panic attack after 300 dives

[drbill]

Years ago I had a serious situation when the valve on a tank I was diving clogged at 80 ft and I had absolutely no air delivery from the tank (and had failed to re-mount my pony bottle after the dive). Not sure what dive it was on, but certainly well over 1,000 at the time. For many months after that dive, I felt anxiety as I descended... although it went away once I was submerged and on my dive. Eventually it went away.

 

[RogerAGrimes]

I'm a self described "alpha male" (e.g. love speed, cave diving, base jumping, sky diving, sky surfing, snow skiing, etc.)...and one day out of the blue while diving, I had my first panic attack. I used to think panic attacks only happened to "weak minded, wimpy people". My experience was similiar to what you describe, in that me and my wife had a very difficult, very tiring descent to a deep wreck in heavy current and we got off the line. I was exhausted by the time I got down...although my wife recovered well enough. It took everything I had not to shoot to the surface and pull my mask off. My wife, too, thought I was joking...because I was always the very relaxed one. After that I found out that I would get at least a little nervous on almost every dive. Never as bad as the first time, but bad enough that I almost quit diving. But after years, I worked through it, and I'm thankful because I'm having more fun than ever now. I have some advice that helped me. First, anytime you have a heavy stress event, it's a lot easier to get super anxietic, so work and plan to make sure that those things don't happen...which means staying on the line and getting down quick in heavy current to relief. Second, I have found out that being in better shape works wonders. I lost weight and I do frequent (5-6 days a week) exercise, often including anaerobic portions. By being better in shape, I don't get overworked as easily. Third, if I start to feel panicky again...if I feel those familiar feelings coming on...I stop what I'm doing, rest, and focus on some small object for 30 seconds. Often that's all I need to get past the panic feelings and back to fun diving. Fourth, I cover panic events with all dive buddies and talk about what to do if one occurs (e.g. get to a buddy and try to relax and rest, and focus on other things, plus reserve the right for any diver to call the dive early). For years I thought I was some sort of freak, but then I learned from ScubaBoard that people with 1000's of dives have had similiar experiences or panic attacks. Now I talk openly about it with all my diver friends and often I learn they have had similar experiences. I've since learned how common it is and now only wonder why it isn't talked about more in beginning diving courses (letting people know it's common, it can happen unexpectedly, and how to deal with it). We teach lots of other things that never happen to most divers (e.g. OOA, etc.), it's strange we do not teach this, which is much more common.

 

[kaerius]

Overexertion sucks, I've had that hard to breathe feeling when overexerted myself... luckily I kept cool and did what I've been trained to do, stop, relax, and breathe. Perhaps this will aid me when I end up in such a situation at greater depth. (I overexerted myself cleaning the windows on a glass bottom boat with a fistfull of steel wool). I've otherwise been careful not to overexert myself even when diving in current.

I've had students who've paniced during training though, and that's quite stressful, let me tell ya. Kept my cool so far. *knock on wood*

Btw: The worst panic situation someone I know has gotten into was a girl I met in cyprus, uncertified, her second dive with an instructor friend, 28 meters, and what she told me sounded like "dark narc". He managed to calm her, but he shouldn't have taken her that deep in the first place.

 

[ThomasScherrer]

very interesting thread, I tried it a few times,
to work to hard in current, use too much air, feel the panic come,
get smart and calm down, and rest, get brain back in function,
and enjoy the rest of the dives.
also cold water tend to have an added panic posibility, specially when combined with other factors.
---
the worst one I tried so far was to get seperated from my group.
when diving with a group, there is not always a real buddy assigned to you,
so no one feel specially attached to you. (maybe we should change this a bit??)

The story:
alot of current at wreck site, 24-28 meters deep, nice warm water, good vis,
did not mind the group for a short time while looking on wreck,
had to work very hard for a long time to try to catch up,
had to give up, acid in legs, looking at air gauge wow going down very fast due to huge work load at depth, minor panic, fast thinking needed,
ok gotta go for the surface NOW! was in my mind, heart started to hammer harder,
breath got even futher up, oh no, that is not good I was thinking, I managed to calm my self down, no more movements, acent rate just under the SLOW marking on my computer, (actually 1-2 warnings) arrived at 6 m I was supposed to perform safe stop, but now only 10 bar left, no SMB (I know dumb fault) and all others where gone and no idea where boat was, I desided to skip the stop and goto surface after only a few sec of stop, (one more acent warning) at the surface, all was good, heart rate back to normal, boat was in sight, held up one arm steady, saw boat turn, gave big OK sign, saw ok back from boat, so just sit back and wait for pickup,
40 sec later I was on boat, 10 minutes later it was no big deal, I was compleetly ok.
performed 3 more dives same day, focus on less stress, more air margin, and less work load, and that worked out fine.

Later that night I told my wife about this,
and showed her the curve from the computer,
and we had a nice argument about it, well deserved, she is AOW diver too.

after this experiance, I purchased a pony tank 30cft (4L) and extra regulator set for it,
I take it with me on every deep dive, just in case some things happens,
I newer got to use it, but just the feeling to know it is there, makes me relax so much more.

 

[bletso]

Years ago I had a serious situation when the valve on a tank I was diving clogged at 80 ft and I had absolutely no air delivery from the tank (and had failed to re-mount my pony bottle after the dive). Not sure what dive it was on, but certainly well over 1,000 at the time. For many months after that dive, I felt anxiety as I descended... although it went away once I was submerged and on my dive. Eventually it went away.

It really doesn't matter how many dives one has. Just have the right set of adverse stimuli and things can deteriorate quickly. Some people are lucky and not have the right set of circumstances ever or are placed out of their comfort zone. I have had my fair share of attention getters over the years. Just calm down, breathe, think then react. It really does work but you may be knock kneed for a bit after though.


Dale

 

[ktomlinson]

I had a similar experience on a 'deep' wreck. I did a negative entry, but missed the line and had to swim hard to get back to the line. This was during my AOW class, and I was following others, so I tried very hard, and did keep up with them. When we got to the wreck at 110' I had to fight current again to keep up with the class. Around this time I got dark narced, probably due to co2 buildup. I sort of figured what was happening so I decided it would be better to lose the class than to pass out, so I stopped and held on to the wreck for a minute or so. After the rest I felt fine and completed the dive. Later I did have a talk with my dive buddy about checking on me every so often instead of just following the group. Overall it was a good learning experience. I learned what a dark narc felt like, and learned never to rely on anyone except myself underwater...even instructors that are supposed to be checking on you every so often.