Reading others experiences about wanting to bolt helped to keep me “calm”

[dave4868]

On the live-aboard, I related my experience on the COZ dive to one of the dive masters. He told me of a similar experience where an individual diving with him surfaced with an out of control breathing situation. They put him on oxygen and rushed him to shore where they were met by EMS personnel...his breathing was still out of control. After getting a description of the guy's symptoms, they removed the oxygen and told him to slow his breathing and hold his breath. In five minutes, he was reported to be walking around and feeling quite normal.

It's quite amazing how the body responds so well to raising the CO2 level back toward normal in such a case!

Just give some very careful thought to the difficulties of self-diagnosing and self-treating underwater, since perceptual changes and anxiety may fool you and a brief blackout will likely kill you.

I'd just abort that dive and figure it out on the surface, I think.

There will be plenty more dives to do, especially for you, lucky guy!

Enjoy!

Dave C

 

[Darnold9999]

Here is my near panic attack story. I add it here to remind us that you don't need to be fighting current or bad vis to bring on a CO2/narcosis induced panic attack.

Was about the 20th dive of the week on a liveaboard in Belize. Excellent vis on a wall dive with no significant current. Insta buddy and I had gotten along well and were pretty comfortable with each other's diving style after 20 dives. We decided to go deep to start the dive and work our way up the wall. Rather than just drift down we decided to swim and then drift up. (No point in dawdling we knew where we wanted to start the dive.) At 120 feet or so I start to feel like my BP is WAY too tight, my wetsuit is constricting my breathing and the reg is starting to breath really hard. I am not getting nearly enough air - and to make matters worse my computer is beeping at me for no good reason - I look at it and can't see why it would be beeping so I ignore it. Very annoying. We continue swimming down the wall.

I take a notch out of my BP belt and still can't breath properly. At this point I refocus and realize that I am completely narked, 20 feet below my MOD and our target depth and entering into the start of a panic cycle because I have managed to get overloaded with CO2. I suspect I was swimming harder than I thought or breathing very shallow breaths. Still not sure how I managed it as we were not swimming very fast at all, but it was a continuous swim from the surface to the edge of the wall and then down to 135 feet or so.

I stop swimming, slow my breathing down and head up 30 feet or so. Everything returns to normal. Strangely enough my computer stops the annoying beeping

 

[tschmitt]

Having to decipher between hyper- hypo- capina, ventilation, etc. and prescribe the proper remedy (deep long breaths vs. short breaths, skip breath, hold your breath) while UW sounds like a bad idea to this inexperienced, yet relatively intelligent diver. What if you misdiagnose yourself and your short breaths or skip breathing cause you to pass out ?? Remember the basics, always breath.

If long deep breaths for a minute or two don't cure your problem, end your dive. If you're feeling anxious before the dive, postpone the dive.

 

[PR_SMITH]

Having to decipher between hyper- hypo- capina, ventilation, etc. and prescribe the proper remedy (deep long breaths vs. short breaths, skip breath, hold your breath) while UW sounds like a bad idea to this inexperienced, yet relatively intelligent diver. What if you misdiagnose yourself and your short breaths or skip breathing cause you to pass out ?? Remember the basics, always breath.

If long deep breaths for a minute or two don't cure your problem, end your dive. If you're feeling anxious before the dive, postpone the dive.

Any opinions on the theory of getting your ditchable weights in your hands if you think there's any possibility of passing out? (see this months Diver Training Mag) "I ascended near the exit ladder with my weights in my hand so that if I passed out I would drop them and rise to the surface where I'd be rescued." Source: August 2008 Volume 18 Number 8
Or, in a perfect world, our buddy would be close at hand and ready to intervene?

 

[Tricia]

A question comes to mind here, did you make your dive buddy and divemaster aware of what you were comfortable/not comfortable with?

Good question. No, neither one. As it turns out, it's been several years since I've done a swim-through and honestly, it wasn't until we were going into the "dark zone" that I remembered I don't like them so much.

On the other hand, I always make it clear to buddies that I want a relaxed, lazy dive. As a dive instructor friend put it so well: "Diving is NOT supposed to be an aerobic sport. If it is for you, then you're doing it wrong." You're supposed to glide slowly and smoothly through the water making as little resistance as possible, not prepping for the Olympic games. But some people insist on diving that way - what can you do?

Trish