Unknown Woody From “Dive Talk” DCS and Medical Journey

[Nitrogenius]

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.

Well that depends a lot onm the circumstances though.. I personally love to continue to suck oxy at the surface at the slightest tingle to "just be onm the safe side" and I may continue to do so for quite some time and rather have to ensure others that in fact this is not an emergency, but an additional precaution that certainly will not hurt. In the circumstances described, however I can not see this being perceived by anybody as not an emergency. Yet I get the bias to try to treat it "onboard" rather than hitting the full emergency chain. Nevertheless they should have started at this point to do the research how to get to the next chamber "just in case" (which they should have already done before even starting diving IMHO, but latest then).
Also mind boggling when they already seem to lean towards the "we handle it our own approach" why they had no in water recompression approach, but that seems to fall into the category of general lack of preparation to execute advanced dives in remote third world location that seems to be the center root cause of the unfortunate series of events.

 

[Nitrogenius]

That's the part people tend to forget. With how experienced Woody is, you would think he would know that he was severely bent. Apparently Type 2 DCS can make any diver, no matter the experience, completely oblivious (The rapid onset of severe fatigue honestly should have been the biggest red flag).

Any neurologist, pulmonologist, and EMT divers in this forum, are there field tests that can be used to determine the likelihood of severe DCS, Barotrauma, or air embolisms? Any post dive injury that could go unnoticed. I've seen scenarios where DCS was extremely slow to start showing symptoms, but regardless were severe enough for emergency decompression.

I think it relates a lot to the perceived safety of chosing conservative decompression settings. In his mind it likely "simply" could not be as he was diving "safely"
and that is one of the big take aways.. With DCS folks have to consider all circumstances within a dive and no super conservative setting is a guarantee to not get bent particularily when making other poor choices for established contributing factors - hydration, gas choices, excertion etc. along with rebreather induced topics like potential CO2 buildup and hence worsened impacted gas exchange in general. But also simply the fact of being pressed in and having had difficulties to ventilate properly at significant depth and certainly very high PN2 given the Dil

 

[Marie13]

And yes that happens and we are all prone to brush it off, so i am not too critical about the dleay in treatment, but more about the lack of preparation in general (emergency plan) and then in the emergency that had manifested to not start an inquiry to at least then be prepared..
But it all happens, what would be interesting from your example though is:
Did the diver in question chnage his behaviour after this incident? And did he refelect in hindsight and accepted some responsibility in the late treatment?
we all make mistakes and ideally smart persons don't learn from their own mistakes but from mistakes from others, howevere at least one should learn from their own mistakes and the latter is something i Lack to see with the Divetalk folks. I mean to be blunt after the Missouri incident you go on a dive trip to a remote location and yet have not set up a proper emergency plan? Really? does not sound like learning a lot and all that in public along with normalising such behaviour. The latter is my issue here..
Or how about equipment confirguation and gas choices after Missoury. Gus already had issues in a restriction due to non ideal equipment configuration but yet gets in trouble due to equipment on this dive? the list goes on and and seems to show a pattern.. and that is really the issue here. Unfortunatley this is not about an isolated screw up event. And then the focus is even more on pointing fingers at DAN (which did screw up no doubt and hopefully this event will therefore help the greater community for DAN fixing certain issues), but I do not see much of accepting own responsibility here or any of a learning curve other than "of we should slow it down now" followed by "hahaha I do not even see how this will be possible" so unfortunately likely the next accident to happen and fingers crossed hopefully not being fatal at some point!

Please go back and put a blank line between all your paragraphs. Very painful to read otherwise. Wall of text.

 

[Nitrogenius]

"Dehydration gets a substantial amount of attention in the lay diving community as a risk factor for DCS, but probably more than is warranted.

yes more is warranted.. but here it seems clear that Hydration did not get the attention it would have neeeded (indicators no urge to pee after the dive and generally trying to execute long dives without a pee valve)

The undue focus on dehydration is probably a result of two issues. The first is that substantial fluid shifts can result from DCS, often creating a need for substantial fluid therapy and creating an impression that this was a cause, rather than a consequence, of the disease.
.

Yes also true but unlikely the case here, while certainly nit a single factor it seems very obvious that it very much was a contributing factor. A single one.. Nope, never, a major one in that case I am very very certain

... It is comforting to try and identify a single causal agent, even if this is more wishful than factual.

yes absolutely but THIS is the imprtant part of your quote

It is important for divers to realize that a multitude of factors can subtly affect the risk on any one dive and that there is a probabilistic nature to the disease. Focusing on a range of strategies to reduce risk is more effective than trying to put all the blame on one."

and as it comes to woodie, it looks like he did not even try to adress reducing the most basic ones (like proper hydration) apart from other like gas choices etc etc..
his only line of defense against DCS seems to have been: Conservative GF settings and that is merely not enough!

 

[Nitrogenius]

Please go back and put a blank line between all your paragraphs. Very painful to read otherwise. Wall of text.

Yes fair point. I will try to once I find the time later.. Really have to get back to work now after reading through all of that..

On the other hand nobody is forced to read my ramblings and if someone finds them usefull they might take the effort to aork through the "wall of text" but I see your point and agree in the merit

 

[CT-Rich]

yes more is warranted.. but here it seems clear that Hydration did not get the attention it would have neeeded (indicators no urge to pee after the dive and generally trying to execute long dives without a pee valve)

Yes also true but unlikely the case here, while certainly nit a single factor it seems very obvious that it very much was a contributing factor. A single one.. Nope, never, a major one in that case I am very very certain

yes absolutely but THIS is the imprtant part of your quote

and as it comes to woodie, it looks like he did not even try to adress reducing the most basic ones (like proper hydration) apart from other like gas choices etc etc..
his only line of defense against DCS seems to have been: Conservative GF settings and that is merely not enough!

We really don't have that much knowledge of how dehydrated he was. It was mentioned in the video and it is possible he was more dehydrated than he thought. But we don't know, nor are we likely to know with any certainty that dehydration was a root cause. He also could have had elevated CO2 levels ( which would explain the headache at 70'). Fatigue & age could also be factors. At the end of the day what caused the hit will likely never be known to for general satisfaction. It was likely a combination of factors, none of which were measured.

Not needing to pee is, I understand, a symptom of DCS. That he did not need to pee on exiting may not be a good indication of hydration.

 

[Nitrogenius]

We really don't have that much knowledge of how dehydrated he was. It was mentioned in the video and it is possible he was more dehydrated than he thought. But we don't know, nor are we likely to know with any certainty that dehydration was a root cause. He also could have had elevated CO2 levels ( which would explain the headache at 70'). Fatigue & age could also be factors. At the end of the day what caused the hit will likely never be known to for general satisfaction. It was likely a combination of factors, none of which were measured.

Not needing to pee is, I understand, a symptom of DCS. That he did not need to pee on exiting may not be a good indication of hydration.

Well he even mentions his hydration, so surely hydration is a factor and in a tropical climate I have no doubt that it is a heavily contributing factor. As it is in the majority of cases in tropical climates as stats are showing. Hoever ity has to be noted that it never is a single factor, however it is one that is easily controlable and thus sad that this even has to be discussed these days and sad that such experienmced divers think that it is a wise choice to not using a pee valve on multi hour dives as then one will always have a tendency to not porperly hydrate.
I agree also that potential CO2 retention and the fact of not having to properly ventilated (due to the issues in the restriction) will very likely have contributed as well. So it is no question a cumulation of issues will have caused it and it will never be possible to isolate a cause as the single factor. As well as the exact same dive with similar scircumstances on another day might have resulted in a non issue.
My comments are more pointing at reducing controlable factors and to question whether a dive were a whole set of easily controlable factors to reduce risk have not been facilitated really can be called an "undeserved" hit.
so lilely contributing factors that could have been easily mitigated are:
- Hydration
- Gas choice
- workload at depth
- approriate equipment configuration (MAV not reachable/ disconnecting)
- exceeding dive plan ? (sound slike they were "surprised" how much deco they racked up)
- dive motivation (sound very much like a "terget dive" which is taught to be the wrong motivation) etc.

Overall they continue to show practises and a "non planning" attitude that is far from good diving practises of the industry and they continue to normalise it and then folks even talk about "undeserved" hits which is due to the history of approaching advanged diving in general fairly questionable in my opinion.

And the more advanced the diving gets the less excusable are such infractions of proper practises in my opinion, especially when you go out public and "influence" uneducated divers, which then just sets a wrong role model..

 

[chillyinCanada]

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[andromedakun]

Dehydration is discussed a lot in this thread and some people are pointing out the headache as a symptom of DCS but I'm wondering if it might be another symptom of dehydration as well.

From Cleveland clinic website (Dehydration)

Dehydration symptoms in adults may include:

• Headache, delirium and confusion.
• Tiredness (fatigue).
• Dizziness, weakness and lightheadedness.
• Dry mouth and/or a dry cough.
• High heart rate but low blood pressure.
• Loss of appetite but maybe craving sugar.
• Flushed (red) skin.
• Swollen feet.
• Muscle cramps.
• Heat intolerance or chills.
• Constipation.
• Dark-colored pee (urine). Your pee should be a pale, clear color.

As we can see, Woody was exhibiting some of those symptoms BUT, a lot of those symptoms also are close to symptoms in DCS.

 

[SlugLife]

One of the common-questions about this incident, is why they didn't pursue medical treatment earlier. I expect the answer is "because it initially looked like dehydration, and oxygen was just a precaution." When DT and DAN do the follow-up video, I'm certain we'll hear more about this.

At the moment, I'm inclined to suggest DT hasn't given us adequate information about the incident to point at any cause with any degree of confidence. It's tempting to want answers, but there's a risk of focusing too heavily on a single potential "red herring" and miss the actual culprit(s).