No Diving on Meds!

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Shangrl

Contributor
Messages
132
Reaction score
0
Location
Miami Beach, FL
# of dives
200 - 499
I was doing my second night dive last week in Grand Turk. There were about 4 of us in my group. About 40 min into the dive, I was yanked to the surface by the divemaster suddenly...I think I was around 25 feet. I exhaled the whole way up while wondering what was going on meanwhile. One of the other divers could not breathe of her reg..she said she thought her throat was "closing up"..she tried to breathe off the DM's and then ascended to the surface when she still couldn't get air. Turns out, she has her wisdom teeth pulled two weeks before and was taking medication. DM thought this is what caused her throat to close up. She was coughing like crazy. It was pretty scary but a valuable lesson in learning that meds and diving do not mix!
 
Definately the kind of lesson you are better off learning by seeing it happen, rather than it happening to you!

Was the other diver ok? Seems like the DM might have been a little overzealous. It is good that he went to the surface to check on the other diver, but it sounds like he put you at risk by yanking you with him. Good thing you remembered to exhale...
 
Shangrl:
About 40 min into the dive, I was yanked to the surface by the divemaster suddenly...I think I was around 25 feet.
Why did the divemaster yank you up?
 
The other diver was okay. We swam her back to the boat and finished the dive. I think he yanked me to the surface because it was my second night dive and I am new to diving. He told me later, there was no way, he was going to leave me in the dark on a night dive. The 4th diver was a photographer and was relatively nearby me and a very experienced diver. He saw what was going on and swam over to where we were.
 
I'll have to say, I was pretty worried I was going to get bent. Nevertheless, it turned out fine.
 
I fear this may be another example of one of my big pet peeves. Divemasters or Instructors disregarding their own safety (and in this case, yours as well) in the process of doing a rescue.

The distressed diver went to the surface. She may have had trouble breathing, but was still responsive, as she was swimming up. There was presumably a crew on the boat, and I am assuming since it was a night dive, she had a light. From 25 ft, the DM could have gotten your attention, thumbed the dive, skipped the safety stop, kept his eyes on the diver at the surface (if she started going down again, he could have intercepted), then assessed the situation and gone on from there. Instead, it sounds like he put his own safety and yours at risk doing a bonzai run to the surface, thus risking creating 3 victims instead of 1.

Had a DM done that to me, I probably would have grabbed his mask and reg and ripped them from his face to give him something to worry about besides dragging me to the surface.
 
I'm going to assume she was on some pain med e.g. codeine or vacadin which should never be taken while diving. And doubly poor judgement for diving at night!
 
She was actually a pretty experienced diver. She lives down there and works for a dive shop. Kind of shocking.
 

Back
Top Bottom