Question Panic in the experienced diver?

It would seem to me that, as we gain experience and go through some minor glitches on dives, we should increase our capacity to tolerate issues underwater. I'm wondering what could cause an experienced (say, more than 200 lifetime dives) diver to become distressed enough to lose rational thought. Has anyone here (who meets those criteria) been through a panic event? What caused it, and what did you do?

 

[Dee Fulton]

I'm working toward 5 public posts so I can DM someone.
Got knocked off the reef with my buddy, Loretta, in Tobago. We were tumbled a few times before righting ourselves. Current was too strong to rejoin guide and other dive buddies. Emergency ascent conducted successfully.

 

[Dee Fulton]

Having too much fun with camera and ran out of air at 30' near end of dive. Swam to buddy who was about 10 yards away.
She kinda freaked when I gave the no air slash to the throat. She got wide eyed and I think she was thinking about asking me to show her my gauge. Like maybe I was mistaken. ha ha
I was too polite to rip the reg from her mouth, but eventually she shared air.
There. 5th public post completed. Thanks for bearing with me.

 

[SlugLife]

I did not panic. I announced calmly (way too calmly!) to the boat captain, "I think I'm having a stroke". When it seemed he didn't understand, I said more emphatically, "Call 911!"

That's how I am. I've been in severe accidents, everyone else around me is panicking, and I'm the one calming down the situation. "Alright, everyone chill, sit down for a minute. Then we'll drive to the hospital. None of the what-ifs etc matter right now, just chill for a minute. Alright, you seem better. Lets go to the hospital, and let the doctors handle this."

There. 5th public post completed. Thanks for bearing with me.

buying something? This is a cool forum, I think you'd like it here. Stick around and join the party!

 

[Roy_W]

I panicked on my first ever dive which was in a cold lake .. We had to go down to a platform at 3m and remove our masks. 2 things happened at the same time:

1 : The cold water hit me and I wasn't ready for it
2 : I got water up my nose and didn't know how to react.. so what did I do, coughed spluttered and panicked, and then stupidly removed my second stage, then bolted to the surface.. Thank god it was only 3m and we were already in the vertical position, so the surface was just over 1m in reality...

Was it panic ? most definitely. I am usually cool headed and can handle stressful situations quite well...But on this occasion the stress handling flew straight out the window...

The Cause : The unexpected, inexperience, bad training and/or instruction all rolled into one very short moment.... The brain doesn't have the time to calculate and goes into hyperdrive panic mode.. All I know was that air was above me and I had to get there quickly.

The solution : practice everything in environments in which you are in control, don't overload your exercises and don't forget to keep practising the basics...

I've subsequently had an OOA at 17m in which I was the calmest of calm cucumbers. Even when the air runs out you still have at least 30 seconds to get your act together whereas with the mask incident it was immediate.

So I might add to the equation that how much available time you have to react to an unknown/new/unusual event might have a strong impact on when, and if, panic sets in.

 

[pauldw]

1 : The cold water hit me and I wasn't ready for it
2 : I got water up my nose and didn't know how to react.. so what did I do, coughed spluttered and panicked, and then stupidly removed my second stage, then bolted to the surface.. Thank god it was only 3m and we were already in the vertical position, so the surface was just over 1m in reality...

Someone on here once said something like the difference between normal and panic can be about a tablespoon of water.

 

[DWABoat]

At 60ft of cold water, computer started flashing an unknown warning banner. My old eyes couldn’t read the message. Got frustrated. Had problems clearing my ears at the start, so my ears already had some pain. I could feel the frustration with the dive that I should have aborted at the start. Felt panic start to rise as I thought of having to wait through my safety stop with this unknown warning. I stopped, closed my eyes and started slow, controlled breathing and talking myself into a relaxed state. Everything was fine afterward. Later I learned my computer was telling me I was descending too fast. I had burned so much air at ten feet trying to clear my right ear, I was in a hurry to reach our objective at 80 feet. So…my lessons, when your ears don’t want to dive, listen to them and spend more time learning about my dive computer.

 

[ArmyProDiver]

After 30years in the military I’ve learned it’s not about experience doing “normal” activities. It’s about how much you train on anything and everything that can go wrong that changes how one reacts to an emergency.

 

[happy-diver]

Never trained anything in my life I just go and do and my panic starts and stops with a bit of sphinctering

 

[Orihimef]

I'm not a super experienced diver yet but I like free diving so it can be a bit scary being so deep below the surface and you feel your air running low. Trying to stay calm was one of the first things my brother taught me about staying underwater for long periods of time.

 

[USdiver1]

Our shop's quarry can be quite the cold water environment for noobies and experienced divers alike. The one skill that I religiously practice on all of my open water dives is Mask Removal and Replace. When I first splash [on every dive], I will do the MR&R on the surface prior to decent. This gives me several points of reference: salinity of the water, temperature of the water, and on occasion, clarity/turbidity of the water. Any of these factors, if experienced at depth and unexpectedly can cause a diver to panic. Doing the drill, in a controlled manner, while not a guarantee, will usually help a diver who suffers a lost or flooded mask at depth from bolting to the surface in a panic. Just my $0.02.