisted of asking the DM as I checked in if he would double check my equipment since I had not dived in 8 months.
  
  But, when we got to the dive site, everyone kind of hurries to get into the water, the DM's had the equipment set up, I put my weight belt on, but the staff did everything else. And not just for me, but also for the other 3 divers and the Discovery divers as well. I realized once I started the dive, my shoulder straps were not tightened, the DM noticed me and swam over and tightened them for me. But, I did not do any kind of pre-dive check except looking at the O2 gauge.
  
  I remember wondering why my weight belt was so tight it was constricting my breathing, but I could move the weights when they slipped to one side. That was confusing.
  
  And then, we jumped in the water and descended. I check my O2 frequently and knew I was good on that. I remember noticing one of the 3 gauges, the top one, had fallen out and showed the DM. He gave me the ok, and we kept diving. I have seen that before and wasn't concerned, just wanted to double check.
  
  I don't rent equipment because, the time I did it was so bulky and took up so much space in our luggage. Thinking about this (and yes, I still am, a lot) it seems like I was having a bit of trouble breathing as soon as we descended, but blamed it on the weight belt being to tight. Even though in reality, it wasn't.
  
  Another abrogation of responsibility for my own dive.
  
  But like I said, we are all in a hurry to get in the water, the DM's were quite efficient in getting everything ready, and I did not want to be the one to slow the group down. Even if I had my always planned but never executed pre-dive check list, I would have likely hurried through it anyway.
  More food for thought, thank you bowlofpetunias. Not sure how the equipment would affect the dive as long as my air was flowing though, more research to do before all the crankies start fussing at me (I appreciate the crankies though, just posting here shows there concern for safety and passion for diving. I have learned a lot from every single post.)​
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[Greenjuice]

Pre-dive check? What is that? KIDDING!
Never made time to actually do it. Part of me worries that if I DID do that, the DM's would be insulted and I would slow the group down.

Your instincts and thoughtfulness for others is very strong. That is commendable and my wife does this too. But choose your moment for self-sacrifice wisely.

I remember wondering why my weight belt was so tight it was constricting my breathing, but I could move the weights when they slipped to one side. That was confusing.

Thinking about this (and yes, I still am, a lot) it seems like I was having a bit of trouble breathing as soon as we descended, but blamed it on the weight belt being to tight. Even though in reality, it wasn't.

It is good that by going over things again, some new light is shed. This will be useful information for the dive medic because the 'E' of 'EIB' had not happened yet.

But, I did not do any kind of pre-dive check except looking at the O2 gauge.
And then, we jumped in the water and descended. I check my O2 frequently and knew I was good on that.

I don't want to be too picky, but am touching on it here because I did notice you posting something similar before. Just wanted to check you know that you were not checking your O2. A minor point which will be useful if you ever move to using Nitrox, something worth considering as one gets older.

Apologies for being a cranky!

 

[gianaameri]

Or are you saying that there are some events which are so bad that they inevitably just switch on a physiological response that makes you unable to do anything more than to keep breathing? I guess there are some events like that - a stroke or a heart attack. Are you putting Thea's story in that category..? Or are you suggesting that as a recreational diver she doesn't have the same obligation to try to break the chain...?

All divers would get a fight or flight response to disabling root causes like hypoxia, hypercapnia, hyperoxia... whatever brings about those conditions (poor equipment or medical problems)... unless it is so bad that you just lose consciousness and don't even get the chance to try to survive.

What would trigger the fight or flight response on land, would do the same underwater.

We are coded that way and it is inevitable.

A fire in a cinema will trigger mass panic and if the emergency doors are not designed to open outwards and from pressure on them put by a single person or a crowd, there will be a lot of fatalities (even though just pulling on them would have opened them if designed to open inwards).

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[Mike]

Thea -

Don't ever worry about slowing the dive group down getting into the water. It's one thing if you were talking on your cell phone or trying to take pictures of the dive captain, it's quite another if you are taking your time going through your equipment and your buddies, checking and double checking that everything is correct. No real diver is ever going to hold anything against you if you're taking time doing your checks, real divers understand the importance of it and while they are waiting for you they are probably eyeing your equipment watching you check it, doing their own mental/visual check out, this is what a real diver does. Don't ever let yourself be rushed.

Secondly, if you turn the corner and start diving with a dive buddy, you will have a buddy who is checking your equipment while you are checking theirs.

Thirdly in regard to your weight belt you should see about learning the way that you can twist your belt while putting each weight on it, this prevents your individual weights from moving around on the belt from one side to the other, doing this you can arrange your individual weights so they are distributed on each of your hips and equally balances and not have to worry about them moving. When a dive master or boat crew hands me a weight belt with the weights just strung on them with no twists, I will take the time it takes to take the weights off and re-string it correctly.

It looks like this or a variation of it