My Wifes IPE in Cozumel

[Griffo]

The only one I've heard is banging the ladder with something like a weight.

Or revving the boat motor in neutral. We were doing both.

 

[Diver below 83]

Or revving the boat motor in neutral. We were doing both.

Ahh ok thank you. So Revving the motor up and down consistently. Is this a typically thing across dive boats or specific to the group you were with?

 

[kafkaland]

Thank you for sharing, and im glad your wife is on the mend. And it seems like the emergency response was just about as good as it can be expected. Before it happened, a case can be made that the DM should have stayed closer to assist when trouble struck, of course. And yes the recall signal should have been briefed, but then it’s Cozumel and a DM is mandatory, so I suspect the assumption was that when it’s needed, the DM can bring everyone up, which he did. As to the safety stop, I see it as a judgment call. The first rule of any rescue is not to make a second victim, so if they had an actual deco obligation, they would have to do it no matter what’s going on topside. I don’t know what the profile here was, but if it was close to deco, I can see to logic in doing the safety stop. After all, the victim was already on the boat getting emergency care, while the other divers were still at some risk in the water. And the DM had no way of knowing how pressing the emergency really was. Once they had all divers on board it seems like they got to professional medical care very quickly, am done I think it was overall a job well done by the boat crew.

 

[Kimela]

Wow! What a harrowing experience. Thanks for sharing - I was literally on the edge of my seat as I read both perspectives of what happened. I can totally see a group of divers noticing the fact that you're missing and then 'confirming' you're ok simply because they 'see you', and then continuing on. But I think the DM should have checked in to see if there was a problem that had delayed you so much - just a quick eye-to-eye 'ok?' signal would have done it. He assumed, incorrectly, that you WERE ok.

Please let us know if any dive docs share anything to give you a better idea of WHY this happened. I haven't been carrying my SMB ... but after reading this, I will. Again, thank you for sharing this experience and for the lessons we each take from it.

 

[clownfishsydney]

This event is very similar to the two IPE's I have witnessed. We now know a lot more about it than when these happened. Yes, the treatment is to keep sitting upright to keep the fluids at the bottom of the lungs (I think). I am glad that it was a good outcome, one of the ones I was involved was not, our friend died.

 

[Jcp2]

That was quite a write up. Thank you. I’m glad to hear that your wife has recovered, and that you recognized IPE as a possibility very quickly. The DAN article was very educational.

Immersion Pulmonary Edema - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

 

[Nicolas Pottier]

Thank you for the detailed report. It sounds like you had IPE at the top of mind immediately upon ascent, did your wife as well? Just wondering if that contributed to her calmly dealing with the situation or whether that was just nerves of steel.

 

[InTheDrink]

Scarily similar to my experience of IPE. Some of it verbatim. I wrote it up here a good few years ago. Pulmonary Oedema incident

Well done for getting out alive. Christ I remember like yesterday that feeling you had when hitting the surface and realising ‘I can’t breathe’. It’s not the best feeling in the world.

 

[peeweediver]

Felt like I was reading a page turning thriller. Discussed this with my dive buddy-spouse. We've been diving together for 27 years and I hope we respond as well as you two if the same thing happened. We did agree after reading that we will call the dive if we have to spend more than 10 minutes finning after the group unless there is a nice reef to stay on. Forget the group, enjoy the reef and just use our SMB when we're done. As to DM responsibilities, it's been strongly discussed on Scubaboard many times. I don't rely on them because they have multiple folks pulling them in different directions. If we can't keep up, we don't. I hate swimming hard, period. Lazy, I guess.
Thanks again for the great write up.

Rob

 

[ljwillia]

Thank you for the write up. As others have said, I'm so glad it turned out well.