It may seem strange coming from another operator but its true. Here is the story:
In November of 2008 I was diving alone with my 10 year old son at Delilah 40 ft max. The only other person on the boat was the Aldora capitan (when you own your own dive op you can do that!). My boy was really enjoying swimthroughs and although it scared me to death, I did so but kept a close hand on his tank. About 20 minutes into the dive he indicated he wanted to go through a narrow ascending one, from about 40 feet to 25 feet. I let him go, but raced after him, just to make sure that exiting the swim through he would not bolt to the surface.
On the way up I noticed I was negative and instead of adding air to my BC, as I should have done, in my haste I just sucked in extra air and held it to keep my belly out of the sand. I did get to him at the exit but then he was having problems with mask flooding and seemed worried. No problem, we'd only been to 40 feet for 20 minutes so I took him up. Safety stop? Not for such a weenie dive so I surfaced and had the Aldora boat capitan get him out of the water.
While myself trying to get up the ladder, I made it as far as passing my BC to the capitan, then while hanging onto the ladder found my left hand would not work, not at all. I did get my fins off and by that time I just could not move anything, except I did wrap my right arm around the ladder. I remember my face sloshing in and out of the water, but being able to spit the water out. Eventually the capitan looked over ( probably thought I was peeing), and saw my face in the water. I vaguely remember him uttering some sort of Spanish swear word as he grabbed the back of my wetsuit and kept my head out of the water.
But there we were, a 220 lb guy in the water with no mobility and a 120 pound capitan and 10 year. old boy to try and pull him over. Actually all they could do was keep me from drowning, and yell for help.
What had happened was that my breath hold ascent in the swimthrough from 40 to 25 feet I suffered what is called an Arterial Cerebral Gas Embolism. That is, a small bubble of air passed through my lungs and got into an artery that went straight to my brain. Once at the surface the bubble expanded and caused the exact same symptoms as a stroke.
Well, the first passing boat, I have no idea how long it took, was a Dressel Divers cattle boat. Thank goodness as they had two well trained DMs on board who quickly and professionally got my carcass over the gunnel and applied the oxygen we had on board the Aldora 4.
It was almost surreal but for most of this event I was conscious of what was going on and I marveled at the professionalism of these two guys. One was an Israeli and the other a German and even if they did not know Palancar from Paradise, they were very professional in their life saving skills.
Indeed, after about 5 minutes on O2 I came out of the paralysis and could talk. I offered them both a job on the spot as I can teach reefs real quick... but not so well at life saving skills. They both declined and then went on to take their afternoon load of divers out.
Of course I went on to a great number of chamber rides, and had to stay out of the water for a year, but don't expect me to ever bad mouth Dressel Divers.
Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers
PS I learned a number of valuable lessons in this stupidity of mine, if anyone wants me to elaborate I will.
In November of 2008 I was diving alone with my 10 year old son at Delilah 40 ft max. The only other person on the boat was the Aldora capitan (when you own your own dive op you can do that!). My boy was really enjoying swimthroughs and although it scared me to death, I did so but kept a close hand on his tank. About 20 minutes into the dive he indicated he wanted to go through a narrow ascending one, from about 40 feet to 25 feet. I let him go, but raced after him, just to make sure that exiting the swim through he would not bolt to the surface.
On the way up I noticed I was negative and instead of adding air to my BC, as I should have done, in my haste I just sucked in extra air and held it to keep my belly out of the sand. I did get to him at the exit but then he was having problems with mask flooding and seemed worried. No problem, we'd only been to 40 feet for 20 minutes so I took him up. Safety stop? Not for such a weenie dive so I surfaced and had the Aldora boat capitan get him out of the water.
While myself trying to get up the ladder, I made it as far as passing my BC to the capitan, then while hanging onto the ladder found my left hand would not work, not at all. I did get my fins off and by that time I just could not move anything, except I did wrap my right arm around the ladder. I remember my face sloshing in and out of the water, but being able to spit the water out. Eventually the capitan looked over ( probably thought I was peeing), and saw my face in the water. I vaguely remember him uttering some sort of Spanish swear word as he grabbed the back of my wetsuit and kept my head out of the water.
But there we were, a 220 lb guy in the water with no mobility and a 120 pound capitan and 10 year. old boy to try and pull him over. Actually all they could do was keep me from drowning, and yell for help.
What had happened was that my breath hold ascent in the swimthrough from 40 to 25 feet I suffered what is called an Arterial Cerebral Gas Embolism. That is, a small bubble of air passed through my lungs and got into an artery that went straight to my brain. Once at the surface the bubble expanded and caused the exact same symptoms as a stroke.
Well, the first passing boat, I have no idea how long it took, was a Dressel Divers cattle boat. Thank goodness as they had two well trained DMs on board who quickly and professionally got my carcass over the gunnel and applied the oxygen we had on board the Aldora 4.
It was almost surreal but for most of this event I was conscious of what was going on and I marveled at the professionalism of these two guys. One was an Israeli and the other a German and even if they did not know Palancar from Paradise, they were very professional in their life saving skills.
Indeed, after about 5 minutes on O2 I came out of the paralysis and could talk. I offered them both a job on the spot as I can teach reefs real quick... but not so well at life saving skills. They both declined and then went on to take their afternoon load of divers out.
Of course I went on to a great number of chamber rides, and had to stay out of the water for a year, but don't expect me to ever bad mouth Dressel Divers.
Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers
PS I learned a number of valuable lessons in this stupidity of mine, if anyone wants me to elaborate I will.
