I said I would someday get this out there so here it is. I'm putting it here in the RB forum and not the near misses forum as it is more for RB people to learn from than the general diving community.
In November 2020 I was doing a shore dive near Nanaimo, BC. First day of a 5 day trip. It was the 2nd shore dive of the day. Compared to most of my dives (deco, deepish, etc) this was a very unremarkable profile. An "easy" dive. 80' for 50 minutes. No deco. Look at fish, take some pictures. I was on my KISS Classic (diving it since 2008 so 12 years experience on the rig). Dil was air or 18/35. I forget. On the first dive I thought something was off with my leaky valve. It seemed that I had to manually add O2 more often than normal. "I'll look at that tonight" I said to myself.
At the end of the 2nd dive we were coming back to shore. I was in about 10' of water. I was in a team of 3 and I was lagging behind the other 2. All was well except my NERD was not staying in place and I had to adjust it for the whole dive as it kept moving. "I need to fix that tonight" I said to myself. I was just below the surface and started to fold up my camera arms while swimming in. All of a sudden I had a couple of visual aberrations. My thought was cardiac event (I'm in that demographic). Through my mouthpiece I yelled a couple of times to get attention. This all took place in seconds .Basically I was there, then I wasn't. It was that quick. Then I woke up in the back of an ambulance.
I sort of remember talking to the paramedic on my way to the hospital. I sort of remember being told I was in A-Fib. I sort of remember being in emerg. Lots of people in masks, gowns, blood being drawn, electrodes hooked up. I definitely remember a tech coming in to draw arterial blood from my wrists and it taking him 6 goes, 3 on each wrist which were extremely painful ('ve since learned it usually takes one go. I must have had a rookie) I remember being quite spacey for about 4 or 5 hours. I didn't have the strength or coordination to walk until the next morning. I ended up staying 2 nights at the Nanaimo hospital, mostly because I was on IV antibiotics as I had aspirated some sea water. My roommates were both elderly addicts so that was interesting. I was coughing up blood for a day after probably due to the CPR that I was given on the beach. The A-fib spontaneously resolved itself after a few hours so I didn't' need to get shocked.
I was told after that the 2nd buddy in our team heard me yell something unintelligible (I was yelling into a rebreather so that's not a huge surprise) and turned to see what's up. She saw me drop my camera and sink to the bottom. She came and hauled my dead a$s up to the surface and yelled for help ( I was about 20 yards off shore). The group got me to shore, cut me out of my harness, cut me out of my suit and another bystander (volunteer Firefighter) started CPR.
Afterwards I looked at the dive data from my Shearwater. My PO2 had dropped from .21 to 0.00 in around one minute.
There's more but here's what made me dead-
My leaky valve was partially or fully plugged ( I found out after when I took it apart) causing the O2 flow to slow.
I wasn't diving my usual profile which involves deco where I'm paying rapt attention to my PO2 and spiking the O2 at the end of my dives to try and keep as high a PO2 as possible.
My NERD strap was acting up so I was constantly messing with it during the dive so I could see its' display (yes I had a wrist mount Petrel but I failed to look at that at the end). I wasn't too worried at the time about my PO2 since I was going to be on shore in a couple of minutes and stopped futzing with it . As far as I was concerned the dive was done.
But the biggest thing is on me. I broke the number one rule of CCR diving -Always know your PO2. I failed to do that and it almost cost me. If I had done that, I wouldn't have this story to tell. Always know your PO2.
Here's what kept me alive-
A last second coherent thought that made me call out for help.
An attentive buddy who heard me, saw me sink, pulled my butt up and got others to help. Never underestimate the power of buddys.
In November 2020 I was doing a shore dive near Nanaimo, BC. First day of a 5 day trip. It was the 2nd shore dive of the day. Compared to most of my dives (deco, deepish, etc) this was a very unremarkable profile. An "easy" dive. 80' for 50 minutes. No deco. Look at fish, take some pictures. I was on my KISS Classic (diving it since 2008 so 12 years experience on the rig). Dil was air or 18/35. I forget. On the first dive I thought something was off with my leaky valve. It seemed that I had to manually add O2 more often than normal. "I'll look at that tonight" I said to myself.
At the end of the 2nd dive we were coming back to shore. I was in about 10' of water. I was in a team of 3 and I was lagging behind the other 2. All was well except my NERD was not staying in place and I had to adjust it for the whole dive as it kept moving. "I need to fix that tonight" I said to myself. I was just below the surface and started to fold up my camera arms while swimming in. All of a sudden I had a couple of visual aberrations. My thought was cardiac event (I'm in that demographic). Through my mouthpiece I yelled a couple of times to get attention. This all took place in seconds .Basically I was there, then I wasn't. It was that quick. Then I woke up in the back of an ambulance.
I sort of remember talking to the paramedic on my way to the hospital. I sort of remember being told I was in A-Fib. I sort of remember being in emerg. Lots of people in masks, gowns, blood being drawn, electrodes hooked up. I definitely remember a tech coming in to draw arterial blood from my wrists and it taking him 6 goes, 3 on each wrist which were extremely painful ('ve since learned it usually takes one go. I must have had a rookie) I remember being quite spacey for about 4 or 5 hours. I didn't have the strength or coordination to walk until the next morning. I ended up staying 2 nights at the Nanaimo hospital, mostly because I was on IV antibiotics as I had aspirated some sea water. My roommates were both elderly addicts so that was interesting. I was coughing up blood for a day after probably due to the CPR that I was given on the beach. The A-fib spontaneously resolved itself after a few hours so I didn't' need to get shocked.
I was told after that the 2nd buddy in our team heard me yell something unintelligible (I was yelling into a rebreather so that's not a huge surprise) and turned to see what's up. She saw me drop my camera and sink to the bottom. She came and hauled my dead a$s up to the surface and yelled for help ( I was about 20 yards off shore). The group got me to shore, cut me out of my harness, cut me out of my suit and another bystander (volunteer Firefighter) started CPR.
Afterwards I looked at the dive data from my Shearwater. My PO2 had dropped from .21 to 0.00 in around one minute.
There's more but here's what made me dead-
My leaky valve was partially or fully plugged ( I found out after when I took it apart) causing the O2 flow to slow.
I wasn't diving my usual profile which involves deco where I'm paying rapt attention to my PO2 and spiking the O2 at the end of my dives to try and keep as high a PO2 as possible.
My NERD strap was acting up so I was constantly messing with it during the dive so I could see its' display (yes I had a wrist mount Petrel but I failed to look at that at the end). I wasn't too worried at the time about my PO2 since I was going to be on shore in a couple of minutes and stopped futzing with it . As far as I was concerned the dive was done.
But the biggest thing is on me. I broke the number one rule of CCR diving -Always know your PO2. I failed to do that and it almost cost me. If I had done that, I wouldn't have this story to tell. Always know your PO2.
Here's what kept me alive-
A last second coherent thought that made me call out for help.
An attentive buddy who heard me, saw me sink, pulled my butt up and got others to help. Never underestimate the power of buddys.
