A Dive is not over until safely back on the boat or land

[fade]

cheers for the post and glad to hear your all ok.

Pete

[Frankie Price]

I went for a dive today with my eldest son, he is 19 and qualified as a PADI instructor, technical diver and very fit. He has been diving from a young age and very capabable.


My point is not the incident or what we did, but the speed with which a normal pleasant recreational dive turned an experienced and capable diver into a debilitated diver, in agony and requiring assistance underwater.

An interesting start to the 2009 dive season.

Thanks for posting, glad it all turned out well.
This is a most pertinent comment you make and so very true for all of us.

[Divingminxsy]

Scarey, and proves the benefits of good buddy diving I think.

Decongestant usage directly before/while diving can be dangerous but I think following a cold, which you say your son had 2 weeks ago, it might be beneficial to use them for 24 hours just to ensure sinuses are clear etc. ?

I had a very severe pain above my left eye during my first dive of the year ( only 18m in Red Sea ) in 2005 and that was due to a blocked sinus I didn't know I had.

Good for you managing it all so well for your son - you get the Top Dad award.

[frosty the snowman]

Glad it worked out ok. We had a similar incident last year, the most likely cause of which was alternobaric vertigo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternobaric_vertigo

[Luckyliz]

Glad everyone was OK in the end. Thank you for the post, knowing more about things that may go wrong may help other divers avoid the same problem.

[paul_e]

Cheers for the post, I'm prone to slight reverse squeeze pain, and just drop down a little to get rid of it. Best make sure that my buddy keeps a closer eye on me at those times - didn't realise the potential seriousness of it.

[Scuba Steve]

glad to hear alls well that ends well .

[Happy Man]

I went for a dive today with my eldest son, he is 19 and qualified as a PADI instructor, technical diver and very fit. He has been diving from a young age and very capabable.

The dive was excellent considering the time of year, we went to 24m for a drift known as the canon ball run and we even found a canon ball (no lift bag) so left the ball. Usual mix of scallops, a few sleepy dogfish and a very dozy pipefish.

We planned to thumb the dive at 100 bar which we did after 26 minutes from 24m, even allowing +2m for the cold we were still inside table NDL and all computers showed >10mins to the NDL. We ascended at a leisurely 9-10m per minute with big smiles from the dive. At 15m and 28 minutes run time my son experienced a head pain that completely debilitated him and he cannot recall very much from that point until on the surface.

I controlled the ascent which took a further minute as I adjusted to 18m a minute as opposed to our normal 10m per minute and bypassed the safety stop. Standard kit off into boat (a rib) then onto O2 and assess. He was by now fully able to communicate and had severe head pain with some vertigo.

Our best guess was a reverse squeeze in the sinus, I also noted a lot of mucus dripping from the nose onto the O2 regulator as we headed back. A call to the duty dive doctor agreed with the symptoms and the profile, time and ascent rates meant a DCS or AGE were unlikely.

The rate of recovery also indicated that a reverse squeeze had occured - Son had a cold which cleared 2 weeks previous to this dive and no difficulty was expereinced in descent.

My point is not the incident or what we did, but the speed with which a normal pleasant recreational dive turned an experienced and capable diver into a debilitated diver, in agony and requiring assistance underwater. At the time I had no idea what the problem was so I continued the ascent as opposed to descending to increase the pressure, which you would normally do to alleviate a reverse squeeze.

All is well and son is back to PS3, mobile and other teenage paraphanalia. This has taught me to think carefully before I solo dive again, I am not convinced this would have ended so well if we were not a buddy pair. I have learnt a reverse squeeze can literlly render a diver incapable of self sufficiency.

An interesting start to the 2009 dive season.

I'm a recently passed PADI OW diver and a loved every minute of the training and Diving

I'm a bit worried about my next dive out as a new diver and I hope the dive master posts me with somebody like you

[Woz]

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Happened to me once and it hurts like hell. Ended up with a mask full of snot and blood.

[jediknight]

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Happened to me once and it hurts like hell. Ended up with a mask full of snot and blood.

Always a nice mix!

Glad all is well.