Hallucinations

[MoonWrasse]

check the vehicle for exhaust leak in to the car. The carbon monoxide could be at levels too low to be symptomatic until you were all at depth.

Darn! You beat me to it

I agree, it could well be CO exposure on the drive there, coupled with beathing compressed gas at depth.

 

[Cacia]

hey, I just said that! I reall think that is it you know. I just want credit. :huh:

 

[SeanQ]

As for the hallucination, have you considered plankton? It's the start of the plankton bloom season and you can get seriously screwed if you eat bivalves that have accumulated too much of the toxins from certian kinds of plankton. I don't know what would happen if you swallowed a bit of water with the right stuff in it.

Maybe if the water you swallowed was used to cook the bivalves? I think the sea water itself is fairly harmless because you're not consuming enough of the toxin. Since the bivalves accumulate the toxin but aren't affected by it, the risk comes from eating the bivalves.

The Carbon monoxide idea sounds plausible.

 

[DandyDon]

The Carbon monoxide idea sounds plausible.

Yeah - and possibly deadly. :11:

 

[S. starfish]

Yea, CO was one of my first guesses too, but the symptoms, aside form tunnel vision, don't really match up, also when you think about it it doesn't really make that much sense. The problem with CO is that it bonds to hemogolbin 200s stronger than 02 and doesn't let go, preventing any 02 from bonding. If we had been breathing contaminated air in the car then once we got out and quite breathing it all the hemoglobin that could be occupied by CO would be once we hit the water. So correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't being under pressure and having more 02 dissolved in the blood plasma make it easier for us to cope with any CO inhalation before diving? Also, if we'd been breathing contaminated air down at 90ft and beenacting all loopy wouldn't the chances of us blacking out from hypoxia in shallow water be great enough for at least one of us to black out?

I like the plankton/bivalve theory, there are a lot of wierd cretures that live at that site and who knows what they're secreting into the water.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Yea, CO was one of my first guesses too, but the symptoms, aside form tunnel vision, don't really match up, also when you think about it it doesn't really make that much sense. The problem with CO is that it bonds to hemogolbin 200s stronger than 02 and doesn't let go, preventing any 02 from bonding. If we had been breathing contaminated air in the car then once we got out and quite breathing it all the hemoglobin that could be occupied by CO would be once we hit the water. So correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't being under pressure and having more 02 dissolved in the blood plasma make it easier for us to cope with any CO inhalation before diving? Also, if we'd been breathing contaminated air down at 90ft and beenacting all loopy wouldn't the chances of us blacking out from hypoxia in shallow water be great enough for at least one of us to black out?

What if it was a mild enough dose that it bonded to ENOUGH of the hemoglobin to magnify nitrogen narcosis, even at shallower depths? It doesn't have to be all or nothing. In other words, it wouldn't have to be enough to cause a blackout, but could have been enough to cause your brain to be a little starved for oxygen.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Frankly, I would be a little worried until I found out what happened. I would follow Don's advice and give DAN a call.

 

[S. starfish]

What if it was a mild enough dose that it bonded to ENOUGH of the hemoglobin to magnify nitrogen narcosis, even at shallower depths? It doesn't have to be all or nothing. In other words, it wouldn't have to be enough to cause a blackout, but could have been enough to cause your brain to be a little starved for oxygen.

Hmmm.... never thought of that for some reason, I'm not entirely sure how nitrogen narcosis works exactly or how it would be affected by a slight bit of hypoxia, but it does seem to make sense.

 

[MSilvia]

I'm not sure (based on the previous description of the problem) if the guy who used a previous fill was symptomatic or not. It occurred to me that if three of the four of you who got fills had the problem, it might be that the fourth got a top-off or otherwise somehow might have gotten a lower concentration of whatever contaminant the others were breathing (if any).

 

[MarkH]

Maybe if the water you swallowed was used to cook the bivalves? I think the sea water itself is fairly harmless because you're not consuming enough of the toxin. Since the bivalves accumulate the toxin but aren't affected by it, the risk comes from eating the bivalves.

The Carbon monoxide idea sounds plausible.

Yeah, I think the bivalves have to be accumulating it for a few months to be really dangerous, but I'm not sure. I remember one dive at Whytecliffe Park (in the same general area as the suspect dive) where the top 15 feet or so were bright red from a plankton bloom. Even though I think most toxic plankton isn't red, they used to call the bad stuff "red tide". It was kind of neat to look up from deep down and see red instead of the usual green.