Luko
Contributor
I had a smilar thing happening to me a couple of years ago in Alor : while diving in front of a village.Just a word about the original subject. I was in Ambon when another diver got a very bad case of the runs on the morning after his first or second dive (I forget). He was out of action for the next 5 days. Really bad case, barely surfacing a few times to make a brief appearance at meal times to join us sometimes. Imodium did not help, neither did a trip to the local doctor. No one else had any issues at all. He has just come in from Lembeh and taken a day off in Ambon, where he was going to be for 2 weeks (first trip to that part of the world). So travel/rest was not a factor, and he seemed to be generally careful.
Finally, he speculated what had caused the problem was his habit of taking his regulator out and sipping a bit of water on a regular basis. I got the impression he did this a few times each dive, salty water notwithstanding. He was backed up on this practice by another diver who said she sometimes did the same thing. Anyway, the speculation was that the water he happened to imbibe was so badly contaminated that it had laid him flat.
So, any divers that do the same "just a little sip" thing, think twice, be careful.
I probably surfaced at the wrong place on the wrong moment,.. i don't "sip" seawater but I clearly relate my troubles to this dive and therefore gather that just taking my reg of my mouth and putting it back would have been enough to catch some nasty belly bugs. I also was the only one at the resort to hit with the runs, And the first time for me in 35 years traveling (OK...Nepal excepted).
Immodium (loperamide) does not help the flow is too "powerful", you need panfurex (Nifuroxazide) in this case to neutralize the bacteria. i spent 4 days very near to a toilet and drank a plantationfull of coconuts in order to avoid dehydration (Coconut water was much more help than Pocari Sweat) I could only eat nasi bubur for a few days.
So to say Lembeh is not the only place, Alor is not known for the density of the population, take a bay or a strait where a remote village does not handle properly wasted water and there you are with some ugly bacteria sitting on your 2nd stage staring at you right in the eyes.