Another option on the surface to get more bouyant, but not one most would think about in an emergency unless previously considered and practiced is to break the seal on your drysuit neck and allow air in. Wouldn't this make the drysuit more buoyant than it likely is upon surfacing, after you've likely dumped all air on the ascent? I'm generally pretty shrink wrapped when I get out of the water.
This is something my husband has mentioned to me but I admit that I haven't tried it myself.
This all reminds me of my drysuit course. I was trying to use my old,worn out travel BC which had very little lift to begin with and also ended up having a leak. I realized that I was woefully unable to float my kit on the surface and that I was having to use my drysuit for a great deal of my lift. I purchased a new wing and it was also too small for comfort. ( I did purchase it with guidance from Tobin) This wing was able to float my kit but I had no room for error or emergencies. I was concerned that a fully flooded drysuit or needing to help somebody else, especially in a rough sea, would cause problems. I eventually got a New wing with 30 lbs of lift. This gives me a margin of safety and also allows me to use more weight, say if I decide that I need different undergarments, etc. I wasn't comfortable with the previous wing, in part because I had no margin to change my configuration or carry anything except what I originally checked my rig for balance in.
Another incident that happened to me about a year ago- I nearly drowned one time when my instructor and buddy were chatting on the surface. I was getting geared up and decided to cool off in a few feet of water on the edge of the lake. I fell in a deep hole, probably 6-8 feet deep and realized that I hadn't turned my air on. I learned real fast that my steel tank full of air was almost more than I could swim up with a thin wetsuit and OOA. ( I didn't even have any weight on as the steel tank heavy enough even with a jacket BC). I was able to swim it up but it was quite a struggle. If you haven't tried this with your rig, you really should. Please do it in a pool and of course, have your air on!
Really hit home that a balanced rig could save my life. I also realized how incredibly easy it is to drown in the blink of an eye in very shallow, benign conditions. Nobody even knew it happened. I would have drowned just a few feet from very competent help in shallow water with a full tank. The other thing that I learned is that you can't do much when you're out of air, stressed and underwater. It's very hard to kick back up to the surface with an empty set of lungs and no air in the BC if overweighted. I can imagine that orally inflating once you get to the surface from an OOA incident would be difficult. Of course, if your BC won't float you, orally inflating isn't enough anyway. Dumping weights with today's tech gear might also be tricky. Most of it is designed to stay in and be pretty tough to dump. I also learned that I really need to practice ditching my rig on the bottom,in the event of any type of emergency where my rig prevents me from swimming up. For instance, if I were to be entangled with something on my BC or tank and couldn't get myself unstuck, ditching my rig needs to be second nature.
---------- Post added October 11th, 2013 at 11:14 AM ----------
DAN has a section on fitness and diving. Ironically we only fill out medical questionnaires once as we certify, then have to do a fitness test as well, then never verify that we are still in shape to dive.
My recommendations for cardiac screening is a test called a Coronary Calcium Score. It is a screening CAT scan of the heart and looks for calcium deposits present in atherosclerosis. It is much better at detecting the earliest forms of heart disease and atherosclerosis. I use them most commonly when a patient has a high cholesterol and the question is if the patient would benefit from therapy. If the score comes back high they should be on a cholesterol rx, if they have a 0 score then I just watch with dietary recommendations since they don't have underlying heart disease.
For a standard treadmill stress test to be positive, even with the use of nuclear tracers or echocardiograms, the patient has to have a significant lesion. Usually on the order of 80-90% or more. So, as the patient starts to exercise on the treadmill the blockage has to be severe enough to start restricting blood flow in the heart to produce symptoms. What if you have a 35% blockage? You will have a normal stress test since that lesion won't be severe enough to limit flow. But, if a small lesion at 35% ruptures then you form a blood clot in the vessel and go to 100% blocked in minutes. Now you are having a heart attack. And, depending on the location, determines if you will survive or not. Keep in mind, 1 out of 3 patients die of their first heart attack in the field or don't survive the hospitalization.
As Jax has pointed out, get checked out with your doctor on an annual basis or on your physician's recommendations.
Thanks. My husband was found to have significant blockage of three vessels on cardiac CT despite normal everything. We found out that he has a hereditary lipoprotein defect that causes atherosclerosis, despite normal appearing cholesterol screens. He's in excellent shape and breezed through a stress test. I'm a huge believer in Cardiac Calcium scoring. It has brought to light a lot of cardiac issues in my patients which would have been missed with routine screening exams. It's not paid for by most insurance companies but it generally costs about $100 or less.
While I don't believe it caused Marcia's problem, I do believe cardiac health is something that all divers, especially those of us aged 45 and older, should be extra,extra vigilant about. Ask your doctor to order a Cardiac Calcium scoring CT. I believe some radiology places don't even require a doctor's order.
