Near Miss

[ac14]

Hello all -

My wife and I are new to diving and had a near disaster on a recent dive trip. No one seems to know exactly what happened (we may never know) and a friend suggested using a forum such as this to see if anyone has seen something similar. There isn't too much to tell, as it all happened very fast. This was our first dive in salt water, though we had been down slightly deeper in a freshwater lake on another trip. This is a combination of what I saw and my wife told me after the fact.

We had a normal descent to between 60 and 70 feet. It was me, my wife and a guide. We had been down maybe 10 minutes (everything normal) when my wife felt like she couldn't breathe. She wasn't breathing an empty tank, but said she felt as though she wasn't getting any air even though she was taking normal breaths. Afterward, she related that she said to herself, "I must be panicking, I need to calm down" and tried to relax. That didn't feel like it was helping, so she swam over to the guide and motioned that she needed to go up. She said the last thing she remembers was the guide looking her in the eyes and then everything went black.

I'll skip ahead a bit, but needless to say, we got out of there fast. We reached the surface and got my wife to the boat. She was breathing just a little and the crew got her on oxygen. Our "fun" obviously didn't end there, but she was alive. Medically, she was classified as a "near drowning" because she aspirated some water after the regulator popped out of her mouth when she blacked out. The guide originally tried to get the reg back in her mouth, but her jaws were locked very tight.

If anyone has any experience or insight into what may have happened, I'd appreciate hearing about it. The doctors didn't have any concrete ideas - maybe it was just a one-in-a-million thing. My wife wants to go diving again, but obviously, we want to find out as much as we can so we can avoid a repeat performance.

Thanks much!

 

[AfterDark]

Sound like possible C02 issue, or lack of O2 either caused from labored or irregular breathing. I suspect the jaws being locked tight is a clue here to one or the other. Glad it worked out for her.

 

[OneRestlessNative]

This post is a little old and I am no expert here. I may have had a similar experience to your wife on my 3rd dive to the 80-90 ft depth range. Except this happened to me on a normal ascent at about 40-50 ft down with nearly top to bottom visibility. As I try to think back to my experience and the contributing factors I still to this day cant put my finger on the exact problem. Perhaps it was an accumulation of the following. Top to bottom viz, slight apprehension about the depth, my first wreck dive, looking down seeing 40 or so massive Goliath Groupers congregating, and the large bait balls circling and causing a dizzying effect. All was going well and we were ascending and then my heart just began to race and I felt like I was not getting any air even though I was breathing. Mentally I was aware of everything but my heart continued to feel as if it was going to go crazy. I immediately found my SPG and checked air and depth and remained glued to it wondering why I was feeling panicked and not getting enough air. 3000 psi remained and I leveled out at about 50 ft. I really had to focus on long deep breaths and exhaling properly. After what seemed like forever but what was really only a few minutes my heart rate went back to normal and started to feel much better and back in control. Signaled to my buddy OK and we continued the dive and 2 more that day with no other incidences. I can only possibly attribute this to me not possibly breathing correctly and loading up with C02. Causing a slight breathing/feeling concern and then the panic feeling/adrenalin setting in. It was a great experience for me as it taught me how I might react in panic mode. I hope your wife will not let this one bad experience keep her from diving, and I hope my experience shed some light on what may have happened in her case.

 

[ps1mhd]

A little late just saw this post.
But it does't look like anyone else saw it either

It sounds like she got a bad fill.
If you are still on this site was this a rental tank?
Did /do you know the shop?

Mike

 

[Buzoferoz]

Any clue on what really hapens??? is your wife epileptic?? cause I saw a similar case were the diver was epileptic...

 

[sublime250]

Perhaps her valve was not fully open and she was laboring to get breath and passed out from too much accumulated co2

 

[mathauck0814]

I had a very similar experience diving Israel. First dive of the day and I was completely narc'd at 30-40 feet: euphoria (not panic in this case), heart racing, vision fuzzy, etc. I surfaced and signaled the DM on the boat, who did a "white rag" test by putting a handkerchief over the tank and opening the valve. The tank left a residue and so they swapped out my tank for one that did not. I won't soon be back to that shop (can't trust the fills??!?!!!?), but it certainly was better on the replacement tank.