those pesky careless moments ...

[RickHeil]

Bob, great meeting you for the class and great posts.
Again sorry I congested (coming down with a cold that I still have today, just ending) and bailed on you guys. I know it wasn't easy getting a new buddy thrown on you along with all the other task loading.
Congrats on making it thru Apprentice in one trip. That was/is as intense and demanding a series of classes - and rightly so - as one can take in diving I think.
Learning cave diving skills and discipline is as hard, exhilarating, demanding, stressful, humbling as anything I've ever encountered. Again great job to you and Kam!

Cheers,
Rick

 

[Soakedlontra]

Bob I am glad that you came back from that cave class alive! It's great that you wrote about your nasty experience in such a honest way!

cheers

 

[davidbaraff]

I'm curious: if one does manage to inhale some sea-water, and go into a spasm, assuming you have a regular in your mouth, what should you do? Just remain calm and wait for the spasm to pass (will it pass before you pass out from lack of air)? If you have the reg in your mouth, are you getting air, but just don't feel like you are? Should you push your purge valve yourself a few times to force some air into your lungs?

It sounds like a pretty scary phenomenon, and it's always good to know what the right procedure is before you encounter it.

 

[TSandM]

If you have laryngospasm, you are not getting air, and you cannot inhale. Keeping the regulator in your mouth is good practice, because the moment the spasm relaxes, you are going to want to inhale, and having the regulator there is a good idea.

There really isn't anything effective you can do underwater about this. As I mentioned, it is possible to break the laryngospasm sometimes with positive pressure ventilation, but achieving this underwater is very difficult. It requires that you come up with some way to completely block the exhaust port on your regulator, which isn't easy to do. Just purging the reg results in exhausting gas to the surrounding water.

In this case, prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

[ianr33]

How does a laryngospasm end? Do you just die from hypoxia?

 

[Rick Murchison]

How does a laryngospasm end? Do you just die from hypoxia?

Though terrifying - especially if you don't know what's happening - laryngospasm is described as "self limiting." That is, the vocal cords will gradually relax and you can pull air by them, slowly at first but better with each breath.
There's a pretty good discussion - and a link to a good video - starting at post #48 in this thread.
Rick

 

[gcbryan]

If you have laryngospasm, you are not getting air, and you cannot inhale. Keeping the regulator in your mouth is good practice, because the moment the spasm relaxes, you are going to want to inhale, and having the regulator there is a good idea.

There really isn't anything effective you can do underwater about this. As I mentioned, it is possible to break the laryngospasm sometimes with positive pressure ventilation, but achieving this underwater is very difficult. It requires that you come up with some way to completely block the exhaust port on your regulator, which isn't easy to do. Just purging the reg results in exhausting gas to the surrounding water.

In this case, prevention is worth a pound of cure.

How often does this sort of thing happen? Why don't we hear of people dying from it...assuming not everyone who gets it is able to control it or remain calm?

I'm wondering in general why more things like this don't happen to those who have deco obligations and/or overhead environment and can't go to the surface where in this case the options would be better.

This is the side of tech diving that doesn't appeal to me but I'm just curious as to why we don't hear more of this and other problems that can occur underwater as opposed to heart attacks/strokes things that you would tend to just think well that diver's time was up?

 

[Thalassamania]

That's quite an experience. I did that once while trying to drive and drink a soda at the same time and it scared the crap out of me. I can still remember counting and I got to a little more than 100 before it cleared. It would have been much more upsetting underwater, and an order of magnitude worst in a cave. I very glad that you're still with us.