Teenager with DCS, mother in denial, treatment delayed

[Bob DBF]

The first fatality that hit close to home in my diving career was that of a fellow airman who should never have been doing what she was. She'd been warned by myself, and others, and even given a formal order to stop diving with the people she was diving with. They were her friends, she ignored everyone, and was dead very shortly after. She wasn't certified.

Situations like this have really bothered me ever since, but they just don't stop.

I agree it's a sad situation, and can be avoided more easily now than when I started diving. My point would be that even if certified, she still could have chosen diving with her friends, making the same mistakes.

I dove for 17 years before certification, I learned OW from a book and a mentor. A few years after learning another mentor taught me what now would be called tech diving, air only at that time. My only hit was after I was certified and was undeserved. Because of the situation, I resolved it with IWR on air as I was taught a decade before. If I had a better choice I would have taken it.

 

[boulderjohn]

-Maybe neither of them were certified, or maybe they both were. But at some point, someone who was not working off an OW textbook taught them something about IWR.

In past conversations with people who learned to dive many decades ago, I have gotten the impression that back in the day going back in the water like that when DCS symptoms appeared was common practice. In fact, I got the idea that she took a step up in terms of safety from that practice by having someone else go with him.

 

[ginti]

In past conversations with people who learned to dive many decades ago, I have gotten the impression that back in the day going back in the water like that when DCS symptoms appeared was common practice.

Me too. And I know people died as an indirect result of this practice, but it hasn't too much to do with the situation of this thread...

 

[Belzelbub]

Yes, they’ve got a taco obsession.

You aren’t kidding. It was a post about tacos that made me realize she was also on a local spearfishing group.

 

[boulderjohn]

Me too. And I know people died as an indirect result of this practice, but it hasn't too much to do with the situation of this thread...

What I should have made clear is that in many circles, old ideas are passed down without question to newer divers.

 

[boulderjohn]

You aren’t kidding. It was a post about tacos that made me realize she was also on a local spearfishing group.

What I should have made clear is that in many circles, old ideas are passed down without question to newer divers.

I didn't want to start going there, but....

My comment on old ideas being passed down without question was triggered by a ScubaBoard event from many years ago, when I was still on the staff. There was a fatality in which divers, including the deceased, engaged in practices that simply stunned most commentators. Friends of the divers, who were not regular SB participants, jumped into the thread to insist that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what they did, that everything they did was normal scuba, and the man's death was simply the result of the fact that in scuba, sometimes people die. Can't be helped.

The thread got so contentious that we ended up eliminating it altogether, the only time I can think of that happening in the history of ScubaBoard. Before the thread got eliminated, a SB regular who knew that diving community explained that, yes, those practices and beliefs were common in that community. And, yes, it was a spearfishing community.

 

[kaylee_ann]

I'm wondering if it may be that she was so scared about her son having severe DCS, and she went into denial because she didn't want to face it. The brain is a weird thing.

 

[kelemvor]

Well, some people disagree with you:

Chiropractic - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I am not a doctor, the only reason why I said it is pseudoscience is that link. If you explain me why the link is wrong, I will happily change my idea.

Anyway, most people I met who have high consideration of chiropractic also believe in homeopathy and other not strictly scientific stuff, so my argument stands. But I don't mean that I am right, I am just not surprised, that's it

I don't know about that link but I've got a bit of a bad story about chiropractors. In 2009 I started noticing significant numbness in my hands and fingers. I assumed carpal tunnel as I've been a software engineer since 1997. Forget why I thought a chiropractor was a good idea but I went. They diagnosed carpal tunnel and hooked me up (improperly, I now know) to a TENS unit for a bit of a torture session. After three sessions, no change.

It ended up being a herniated disk combined with a genetic defect that nearly severed my spine between c2-c3 and also c4-c5. Was pretty obvious on an x-ray and even more so on the MRI and ct myelogram.

Had that chiro even bothered to do an x-ray (and they DID have one in the office) I probably could have caught it early before most of the cord damage was done.

Here's the deal, Chiropractors are PhD's. So a chirpractor can be called "dr. whatever" just like someone with a PhD in scuba diving is Dr. Whatever. What chiropractors are not are Medical Doctors or Doctctors of Osteopathic Medicine. Those two are typcally what a person thinks of when they go to the "doctor" for medical treatment. Chiropractars are legally prohibited from practicing medicine or writing a prescription for medication.

 

[dmaziuk]

What I should have made clear is that in many circles, old ideas are passed down without question to newer divers.

... long after the -- quite possibly very relevant at the time -- reasons behind those ideas went obsolete and ceased to exist. I'm sure I know a classic anecdote on the subject but I'm drawing a blank.

 

[Belzelbub]

... long after the -- quite possibly very relevant at the time -- reasons behind those ideas went obsolete and ceased to exist. I'm sure I know a classic anecdote on the subject but I'm drawing a blank.

1/2 turn back on the valve is one that comes up often.