Unknown Woody From “Dive Talk” DCS and Medical Journey

[L13]

Just so everyone knows and it can't be sweped under the rug, the "YouTube Celebrities worthless?" thread was moved to "Thumbs down" even though it received nothing but thumbs up. While the "DAN Insurance worthless"" thread is still in "Dive Medicine Q&A".

https://scubaboard.com/community/threads/youtube-celebrities-worthless.641524/

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

The last statement is incorrect

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[iliketopetsharks]

They might have been simplifying things for their YouTube audience.

That prospect makes it even worse.

 

[Boarderguy]

Just so everyone knows and it can't be sweped under the rug, the "YouTube Celebrities worthless?" thread was moved to "Thumbs down" even though it received nothing but thumbs up. While the "DAN Insurance worthless"" thread is still in "Dive Medicine Q&A".

https://scubaboard.com/community/threads/youtube-celebrities-worthless.641524/

Because there are mods (note I didn't specify which ones) who see the DT channel as their savior and lord. They can't have those two clowns be chastised in a forum other than one which is destined for bad press.

 

[L13]

Because there are mods (note I didn't specify which ones) who see the DT channel as their savior and lord. They can't have those two clowns be chastised in a forum other than one which is destined for bad press.

What is sad is they won't even move the other thread to "Dive Insurance" , which is where it belonged (even after they edited the clickbait title).

Apparently the special form rules don't apply to their heroes.

 

[jensfisc]

If they were diving trimix they would have touted it as such.
It would have been a whole 5min segment of them hyping up trimix, how amazing it is, etc.

Instead they dove beyond all recommended depth limits for air diluent. Again.

They both have had near death experiences diving air too deep in a rebreather, but continue to do so.

Everything about that restriction seemed sketchy. I am not a cave diver, nor a tech diver, but as a normal human that looked like a massively unnecessary risk. I find it somewhat ironic that DT harps so much on how dangerous other divers are in their reaction videos while seemingly ignoring their own behavior because they have cave certs. Maybe restrictions like that are normal in cave diving and being the first to make it through while diving X gear is a worthy goal. Or maybe the motivation is YouTube metrics.

 

[cerich]

Everything about that restriction seemed sketchy. I am not a cave diver, nor a tech diver, but as a normal human that looked like a massively unnecessary risk. I find it somewhat ironic that DT harps so much on how dangerous other divers are in their reaction videos while seemingly ignoring their own behavior because they have cave certs. Maybe restrictions like that are normal in cave diving and being the first to make it through while diving X gear is a worthy goal. Or maybe the motivation is YouTube metrics.

Not normal restriction in cave diving, nor what being a full cave diver has trained or qualified you for. Nor a side mount class.

Major restrictions like that require training specific to that type of activity. Advanced side mount cave.

Yours,

A cave instructor trainer.

 

[CT-Rich]

Yes, but this isn’t a remote evacuation from the side of a mountain or a search and rescue operation. It was a medical flight from a commercial airport. Regardless of how small it is, the commercial air and medivac systems are setup to leave their hubs and extract I patients from wherever they might be. They’d be useless otherwise. There are no less than 8 commercial flights per day from my area to Marsh Harbor Airport - it’s hardly an abandoned airstrip on a patch of sand.

A story has been woven that there required some type of deep local knowledge and use of a coconut phone to get a night flight out of there when, in reality, the guys were able to arrange one themselves within an hour using Google and a Platinum Amex.

I am not passing judgement in either way. Phone operators get a script and the y were probably regurgitating what was on the screen in front of them. DAN is not a 911 dispatcher. Promising something off the cuff is not practical. The information the operator was looking at may not have reflected the current repair of facilities in Bermuda after the 2019 storm damage... I don't know. I think this will be interesting to watch, because it may lead to improvements of in the process of arranging evacs or in the what reimbursements are available to divers. If you come up from a dive severly bent in the US, a CG copter can come and fetch you. Most countries aren't going to have the logistical capabilities. to provide those on demand services.

Yes, but with the correct secret DT decoder ring, that just means Woodie was tired and doing the normal breath O2 when tired thing that everybody with enough experience to comment knows about. At least as far as Gus or the dive guide could possibly know.

Remember, as non-DT fans, you and I don't have the experience to know how to interpret what Woodie and Gus say in the video.

But, I've been assured, by SB regulars not just DT fans, that it is normal to breath O2 for hours and not consider it an emergency. Or maybe that only applies to Woodie. I need to go back and review my O2 provider training, it is very confusing that I don't remember it that way.

After a day of diving I come out of the water and I am tired, even in good conditions with proper thermal protection, I have been having body heat slowly sapped from my core. Water conducts heat a lot better than air. I usually crash out for part of the drive home. I do not take hits of oxygen. I have heard of using O2 as a cure all for headaches (the standard terrestrial ones), hangovers, fatigue and exhaustion. Patti Davis (daughter of Ronald Reagan) had a story that she would go running and take hits off the O2 the Secret Service would carry with them. She did so often that the SS told her she was going have to pay for recharging the bottle.

I am not advocating anything, but I have heard of people using O2 for non emergency uses... Do I know if Woody has a habit of doing this? No.

This was a creeping disaster. what started out as one thing (woody is exhausted after multiple days of travel and a 3 hour dive) evolved into "Sh*t we need to get you out of here and to a chamber". How it evolved (was it 3 hours post dive or 6?). What diluant was he using, what was happening on the phone with DAN and what was actually occurring in the DAN offices to get him an evac are all speculative.

The nice thing about this particular accident is the commitment DT has made to providiving transparency. you almost never see anything like this with accidents. Most are just blurbs in a summary of release at the end of the year by BSAC or some other organization, non-diver news reports where everything is called oxygen or first hand accounts that provide a single perspective on events.

If people ask nicely, DT may release things like Woody's computer profile that will clarify the what the dive actually looked like, rather than speculation. I am really interested in what the behind the scenes logistics of calling on DAN to facilitate a transport looks like. It is super easy to say Woody did it in an hour. But, DAN can be on the losing end of lawsuits if they decide to cut corners for time that result in a bad outcome. Woody Could have touched down after his $8,000 flight only discover that there was no chamber available and he needs to be flown somewhere else. For woody it would be tough luck. If it was DAN it would be "why didn't you know that?" attached to a lawsuit.

I am interested in finding out what happens, but am withholding judgement... Sh*t went bad, but, it is not clear what went bad.

 

[billgraham]

Maybe restrictions like that are normal in cave diving and being the first to make it through while diving X gear is a worthy goal. Or maybe the motivation is YouTube metrics.

I think that's the number one question, what was the goal here? If you look at the video, there's a clip from Jonathan Bird diving the same spot, same restriction. Todd from their team had a tough time negotiating it in OC, Brian was already on the other side with a Sidekick, which is a similar profile to OC. The Sidewinder is a different configuration, I don't know if anyone on the dive tried it in that restriction prior to going there with the video camera.

I don't want to suggest it's wrong to have a goal, because we all talk about what we want to do on the dive, it's natural. On the other hand, I've been on dives where the "goal" started to eclipse the idea that "this is supposed to be fun" and maybe that's a useful metric.

 

[A Bajo]

on other thing I was thinking watching the struggling through the restriction was what about preserving the environment. If this becomes popular, in a couple of years that restriction will be big enough for anyone to swim through.

 

[KEITHB1955]

Woody had DCS after a cave dive in Abaco, Bahamas. He experienced neurological symptoms of DCS immediately after surfacing(slight symptom at depth as well).Woody was completely exhausted and could not catch his breath/ move and take his own gear off. He was on immediate 02. For some reason these symptoms were ignored and they did not seek help at this time. It wasn’t until Woody was going in and out of consciousness and being generally unresponsive back at the house. If you watch the linked video, I believe they could have acted faster to getting treatment. However, we are all ego driven and do not want to admit we need help. I know how easy it is to brush off symptoms and try to play it cool. In the same breath what Woody experienced upon surfacing after thousands of dives should have sent alarm bells to him(he’s not thinking clearly) but should have been obvious to outside observer as portrayed in their video. To let it get to the point of Woody passing in and out of consciousness is crazy but sadly believable because we all want to try to ignore symptoms and seeking hospital help.

Once they realized this was a full blown emergency, Woody was taken to a clinic and calls were made to DAN. Woody was in an unequipped clinic with no resources/hypo chamber to treat him. Gus contacted DAN and asked for immediate help as woody had neurological DCS symptoms, in and out of consciousness. DAN then sent woody forms to complete as he’s in a hospital bed in and out of consicousness. Stuff like “employers phone number, employers address, spouses employer and insurance, etc..” (They show the forms in video) woody completeled them in an hour or so, then DAN told Woody it’d be atleast 24 hours before he gets choppered to Nassau, where they have a hypo chamber. DAN told them that flights were impossible at night. (This is all from woody and Gus’s account, they claim to be getting transcripts and will release them).

Within a few minutes of google and speaking with staff woody found a plane to come pick him up and take him to Nassau, woody paid $8300 to get this service, zero help from DAN, he also claims most of his cards denied the charges as suspicious and what not(woody is a millionaire that owns beach front hotel so if he has trouble with his cards with this kind of charge then us non multi millionaires need to heed what he says) woodys last hope was an American Express that approved the charges.

Once In Nassau, they find their way to a private hospital with a hypo chamber. Woody claims he was told by DAN that it would all be covered under DAN and he was now being taken care of,. Woody is taken aback when the hospital explains that he needs to pay $18,000 to start treatment. Amex approved and he was then in full care.

Why did they take so long to get woody help? I think this is a problem of us not wanting to admit something is wrong,

Could you afford $26,000 expense at a moments notice at 11:00 pm at night in foreign country? *woody has since been reimbursed for both charges. But he still had to come outta pocket or he was SOL

I think this is an interesting case to follow. This will hopefully help all of us divers in case we ever have a problem and need help from DAN. Dive talk claims they will get the transcripts and release them all. They claim to have been invited to a meeting with DAN ceo to help address these problems.

Same thing happened to me in November 2023, got bent in the Bahamas, was jerked around between two places before ending up in Nassau and the dive operator had to pay the air flight to Nassau for 8,250
was sent to Doctors Hospital and there I had to cough up 8,000 bucks, then next morning was placed in chamber at 0800, they tried to hit me for another 8,000 I told them no way! We got it worked out for me to stay another night but I still had to put on my credit card 1,900.00 , Im not a millionaire so you can only imagine the trauma I was in! I will never dive in the bahamas again