Spiegel Grove??

[TheRedHead]

Mama,

This is a good summary of what outwardly happened. But from what has been shared here it ought to be pretty clear that there is more here that likely contibuted to the onset of panic than a loss of one's "object of comfort".

Let's not forget that by casemanager's own statement, the Er doc that treated him at the chamber gave a considered medical opinion that he should not dive again. Most Scuba docs that man hyperbaric chambers are not in the habit of discouraging divers from diving for no good reason. Many of them are divers themselves. Why would he have made such a recommendation?

LJ

LJ,

I don't have any idea what transpired between casemanager and his/her doctor. Why don't we establish casemanager's sex so I don't have to make compound pronouns? Yet, I think you may underestimate the psychological dependence that some divers have on DMs, buddies, and instructors. Casemanager expected the DM to be watching him/her. Go back and read some of the earlier posts which [paraphrased] read something like, "There were 3 DMs in the water. Why weren't they watching me?" Some divers, unfortunately, cannot dive without being absolutely sure that someone with more knowledge and experience is in the water and will take care of any emergency. That is my definition of a dependent diver.

If a diver must know that someone is watching them in order to be able to dive with confidence, that diver could panic without the condition of feeling secure, particularly in new circumstances.

You are insinuating a grave situation from a supposed medical condition that you overheard, but I don't know anything about it. I feel like you know a lot more about what happened than you have shared with us. Objectively, it seems you are not being fair to Casemanager in that regard.

The point I originally made is that you can't assume anything about a person's OW skills because they panicked and blamed someone else.

I don't want to offer an opnion about Casemanager's fitness to dive, but if I were given that advice in the emergency room, I would certainly get a second opinion from another doctor. Wouldn't you?

 

[LJinFLA]

If I received an opinion like that from an ER doc I would certainly seek a second opinion. I encourage him to do that with a doc that is trained in Diving Physiology.

LJ

 

[scubapolly]

What I think happened is:

Dependent diver loses object of comfort (buddy and instructor)
Diver starts hyperventilating
Becomes dizzy and short of breath
Succombs to panic and forgets training
Heads to surface

I thnk you made a good point. However I think there are a few prior steps that contributed to this situation.

1. The diver was dependent because he was inexperienced for the dive he was making.
2. The diver was taking (at least) 2 medications of concern:
scopolamine- the patch for motion sickness with side effects which include drowsiness, dizziness or blurred vision.
nicorette gum- which has side effects of dizziness and blurred vision
And this doesn't even take into account the possible interractions between these 2 medications.

I believe these medications are the reason the diver felt narc'd as he mentioned. at such a shallow depth.

 

[cmalinowski]

Wow, after reading this entire thread up to this point, I must say that there is an hour or more of my life I will never get back.


On the good side, octgal is going to stick around

 

[TheRedHead]

I thnk you made a good point. However I think there are a few prior steps that contributed to this situation.

1. The diver was dependent because he was inexperienced for the dive he was making.
2. The diver was taking (at least) 2 medications of concern:
scopolamine- the patch for motion sickness with side effects which include drowsiness, dizziness or blurred vision.
nicorette gum- which has side effects of dizziness and blurred vision
And this doesn't even take into account the possible interractions between these 2 medications.

I believe these medications are the reason the diver felt narc'd as he mentioned. at such a shallow depth.

My experience with scopolamine on deep air is a happy narc. And re-reading what I wrote, I didn't mean to imply that Casemanager was a dependent diver on all dives, but he was obviously on this one. In several posts he seemed distressed that his instructor was not watching him. And yes, I agree that he was not ready for this dive.

 

[casemanager]

I am the poster.

Lets first discuss ER doctors. Emergency Physicians are generally knowledgeable in all areas of medicine. If you work in an ER that has a hyberbaric chamber and it happens to be in the dive capital of the world, most or all physicians would tell a person who ascented out of panic not to dive again. For those of you who do not know about medicine and lawyers, look into the cost of malpractice and how many er doctors get sued vs doctors in their private practice.

 

[casemanager]

If I dive ever again, I will consult my own GP, this is a general practicioner who knows your history and sees you throughout your life. Right now, I can barely take a shower because of FEAR. This incident has caused a lot of SH** and I did not enjoy it.

If I dive again I will consult my own doctor, hire a private instructor for 1:1 training and I will do this for a number of dives. I will only go back into the water if I am proficient and knowledgeable in diving physiology and what to do if things dont work out the way things normally go.

My comparison of instructors in the past to my current instructor is only based on experience. I am not an expert diver. I have logged about 25 dives. I recently came back from Hawaii. I met a great instructor who took me on a dive at 105'. She gave us a lengthy presentation prior to the dive, she told us what to look for, and what to do. There were 6 of us. She buddyed us each up with an advanced diver. Going down, she was constantly by our sides and giving signals. I felt extremely comfortable with her and felt safe.

Is this normal? Do students feel safe with thier intstructors or was this just an odd occurrence for me? Again, I am only basing this on experience but I know you all are experts in this field. The reason I took the advanced class was to become proficient in deep water dives since I enjoyed the Hawaii experience. The Speigel was my DEEP WATER CERTIFICATION DIVE. I was a STUDENT ON AN INSTRUCTED COURSE when my accident happened.

How else can I compare this experience to if I am not an Expert like you all.

 

[TekDiveGirl]

If I dive ever again, I will consult my own GP, this is a general practicioner who knows your history and sees you throughout your life. Right now, I can barely take a shower because of FEAR. This incident has caused a lot of SH** and I did not enjoy it.

If this is how you feel -- don't forget to add a psychiatrist to your list of professionals.

You should see an MD who specializes in hyperbaric medicine - not just your general GP. After I took a bizarre undeserved DCS hit once and that is what was recommeded to me and what I followed. Your GP is not versed in diving medicine.

Kimber

 

[2Tours N Iraq`]

If I dive again I will consult my own doctor, hire a private instructor for 1:1 training and I will do this for a number of dives. I will only go back into the water if I am proficient and knowledgeable in diving physiology and what to do if things dont work out the way things normally go.

It sounds to me you have learned a valuable lesson here. As stated previously, I am not in a position to diagonose or tell you what you should and shouldn't do. I can only make recommendations which have served me well.

First and foremost, fear causes people to follow one of two courses of action:
1. Cripple you to where you can no longer function under those and similar conditions
2. Motivate you to step up to the challenge and keep going
Which one you choose is entirely up to you and I will respect your decisioin either way.

Second, you now have a greater appreciation for training, both academic and physical. The knowledge you gain will greatly enhance your diving ability because you will know what to do, what not to do (you learned this first-hand), when to do something, and when not to do it should you continue to pursue diving.

Third, you have seen there are all sorts of different views in regards to diving. If you do continue to dive, I would suggest finding someone with similar views, interests, and experience to your own to be your permanent dive buddy/team. I understand they might not always be able to dive with you but at the very least you will have someone you have considerable comfort in diving with as you will learn each other's limits and stay within those confines.

Fourth, I think you have discovered the only person you can count on at depth is yourself (especially when diving with someone who you met that morning). To me, that is a dive partner, not a dive buddy.

Lastly, I have had a different situation in the water where I felt I was in a fight or flight situation and had to overcome my instincts to ensure my own survival (involving a hungry shark while snorkeling but I'll save that for another discussion). When you learn to master not listening to what your mind/body is screaming at you to do in a fight or flight situation you will be able to think rationally instead of panicing. That is the key to your own survival.

Hopefully you have been able to pick out little nuggets of help through the often heated discussion on this thread. At the very least, thanks for sharing your experience so we may all benefit from it, that took guts.

Let us not forget the value of academic knowledge as it fills in the gaps of our own inexperience.

 

[TheRedHead]

My comparison of instructors in the past to my current instructor is only based on experience. I am not an expert diver. I have logged about 25 dives. I recently came back from Hawaii. I met a great instructor who took me on a dive at 105'. She gave us a lengthy presentation prior to the dive, she told us what to look for, and what to do. There were 6 of us. She buddyed us each up with an advanced diver. Going down, she was constantly by our sides and giving signals. I felt extremely comfortable with her and felt safe.

Is this normal? Do students feel safe with thier intstructors or was this just an odd occurrence for me? Again, I am only basing this on experience but I know you all are experts in this field. The reason I took the advanced class was to become proficient in deep water dives since I enjoyed the Hawaii experience. The Speigel was my DEEP WATER CERTIFICATION DIVE. I was a STUDENT ON AN INSTRUCTED COURSE when my accident happened.

How else can I compare this experience to if I am not an Expert like you all.

I haven't dived anywhere with an instructor unless I was in a course. Having instructors on dive boats who are constantly at your side is not typical. I'm not sure about how dive boat buddying works because I always dive with the same buddy. Some DMs are more "motherly" than others on guided dives. My preference is a DM who is satisifed to guide and wishes only to know when you have reached the turn or ascend psi given in the dive briefing.

I never thought about feeling safe with my AOW instructors because I never thought I would feel unsafe. My AOW Deep dive was on a wall and the time spent deep was fairly short. Most of the dive was spent exploring at 50 feet. On the AOW wreck dive we mapped a wreck in about 100 feet and the viz was rather poor - 20 to 25 feet. For a large part of the dive, I was out of the visual field of my instructor and my buddy. I measured one side of the wreck for depth and measured the length using kick cycles. My buddy measured the other side for depth and measured the width using arm spans. The instructor hovered above the center of the wreck. I could usually see his bubbles, but sometimes could not see my buddy's bubbles. I did not at any time feel unsafe.

You shouldn't count on an instructor or DM to make you feel safe. You have to be able to dive with a buddy and not freak out even if you lose your buddy. Doesn't OW cover dive planning and lost buddy procedures? You also have to be prepared to assist your buddy and not be a liability to other divers. I don't mean this in a unkind way, but not being able to dive without an instructor is dangerous.