shiro85
Guest
ggunn:
No, aspartame isn't all that its cracked up to be. Overall, its really just "one more strike" that contributed to Chuck's incident. For example, on the hydration side of things, everything he was drinking was a diuretic (due to caffene content).
****** ******
Chuck, glad you're doing okay, but I do have major problems with your rules. Here's my take on them:
RULE #1: you're on the right track, but a bit misguided. IMO, you did have a dehydration problem that contributed to your accident.
However, keeping properly hydrated is not something that is something that is unique to diving...it should be done every day of your life. Ditto for diet (yours had a lot of fat). If you want a rule of thumb, it should be something along the lines that no more than 1/3rd of all consumed liquids should contain diuretics...specifically, caffene and/or alcohol.
And along these same lines,, monitoring your urine is somethng that should also be done daily, not just in anticipation of diving.
RULE #2: (fly/dive) Relevent to your condition because it increased your dehydration condition. And yes, carrying your own waterbottle on a flight is the method. You also apprently disregarded your fatigue, too.
However, the rule isn't a very good one because diving after flying isn't a problem if you've stayed properly hydrated, properly rested, etc.
RULE #3** (never another Square profile). Sorry, wrong: a red herring.
Dive computers are more conservative than tables (including Suunto's), so the problem here wasn't the "square" provide per se. More likely was the fast ascent error prior to the safety stop, and a generally rushed exit. If you want to blame the profile, it was because you were finishing up deep and had more ascent distance to make an ascent error with.
Insofar as safety stops, this isn't really a 3 minutes -vs- 5 minutes issue, but just that you were rushing overall, so you minimized *all* safety margins.
RULE #4: (O2 on board)
A good point, but this is something to find out before you book the trip, not to discover on the day that you step onboard.
RULE #5: "Before every dive when checking your equipment also evaluate your body."
This is too late. The self-assessment is a continuous process, and it starts hours before the dive, and then gets checked again and again - it doesn't even stop when you enter the water.
FWIW, my overall opinion is that Chuck was dehydrated and fatigued, but had partially masked those symptoms with caffene. A fast/irregular/rushed ascent also contributed, on a profile that would have been enough to load up fast compartments.
I think that his vomiting was probably caused by vertigo, but because of Mexico's reputation for food problems, a diagnostic dillemma was present, so it should not be too suprising that they defaulted to the more common ailment, even though this diagnosis happened in this case to be wrong...O2 does little to resolve food poisoning, except get the equipment crudded up...
IMO, the lesson here is that if you're experiencing vertigo, you need to say so by name ("vertigo"), so as to assist those who are trying to diagnose you.
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