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?
Question Panic in the experienced diver?
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I had "extreme anxiety" a couple years ago. I had the urge to bolt come upon me. And it is funny, that for many years I was in more stressful situations without ever encountering it.
I was diving a wreck with an op for the first time. My mix was way to rich for the bottom, but I thought I had adequately done my research on the wreck. No hard bottom it turned was within my MOD, but for a small fantail section up in the ripping current. (issue number 1)
If I were the op, I would never have dropped us that day. The guy setting the hook had a lot of trouble. The marker balls were being pulled under and as the divers entered the water and pulled themselves along the granny line, masks (and snorkels) were being pulled off. My buddy and I (as with the other divers had to struggle against the current to get to the down line. By the time we made it to the down line I was exhausted and over breathing my reg.( Issue #2).
When my buddy and I hit the fantail where the line was tied off, my computer crapped out. (issue # 3). I was too winded to stay up at the "hard bottom" of the fantail, but also realized that the bottom of the hold would be beyond my MOD. To make it worse, my buddy had been sick and was having trouble clearing. He hung onto a rail on the deck looking like the hurricane flags the weather channel puts up during the hurricane updates.
I had my Aqualand watch with the depth gauge in it (fortunately) and was able to drop down in the hold out of the current and still stay above my MOD. Hanging there with all this crap going wrong, the demons came. LOL.
I focused on my breathing. Focused on my little watch face and my buddy above me flapping in the breeze alternately. I did something else. I remembered reading in Rodales 10 or 11 years ago, that in case like this, it helps to hug your buddy. It was not going to happen. But the mag said it helps to hug yourself. So I crossed my arms across my chest concentrated on breathing etc. and recited the The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
I was diving a wreck with an op for the first time. My mix was way to rich for the bottom, but I thought I had adequately done my research on the wreck. No hard bottom it turned was within my MOD, but for a small fantail section up in the ripping current. (issue number 1)
If I were the op, I would never have dropped us that day. The guy setting the hook had a lot of trouble. The marker balls were being pulled under and as the divers entered the water and pulled themselves along the granny line, masks (and snorkels) were being pulled off. My buddy and I (as with the other divers had to struggle against the current to get to the down line. By the time we made it to the down line I was exhausted and over breathing my reg.( Issue #2).
When my buddy and I hit the fantail where the line was tied off, my computer crapped out. (issue # 3). I was too winded to stay up at the "hard bottom" of the fantail, but also realized that the bottom of the hold would be beyond my MOD. To make it worse, my buddy had been sick and was having trouble clearing. He hung onto a rail on the deck looking like the hurricane flags the weather channel puts up during the hurricane updates.
I had my Aqualand watch with the depth gauge in it (fortunately) and was able to drop down in the hold out of the current and still stay above my MOD. Hanging there with all this crap going wrong, the demons came. LOL.
I focused on my breathing. Focused on my little watch face and my buddy above me flapping in the breeze alternately. I did something else. I remembered reading in Rodales 10 or 11 years ago, that in case like this, it helps to hug your buddy. It was not going to happen. But the mag said it helps to hug yourself. So I crossed my arms across my chest concentrated on breathing etc. and recited the The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Bob DBF
Contributor
....recited the The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
When the excrement hits the rotary cooling device I can't remember past the first two lines but repeating them calmly a few times has brought me back to deal with the situation at hand.
I haven't gone into full blown panic yet, but I have considered it on more than one occasion, and there by the grace of God go I.
Over the years I found that if anything went wrong (or unexpected), I will stop, check and/or use my escape plan, assess the situation, and decide my new course of action. (Thal's cone of safety really gave me a picture.) In my case, I have found that breaking my procedure above, and/or my rules of diving, can put me in the same room with Fear and Panic playing Texas Hold'em with me in the pot.
Bob
------------------------------
I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.
"the future is uncertain and the end is always near"
Jim Morrison
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I was just talking with a friend of mine (who is working on or recently finished his PhD at Stanford in neurophysiology) and he tells me that panic reaction can tell a lot about people's brain function. For example, he told me that individuals with fetal alcohol syndrome don't have proper "executive function" and can't generalize information from one situation to another ... and in many cases though they may habituate and reduce their panic to a give stimulus, that habituation does not help them with almost identical circumstances, only with the precise one that they habituated to. Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons, I guess.
honeylager
Registered
My ninth dive or so (not exactly experienced) I went for my first night dive during my AOW. In general I am very good at controlling my emotions/panic. For example I went bungee jumping, came back up, and my heart rate was close to normal with hardly any adrenaline rush! Anyway, I started becoming positively buoyant all the sudden while one of my fellow divers was doing her compass navigation practice. I was supposed to stay paired with my buddy and began floating away. For some reason I could not get the valve on the arm of my Whites Fusion I was borrowing to purge under water. I was pushing on the center of it pretty hard, but it could just have been diver error, who knows. Anyway, I was alone in the dark water hardly able to see my buddy's light below me trying to lose buoyancy, with difficulty. I ended up getting down near him and I was slightly disoriented and having vertigo like sensations! However I knew from my studies that it would be possible to become disoriented/anxious very easily during a night dive, recognized that, and found bottom. I just relaxed on the bottom until my instructor came back and all was good. Then I saw a seal! I'm glad that I reacted safely and also that I get to learn in these rugged conditions in Vancouver so when I get to SEA and The Carribean I'll be laughing 
!
!jimthediver
Contributor
I have been diving for almost 40 years. I think Thalassamania's cone of safety analogy is the most succinct description of how to dive safely I have ever heard. I believe everyone from the newest newbie to the most experieced pro has a cone. The difference is the pro's cone is deeper and wider at the top. I think this concept needs to be drummed into divers at every level of training. I believe what gets most divers hurt or killed is that they don't understand and abide by the limits of their "cone". If you get too far outside it, you might not be able to get back. It never ceases to amaze me when a diver with limited experiece will do some thing like making a dive down to 175 ft on a single 80 to see the San Francisco Maru in Chuuk Lagoon. It seems easy because the water is warm and clear. They have no idea how narrow their "cone" is. If your cone is narrow enough it may take only one little thing, trivial at a safer depth, to put a diver in the panic zone.
In my younger years I pushed the point of my cone well into what is now considered high Tech I or Tech II territory. I got myself in and out of a couple of dicey situations in very deep Great Lakes wreck diving. I knew several divers who got themselves killed because they panicked faced with situations that the people I dove with and myself considered somewhat trivial. I'm going on 60 now. I have a wife and two kids and I am not in as good a shape as I was in my "diving hero" days. These days I tend to stay in the wider part of my cone.
"Live to dive, dive to live!"
In my younger years I pushed the point of my cone well into what is now considered high Tech I or Tech II territory. I got myself in and out of a couple of dicey situations in very deep Great Lakes wreck diving. I knew several divers who got themselves killed because they panicked faced with situations that the people I dove with and myself considered somewhat trivial. I'm going on 60 now. I have a wife and two kids and I am not in as good a shape as I was in my "diving hero" days. These days I tend to stay in the wider part of my cone.
"Live to dive, dive to live!"
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What are "Tech I" and "Tech II"? Who uses those terms?
Blackwood
Contributor
AbyssalPlains
Contributor
Have you thought about the possibility that it's because a blue water descent where you can't see the bottom is simply a bit freaky for all of us?
beautybelow
Contributor
Have you thought about the possibility that it's because a blue water descent where you can't see the bottom is simply a bit freaky for all of us?
I would consider that except it started at about dive number 3,500...most of which were pretty much the same thing.
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