My Big Bend!!

[DecoWarrior]

this is modified form a previous post with a little more detail;little more medical stuff on pfo tests added

hi after a couple of pms from people, i have been asked to post the full account of my bendy incident so that others may learn, i apologise for the length!!

the fateful trip began with a message from john thornton, wanna dive the eddie??

hell yeah i thought, it took all of two seconds to make my mind up deposit paid jobs a good un

after reading about the starfish stabbers trip in 97 i thought i wanna piece of that!!!

sure enough john had lined up an intrepid bunch from all over the country, a madforit group of northerners and various other individuals!!

the trip comes and we all gather in stromness at the end of shopping week lashing down with rain and windy as hell, we aint going nowhere out of the flow,

day one markgraf
day two kronprinz most disapointing!
third day head to wick to do the clan mckinley

fourth day an ideal weather window opens and off we go round to the pentland firth which was swelly but ok, we finish the fettling and get ready to dive, the shot is in and the sounder showing a depth of around 111ish meters the breather gets fired up and a healthy pre breathe done all seems ok and off we go a few of us head in at the same time with our intrepid leader ric waring at the front me next and marty the scouser after that, at about 50m the lights went out but it was fantastically clear the hid torch beam just seemed to punch through the water after a few mins we realise the shot is just off the wreck and rell over to it, there were fantastic ammounts of swag every where most of it too big too lift!!! a battleship not a war grave=madforit!!!!!,

on the wreck it was a fantastic experience guns everywhere and spidge aplenty so much spidge so little time!!, at this point i meet marty at the range finding telescope and we promptly shake hands and have an helium chatter to find what we had seen and where!!, after an all to obrief 24 mins of bottom time i make my way up to my first stop, on my tables as my vr3 had given me a strange stop of 100 and something meters which was strange as the max depth was only 111!!!!, so ignored that and went of the tables which seemed more sensible!!

the deco passed slowly and me and marty were chattin all the way up about the telescope and stuff, when at about 45m on the jump line i felt a big rush of water, my suit had virtually fully filled with water and i looked at my stop watch and realised i had a LONG time to go, there were a few hours of shivering and at some point i knew that the cold would no t be letting me offgas properly and i knew that in the water temprature it wouldnt take me long to go hypothermic, at some points it crossed my mind whether to sit out the deco and do as much as possible or to get out of the water early and get professional help, basically i knew i would be fucked either way, i made the decision to stay and sit it out as missing deco seemed crazy and against everything i had ever been taught

by the time i hit the last stop i am now shaking and feel physically nackered and the stops were really draging!!, marty had used differant tables and left the water 40 mins before me!!!! i was really cold obviously in a state but i managed to do my runtime

as i am climbing the ladder i felt fine tired but fine seeing as it was going dark we had been in a long time and was too be expected,

i thought, no major dramas as i walked across the boat and sat down and chilled, i unclipped my breather straps and proceded to black out and hit the deck,

the 02 promptly arrived and i was fine again, but almost hypothermic, so i went to lie down in my bunk feeling groggy and stuff, suffering a classic case of denial i was insisting i was ok, by this time my chest was tight and sore and breathing was laboured should have known better!!

a few hours later, i had a small pain develop in my knees to which point my pal marty ran upstairs and got the o2 and phoned the pot, by the time he got back the pain progressed to full bore agony through both legs and neuro responses had gone couldnt balance and stuff had difficulty standing unaided,

the doc came and picked me up in her car and drove me to the pot!!, after a full exam to which i kept saying ahh well its not too bad and a look of horror on the docs face she decided to consult averdeen as they were not used to dealing with such major bends they decided to blow me down on a table six extended 9 hours at 18m on pure o2 and 5 hours at 9m, they were trying to rehydrate me even though many fluids were added during the dive through my drinks pouch they couldnt find a vein cause they had all collapsed, and the line they had put in had tissued!, so it was putting fluid into my arm instead of where it should have been

overnight, this was the most painful thing of my life, hours and hours of agony i thought being blown down was suposed to relieve the pain but being at 18m on pure o2 was painful the pain only really stopped when i was brought to 9m, then all of a sudden it stopped, blissful, there were still many hours to go!! my legs were still sore but more comfortable than before i felt i could relax i had been squirming and wriggling for the duration of the treatment to this point, at one point the oxygen became a real chore and i could tell i was close to toxing!!! my body was telling me to take the mask off as it was physically burning and hurting to breathe, that was low point every breath was causing tremendous pain
and i developed a strange twitching in my legs, which eased after air breaks

morning came and as i got out my pals paul and marty were there to greet me!, the doc said that she was not expecting me to walk out and was amazed that i was fine with no more symptoms but to be on the safe side i was going to abeerdeen!!!

right then, with no money no phone no clothes apart from the ones i was wearing i was whipped off in the plane, to aberdeen for assessment where they decided i didnt need blowing down boy had i been lucky!!!, the docs were shocked at the progress, in aberdeen they were not convinced and thought i was vunerable, they said however if i was going to be blown down again i would need a full five day treatment on heliox due to my poor reaction on the o2!, i was cursing the thought of 5 days over night was bd enough at least here they had the hoods rather than the valves, to my great relief they agreed i didnt need a treatment and that i would be kept there for observation

no ill effects or long term damage!! what a relief, then i was left with a referal to peter wilmshurst for a pfo check and a lift home to stoke!

six months after the incident i went to see peter wilmshurst a really top bloke they did the pfo test which consisted of having a scan of my heart and pushing bubbles through my veins or arterys i cant remember now!, this consisted of 3 syringes and a three way tap one air one saline and one blood the saline and blood were mixed into the third to get the bubbles and put in to pass through my heart this is a relatively painfree excersize except when they miss your arterys veins, which they dis and put six syringes in to my tissue again, to which i commented ive already go t enough bubbles in the wrong place buster!,
he told me to not look at the screen as i could watch it later but you twell me you wouldnt look!, the bubbles obviously did not pass through the walls of my heart which was a relief

in his office he was asking about my dive profiles and said the only reason he could see for me being bent was that it was crazy deep, and deep dives are risky, his parting words were if the military wont do it and commercial divers wont do it what makes you think you can??, after many build up dives my depth and confidence i slowly creeping up on parting he advised i dont use v planner or proplanner which was interesting!, wouldnt clarify on that though

a small chuckle and off i went!, the experience has not put me off deep diving and i am still mad for it!

sorry for the lenght but it might just help someone

[Adrian Kelland]

An interesting report there...

Amazing how strong 'Denial' can be if you want it to be so...

Adrian

[Doug Parker]

Originally Posted by el_presidente

i apologise for the length!!

Nice report but don't ever apologise about the length.

[Drmike]

Originally Posted by el_presidente

on the wreck it was a fantastic experience guns everywhere and spidge aplenty so much spidge so little time!!, at this point i meet marty at the range finding telescope and we promptly shake hands and have an helium chatter to find what we had seen and where!!, !!

Ive developed a theory, similar to Rich Pyles, involving the correlation between brass collection and DCS.


Presumably the cold contributed to your hit? Did I read that you flooded you drysuit?

Thanks for posting the story.

[DecoWarrior]

yeahh there was some serious ater my suit and four hours in it was just too long, but shit happens and youve just got to crack on!

[Mr T.]

Hey Prez,

Thanks for having the courage to share mate. Takes 'nads.

I've made a number of these personal and reported 'Bend-n-Hit' experiences 'sticky' so that others may benefit from reading them and not have to go looking for them.

Thanks again guys.

[Decodiver]

A good report, flooded suit with loads of deco to go, makes you think.

Cheers

Dave Cooper

[DecoWarrior]

well,

shit happens if you worried every time you got in the water but if other people learn from my mistakes and i can share the wealth then so be it!

[Drmike]

Originally Posted by el_presidente

yeahh there was some serious ater my suit and four hours in it was just too long, but shit happens and youve just got to crack on!

Im wondering if it would be possible (or if anyone ever has/does) have protocols in place to keep a diver warm during long deco in case of drysuit flood?

Hot water pipe from surface?
Replace drysuit underwater - to dry or semi-dry (is that even possible?)

[Padowan]

Originally Posted by Drmike

Im wondering if it would be possible (or if anyone ever has/does) have protocols in place to keep a diver warm during long deco in case of drysuit flood?

Hot water pipe from surface?
Replace drysuit underwater - to dry or semi-dry (is that even possible?)

Interesting thought. What about wearing a wetsuit underneath the drysuit instead of (or as well as) an undersuit? If the dry suit leak is quite small (which is likely) then the amount of flushing of water through the wetsuit would also be quite small so you might be OK?

Flexibility might be an issue. And you'd probably need a whole ton of weight.