I mentioned in a post a week ago how valuable this forum was for education. I was encouraged to post what happened to me last May so that others could benefit from my experiences.
On Sunday morning I got up at 10 AM and had my usual breakfast. The weather was almost perfect for diving. Blue skies and quite pleasant. I grabbed my dive gear and started packing it away. I noticed that my computer had 3 minutes left on the 24 hour FLY countdown from the previous days dive. Saturday I had gone to Beaver Harbour, New Brunswick and done a test on my new dry suit with a buddy. 30 feet for 30 minutes and had no issues with buoyancy. So my Sunday dive would be after a 27.5+ hour surface interval.
Myself and three other divers caught the 12:00 Noon ferry to Deer Island for the high tide dive. It was definitely shorts weather.
We arrived at the Point to find at least 8-10 divers and a bunch of families having BBQ's and enjoying the weather. My dive computer recorded 88F in the sun and there was a mild breeze which kept things cool and the bugs away. We geared up on the picnic tables in a leisurely manner and were in the water right on time for the high tide. I had my new dry suit on and was looking forward to diving the Point in it. I was diving with regular air. I drank my usual amount of water before the dive.
Knowing I had the new suit my buddy said we should stay close and side-by-side in case I had problems with buoyancy. He took the lead and we descended to 85 feet. Viz was in the 10-15 foot range. Water temp 44F at its coldest. I had dumped my BCD on the surface and used the dry suit inflator exclusively for buoyancy for the entire dive. Whenever I felt suit squeezed or needed air for buoyancy I added air until I was just slightly negative. I wanted to stay a bit heavy purposely in case of current, but we encountered none.
Just prior to ascending I unscrewed the dry suit arm valve and we began going up the wall almost shoulder to shoulder. At no point was our depth more than 2 feet different. We went up slowly checking various openings in the rocks with our lights. Saw several lobster, wolf fish and lots of shrimp. We paused to feed one of the wolf fish urchins, but he ignored them. Every 30-45 seconds I rolled slightly to the right to raise my arm and was rewarded by bubbles coming out of the arm valve. By doing this I was able to keep neutral. We encountered no issues on the ascent at all. We came up to 15' and did our 3 minute safety stop. I noticed that our computers were both counting down for the stop. They were within 6 seconds of one another. After both computers had counted down we gradually worked our way back to the surface. We came out exactly where we had gone in. Max depth was 85 feet and total dive time was 31 minutes. My buddy congratulated me on my buoyancy in the new suit and we both had smiles. It was a smooth "picture perfect" dive with no problems. We left the water and walked back to the tables to strip off.
On a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 - 5 being in the green, my maximum nitrogen reading (TLBG) was 4. My ascent rate was in the 20-50 feet / minute range which is considered yellow on my computer. I have my DC set to the most conservative settings across the board. There was no alarm, beeping or other sign of anything out of the ordinary from a usual dive profile. I am an Advanced diver and have my deep dive course. I have been deeper for longer in the past and never had any issues. This was dive #47 for me. I came out of the water at 2:07 PM.
After stripping off my gear I had a half liter of water and we co-signed our logs. I put my gear away in the tote and saw I could catch the 3PM ferry so I waved goodbye and left the Point. It was a short drive and I made it to the ferry line-up at 2:50 PM. While sitting there I noticed my right bicep muscle was feeling strange. Hard to describe, but the closest I can come is when your leg falls asleep and it starts to wake up. No pins and needles, much subtler than that. Just strange. I put it down to suit squeeze and figured it was just temporary. Just as the ferry started loading I saw my left forearm had developed a 5 x 7 CM patch of red mottled or marbled skin. I held out my hands in front of me and they were steady. By pure coincidence I parked right alongside three other divers on the ferry. I mentioned my bicep and forearm and I was immediately provided me with a Pony bottle and second stage with 38% O2. They monitored me on the twenty minute ferry journey until we arrived at L'Tete. It was decided we would drive to the Irving convenience store in St. George and I kept the Pony bottle for the journey. Note: If you want to get stares from on-coming traffic drive from L'Tete to St. George with a bright yellow Octo in your mouth.
I arrived at the Irving store first and stripped off my pants as I had swim shorts underneath. I saw my left knee cap was solid red. The others arrived and with me still on the 38% O2 we talked about the situation. After about 5 minutes the feeling in my bicep spread to my right shoulder, my right thigh muscle got the same strange feeling and the mottling on my forearm became more pronounced. This time when I held out my hands they were visibly trembling. The others called an ambulance when I told them it was getting worse.
The ambulance arrived after 10 minutes. The paramedics were told I had been diving and after locking up my car in the parking lot, they loaded me into the back. I was put on 100% O2 immediately and strapped me in. They started to drive to the Regional Hospital in Saint John. During the trip I developed a sinus ache, which developed into a headache. I was conscious throughout and there was no actual pain, just discomfort. My muscles were sore at this point and when we got to the hospital emergency room they put me into a bed immediately and started 100% O2.
It became very obvious, very quickly that the Regional hospital does not see a lot of dive injuries. I was able to hear a lot of the discussions between the staff while I lay there. I was in bed attached to a cardiac monitor, O2 analyzer and blood pressure cuff. They drew blood samples and left a needle stub in my arm to attach IV's etc. The attending doctor came over and while he knew there was a dive organization that he could call for medical guidance he did not have the contact number for it. I had it in my cell phone (DAN 919 684-4326) and gave it to him along with the Nova Scotia hyperbaric chamber number (902 473-2220). I made sure to enter them in my cell when I saw posts on the NS hyperbaric chamber tour earlier in the year. Doing that saved valuable time. The doctors talked with the DAN doctor on the phone; with the symptoms I was presenting and the bloodwork they confirmed I was bent. My symptoms had leveled out and after an hour I started to feel better. During this time they were on the phone trying to find a chamber. The closest they could find through DAN was Halifax and on consultation with a Halifax based dive doctor I was told they would be flying me directly there. 10 minutes later they came back and told me they had to fly me to Moncton and transfer me to another flight onto Halifax. Then 20 minutes later they told me the pilot out of Saint John had exceeded his regulated flight time and had to take mandatory crew rest so the air ambulance was down. They then tried to set up an ambulance to take me which would mean a 4 hour road trip.
There was conflicting information and a few minor flares of temper were seen in the staff discussions because of the contradictory information they were getting. As I said, I was right by the desk and could see and hear a lot of these discussions. The staff did keep me regularly apprised of the changes and I should point out that they were very professional and I always felt I was getting the best of care. Please don't misinterpret the above as anything negative. I am in no way being critical of the staff there. They dealt with the situation (and many other concurrent ones much worse than me) as best as they could.
After two hours in the hospital my thigh had gotten better and the redness on my arm was reduced. Then I heard the word 'Canaport' in the discussions for the first time. Canaport is owned by Irving Oil. They have an off-shore chamber for their commercial divers. I heard they were arranging for a tug boat to take me out there. I found out later that one of the ER staff had worked at Canaport and the dive doctor in Halifax had called them. The sticking point (and the point of even more desk discussion) was it was hospital policy to have a physician in attendance and as Canaport was private they only had dive medics. That was good enough for me, but they had to work through the red tape. Then we heard they had a smaller portable chamber in the city in the old dock yard. They started to make arrangements for transporting me there.
(Continued)
On Sunday morning I got up at 10 AM and had my usual breakfast. The weather was almost perfect for diving. Blue skies and quite pleasant. I grabbed my dive gear and started packing it away. I noticed that my computer had 3 minutes left on the 24 hour FLY countdown from the previous days dive. Saturday I had gone to Beaver Harbour, New Brunswick and done a test on my new dry suit with a buddy. 30 feet for 30 minutes and had no issues with buoyancy. So my Sunday dive would be after a 27.5+ hour surface interval.
Myself and three other divers caught the 12:00 Noon ferry to Deer Island for the high tide dive. It was definitely shorts weather.
We arrived at the Point to find at least 8-10 divers and a bunch of families having BBQ's and enjoying the weather. My dive computer recorded 88F in the sun and there was a mild breeze which kept things cool and the bugs away. We geared up on the picnic tables in a leisurely manner and were in the water right on time for the high tide. I had my new dry suit on and was looking forward to diving the Point in it. I was diving with regular air. I drank my usual amount of water before the dive.
Knowing I had the new suit my buddy said we should stay close and side-by-side in case I had problems with buoyancy. He took the lead and we descended to 85 feet. Viz was in the 10-15 foot range. Water temp 44F at its coldest. I had dumped my BCD on the surface and used the dry suit inflator exclusively for buoyancy for the entire dive. Whenever I felt suit squeezed or needed air for buoyancy I added air until I was just slightly negative. I wanted to stay a bit heavy purposely in case of current, but we encountered none.
Just prior to ascending I unscrewed the dry suit arm valve and we began going up the wall almost shoulder to shoulder. At no point was our depth more than 2 feet different. We went up slowly checking various openings in the rocks with our lights. Saw several lobster, wolf fish and lots of shrimp. We paused to feed one of the wolf fish urchins, but he ignored them. Every 30-45 seconds I rolled slightly to the right to raise my arm and was rewarded by bubbles coming out of the arm valve. By doing this I was able to keep neutral. We encountered no issues on the ascent at all. We came up to 15' and did our 3 minute safety stop. I noticed that our computers were both counting down for the stop. They were within 6 seconds of one another. After both computers had counted down we gradually worked our way back to the surface. We came out exactly where we had gone in. Max depth was 85 feet and total dive time was 31 minutes. My buddy congratulated me on my buoyancy in the new suit and we both had smiles. It was a smooth "picture perfect" dive with no problems. We left the water and walked back to the tables to strip off.
On a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 - 5 being in the green, my maximum nitrogen reading (TLBG) was 4. My ascent rate was in the 20-50 feet / minute range which is considered yellow on my computer. I have my DC set to the most conservative settings across the board. There was no alarm, beeping or other sign of anything out of the ordinary from a usual dive profile. I am an Advanced diver and have my deep dive course. I have been deeper for longer in the past and never had any issues. This was dive #47 for me. I came out of the water at 2:07 PM.
After stripping off my gear I had a half liter of water and we co-signed our logs. I put my gear away in the tote and saw I could catch the 3PM ferry so I waved goodbye and left the Point. It was a short drive and I made it to the ferry line-up at 2:50 PM. While sitting there I noticed my right bicep muscle was feeling strange. Hard to describe, but the closest I can come is when your leg falls asleep and it starts to wake up. No pins and needles, much subtler than that. Just strange. I put it down to suit squeeze and figured it was just temporary. Just as the ferry started loading I saw my left forearm had developed a 5 x 7 CM patch of red mottled or marbled skin. I held out my hands in front of me and they were steady. By pure coincidence I parked right alongside three other divers on the ferry. I mentioned my bicep and forearm and I was immediately provided me with a Pony bottle and second stage with 38% O2. They monitored me on the twenty minute ferry journey until we arrived at L'Tete. It was decided we would drive to the Irving convenience store in St. George and I kept the Pony bottle for the journey. Note: If you want to get stares from on-coming traffic drive from L'Tete to St. George with a bright yellow Octo in your mouth.
I arrived at the Irving store first and stripped off my pants as I had swim shorts underneath. I saw my left knee cap was solid red. The others arrived and with me still on the 38% O2 we talked about the situation. After about 5 minutes the feeling in my bicep spread to my right shoulder, my right thigh muscle got the same strange feeling and the mottling on my forearm became more pronounced. This time when I held out my hands they were visibly trembling. The others called an ambulance when I told them it was getting worse.
The ambulance arrived after 10 minutes. The paramedics were told I had been diving and after locking up my car in the parking lot, they loaded me into the back. I was put on 100% O2 immediately and strapped me in. They started to drive to the Regional Hospital in Saint John. During the trip I developed a sinus ache, which developed into a headache. I was conscious throughout and there was no actual pain, just discomfort. My muscles were sore at this point and when we got to the hospital emergency room they put me into a bed immediately and started 100% O2.
It became very obvious, very quickly that the Regional hospital does not see a lot of dive injuries. I was able to hear a lot of the discussions between the staff while I lay there. I was in bed attached to a cardiac monitor, O2 analyzer and blood pressure cuff. They drew blood samples and left a needle stub in my arm to attach IV's etc. The attending doctor came over and while he knew there was a dive organization that he could call for medical guidance he did not have the contact number for it. I had it in my cell phone (DAN 919 684-4326) and gave it to him along with the Nova Scotia hyperbaric chamber number (902 473-2220). I made sure to enter them in my cell when I saw posts on the NS hyperbaric chamber tour earlier in the year. Doing that saved valuable time. The doctors talked with the DAN doctor on the phone; with the symptoms I was presenting and the bloodwork they confirmed I was bent. My symptoms had leveled out and after an hour I started to feel better. During this time they were on the phone trying to find a chamber. The closest they could find through DAN was Halifax and on consultation with a Halifax based dive doctor I was told they would be flying me directly there. 10 minutes later they came back and told me they had to fly me to Moncton and transfer me to another flight onto Halifax. Then 20 minutes later they told me the pilot out of Saint John had exceeded his regulated flight time and had to take mandatory crew rest so the air ambulance was down. They then tried to set up an ambulance to take me which would mean a 4 hour road trip.
There was conflicting information and a few minor flares of temper were seen in the staff discussions because of the contradictory information they were getting. As I said, I was right by the desk and could see and hear a lot of these discussions. The staff did keep me regularly apprised of the changes and I should point out that they were very professional and I always felt I was getting the best of care. Please don't misinterpret the above as anything negative. I am in no way being critical of the staff there. They dealt with the situation (and many other concurrent ones much worse than me) as best as they could.
After two hours in the hospital my thigh had gotten better and the redness on my arm was reduced. Then I heard the word 'Canaport' in the discussions for the first time. Canaport is owned by Irving Oil. They have an off-shore chamber for their commercial divers. I heard they were arranging for a tug boat to take me out there. I found out later that one of the ER staff had worked at Canaport and the dive doctor in Halifax had called them. The sticking point (and the point of even more desk discussion) was it was hospital policy to have a physician in attendance and as Canaport was private they only had dive medics. That was good enough for me, but they had to work through the red tape. Then we heard they had a smaller portable chamber in the city in the old dock yard. They started to make arrangements for transporting me there.
(Continued)
