Recent Incident - What did I do wrong?

[ChrisA]

I'm with the others here. Sounds like a reverse block as there was no problem 'till ascent. But he never says it was painful. I would think a block bad enough to rupture and eardrum would hurt. On the other hand it is more typical to break eardrums on the way down. Possably he did and did not notice the problem until it was time to go back up.

As for timing an ascent. I like to look at the depth and I count two seconds between each foot and go upwards in one foot increments. I think 30 feet per minute is much slower then my bubbles. My experience is that bubbles are faster than even 60 foot/minute. Maybe I just can't see the small bubbles.

Very lucky the disorientation did not occure at 100 feet. The problem could have compounded into a runaway ascent or something.

 

[speedhound]

The blood in my mask was from my bleeding nose. Unfortunately the hood is connected to the 7mm Semi-dry full wetsuit (see the picture in my profile), I have a feeling it is to tight, anyway to modify it? How hard should you blow when you pinch your nose, I think I blow a little bit to hard?

Thank you for you continuing suggestions.

One trick I've done with a wetsuit hood is to very carefully get a hot skewer/small screwdriver and put a small hole or two in the hood roughly where your ears are.

For anyone else reading this (cma! ): put the suit on, pull the hood up, and mark where your ears are with chalk. Take said suit off, and then put the holes in the hood.

Being a small hole you're not going to get much water movement through it (so you won't get colder) but it should be enough to allow water in/out to relieve any pressure build up.

 

[tyke]

good advice on taking the suit off, i think hot metal spike on the old ear drums might be bad

 

[ClayJar]

My LDS actually has a soldering iron (pencil style) in their save-a-dive kit. They use it solely for putting ear vent holes in hoods.