I had an incident right after I got my OW cert. My buddy and I were cruising along at about 40ft against a slight current. There were a few jelly fish around so we were wearing full body protection including a lycra hood. We would swim a little ways and then stop and grab hold of a rock and look around and check stuff out. And then... WHAM!!! I got hit by what felt like a massive electrical shock across my forehead. I jerked back and some how the quick release buckle on my weight belt released. I'm not sure how... I think I must have brushed against it with my hand or arm when I brought it up to my face in a defensive manor. But I had the presents of mind to grab hold of my weight belt before it slipped completely off allowing me to rocket to the surface. Well needless to say this left me in one hell of a predicament. Hanging there upside down, my weight belt in one hand, my head in the other, in immense pain to the point of making me nauseous, scared, confused as to what the hell just happened, desperately trying in vain to vent my BCD not realizing that I couldn't because both dump valves were on the shoulders and not only that but it wouldn't have done any good anyways as I was wearing a 1/4 inch farmer john wet-suit. All I could think was "LET GO, LET GO, LET GO!!!" but luckily my training kicked in and I herd my instructors voice in my head "Stop, Think, Act!". He drilled that phrase into us at every opportunity during our OW class and thank god he did. And that is exactly what I did. Stop... think about it... letting go and shooting to the surface is not a good idea! Your ok, your reg is still in your mouth, you have plenty of air, and your stationary so just chill out and relax a minute. So I just chilled out for what seemed like an eternity and let the pain subside somewhat. Once I calmed down I realized I had gotten popped good by a jelly fish that raked across my fore head where my hood had pulled back from my mask. And once again my training kicked in and I realized I wasn't bad off at all and all I had to do was put my weight belt back on which I not only learned how to do in OW but also had to demonstrate multiple times to my instructor. So I did and except for still realling from the pain of getting stung I was back to square one. My buddy was in sight but apparently oblivious to what just happened. I caught up to him, gave him the surface sign, I explained what happened and we called the dive.
