Unknown Woody From “Dive Talk” DCS and Medical Journey

[CT-Rich]

Did you watch the video? It wasn't "I fell like crap .. oxygen will help". As he exited the water, he was barely able to make it to the O2. He felt like he couldn't breath even on O2. As he was getting into the vehicle, he says he knew something was seriously wrong. On the trip back to the dive shop Gus was in the back helping him with the O2, rather than the front seat. etc. for 4 hours.

The point is, if you are right, the video is very inaccurate. And if the video is factually accurate, then your interpretation is inaccurate. You can't have it both ways. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but we will never know where.

An interesting thing to note is that they have shown no video of the period from the ascent till the hospital. Given typical Youtuber behavior I can't imagine nothing was recorded during that 6 hours. I would expect there is video of them exiting the water. We should be able to see just how desperate Woodie was for the O2 and how hard it was to get to it, etc. I suspect narrative control is why we haven't seen that video.

I actually listened to the video while I was working on a project. So I only heard the narrative while occasionally looking up. As I have said, hind sight is 20/20. I have no idea what he is like after a coming out of the water after a four hour dive. I thought they gave a fairly honest account of events. Why someone doesn't film while trying to get hospital, I suppose there are people that would, some people would say put that f***ing thing away and it's possible they did, but the video didn't record or it was unusable. They are sharing a lot more information than you normally hear about most accidents, so it is up to them to choose what they share. Do I want to listen to a voice over while watching Woody barfing all over the backseat of a car? I think I am good missing that.

They can share what they are comfortable with sharing and I will respect that. They made some bad choices about what to do AFTER they got out of the water. I bet they are kicking themselves for their own choices, so I don't feel the need to.

 

[rjack321]

There is no guarantee that (any) private medical facility in a foreign country will take what is effectively an IOU from (in this case) a US based insurance company. You can expect to pay out of pocket before treatment more often than not and it's on you to file the claims and deal with insurance after the fact. So yes you to have high credit limits available on a CC to deal with this situation.

 

[A Bajo]

I believe the credit card would go NOT through even though the rep on the phone told him he could charge it, then Amex did go through. This happened to me many years ago in India on a non dive trip. Spent a lot of time in a store, then told no amex and then an hour trying to get visa/mc to go through even though I had called all before the trip. I think they eventually did use my amex and it went right through but it was a long time ago. Now all my cards and banks say no need to call before traveling. Also, even when they did if you then called them while abroad and they verified your id they would approve the charge.

 

[catone]

Something interesting I found, pertaining to the part of the dive where Gus tries twice to fit through a restriction that nobody was able to in their configuration. I just watched one of their videos about the recent death in JB (). Listen what he has to say about tight restrictions at 10 minute mark. And that was as recent as 4 months ago.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

he actually didn't say they were his limits, he was saying what his instructor (Doug) defined as his limits. Listen again.

I did listen again.. he did say that his instructor won't go through if he has to remove gear but then goes on to say he won't go through if he "finds resistance". I guess you could take that as he's still talking about his instructor but he did use the word "I" as in 1st person.

Do you know if Gus or Woody are certified in Advanced Sidemount?

 

[cerich]

I did listen again.. he did say that his instructor won't go through if he has to remove gear but then goes on to say he won't go through if he "finds resistance". I guess you could take that as he's still talking about his instructor but he did use the word "I" as in 1st person.

Do you know if Gus or Woody are certified in Advanced Sidemount?

I heard it as Gus speaking in the first person as quoting basically.

To advanced side mount, I honestly don't know.

I do know too many that have done side mount dive like they have, it's a problem.

 

[crofrog]

The drop from 83ft to 140Ft near the end of the dive may well have been a result of the cave layout (is there a survey of the cave available?). They may not have had a choice in this.

I wasn’t implying it was a "choice" just that it happened.

Could you post your times and depths? that is a much higher fidelity profile than the one I did, and I like to update mine.

feet runtime
0 0
68 4
74 7
117 10
117 19
146 22
127 25
127 42
146 46
117 49
113 62
132 63
101 68
90 75
142 77
74 82
70 90
45 93
43 99
31 99
31 108
21 110
23 149
0 151

 

[crofrog]

I noticed that too. But did GF exceed 0% before or during the bounce? If not, then there wouldn't be any bubbles to bypass. That is why I want your profile, to look at those details.

The GF only goes above 0% when the tissue pressure exceeds ambient pressure. Off-gassing starts when the tissue compartment pressure exceeds the inert gas equilibrium pressure. If you see this section of the strip here, he was starting to off-gass the fast issues.

It's just a theory... the reality is some times we get bent and we don't have a good explanation fro it.

Subsurface Version 4 User Manual | Subsurface

subsurface-divelog.org

https://www.shearwater.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/understanding_m-values.pdf

 

[crofrog]

Maybe algorithms are just an approximation of a theory that we believe largely reflects reality.

I threw it in subsurface as well earlier today because I was curious.
View attachment 818732

The drop from 83ft to 140ft on the way out is provocative, in my opinion. Bouncing down to depth could allow bubbles to bypass the lungs and end up on the arterial side. Sort of like have a PFO... That's about a 1.7ata change similar to bouncing down 20 ft after a long deco dive...

Some other interesting tidbits based on this he surfaced with a GF high of around 54%
With the time spent at 70ft in someways it resembles a deep stop profile, with a stop at about half the average depth.

If you fit the GFs to the dive, it looks like it ended up being closer to a GF of 27/54.
The green represents 27/54gf's
View attachment 818734

If he would have gone to a 1.6 at 70ft and done the same amount of decompression he'd have surfaced as gf of about 27.

I'm also going to invalidate some of what I said yesterday... The profile for the dive in subsurface (mind you the exact same profile) now comes out to be around 70% surfacing GF at end of the dive. I've had this happen with subsurface planner before where some times it just start being wrong...

 

[billgraham]

So let's assume their training was spot on. Something I've noticed and was certainly guilty of myself is that when you learn something new, you want go and use it. It's like getting a new sportscar and mashing the gas pedal down to the floor, it's a real temptation.