Dealing with it

[Dinger]

Was just wondering what was the worst situation that happened to you whilst diving - but most importantly how you dealt with it. I have a terrible fear of mono nets and if I see one it reminds me to get a pee-valve in my suit.
Hope this doesn't sound too macarbe (sp?) as i dont mean it to be and not looking for death stories or anything like that just thought it might be an interesting thread we could possible learn from
Dinger

[Cheaperhols]

Durring a trip to exmouth on my second dive of the day with twin 10s i had just broken the surface when i had the oops no air left feeling...

No air no bouyancy grabbed inflater hose and finning upwards took a deep breath and blew into it, which then made me sink so fin back up and repeat process checked guage showed 30bar, shut down slob nob and reopened that didnt work, next full shut down and reopen pillar valves that was no good either....

Turned out the guage had f***ed up so i thought hmmm pretty good gas planning

Moral of the Story have 2 content guages not one

I did for split second have my hands on the weight pouches quick release loops.

My probelm is i go into slow down mode when faced with o dear i am in the shite, which means i have plenty of time to do things.

Hope this helps

Kevin

[chrisch]

My missus and I dive together (SCUBA please !!) and have done for a while. On one occassion due to a gear fault combined with a small operator fault she ended up in an out-of-gas situation at 27m. Calmly she showed me the contents guage at 10 bar or so.
I think if it had been anyone else I would have calmly done an AAS ascent, but I overcooked it and we ascended far too fast with far too much adrenalin on my behalf.

It taught me a lot and I hope if I had to do another such ascent I would now have the sense to do it properly, safety stop and all.

Chris

[Padowan]

Diving off Plymouth on the wreck of the Rosehill with a buddy I'd not dived with before, we were both diving twins and were having a good ferret about, both quite distracted not really looking out for each other (vis was good at about 8m) I found a nice hole, and thought hmmm, I'd like to go in there, there's good open space on the other side so went down and slowly started easing myself in underneath the metal plate.

Got about half way in and though "nah", it's a bit too much of a squeeze and turning around might be a problem in there, so started backing out. Then thunk, I stopped, I had hit something backing out that was stopping me backing out any more. Initial thoughts "eek, what now!" and of course you don't relax and start pushing harder - no joy. Stopped, realised I had plenty of gas and time to deal with this, breathed, calmed down, made myself as flat as I could and tried again, then out I came.

What had happened was that the boots of my tanks had risen above a ridge on the metal I was squeezing under and therefore didn't want to come straight out. I took the boots off the tanks that evening, and no longer try to squeeze into silly little holes without my buddy looking on and making sure things are OK.

[JAG]

My worst experience was about 3 months ago. Diving with Skipper on HMS Sapper with my regular buddy. Dive was going well, very enjoyable, ran up a few minutes deco. Came to my 5m stop depth to commence the 5min deco, all going ok, then 3 minutes in my buoyancy went. Just went. Started towards the surface, trying to dump air that wasn't there and eventually flailing like billy o' to slow me down. But couldn't stay down, once at the surface tried to get back down but couldn't. (It really brought home to me how much air you can drain when you are slightly "concerned"!) During the last meter or so I can remember thinking, "Shit, I'm gonna take a hit for this". No panic, just waiting for aching joints and a headache. Got back onboard, informed Skipper, (I'm feeling absolutely fine throughout this, just a bit embarrassed), he radio'ed ashore for advice and we were ultimately advised to keep a close eye on things and call the London Hyperbaric Chamber on the way home if either of us started showing symptoms. My buddy, during the dive, had an incident also.

On the way home, my buddy started feeling a pain behind his knee, so we called the London Hyperbaric Chamber and they advised us to go straight there. During the couple of hours it took us to get there they were in constant communication with us and were absolutely great. Can't praise them enough. We got checked over as soon as we got there, my buddy had a "possible" bend whereas I was given the all clear. He was told that he would need 5 hours treatment in the pot, so I went in with him as a precaution (as I was going to be sitting around waiting for him) and for the experience!

The whole incident really opened our eyes. It wasn't the best dive planning we had ever done and made us re-evaluate everything we did. Maybe we had got a bit lazy. Took a couple of weeks and a lot of "what ifs" and soul searching, realising that it could have been a lot worse, but we've learned from this. Maybe over analyzed too much, but planning is much more thorough and nothing is now taken for granted. More so now that I dive with my girlie.

Still don't know what made me lose buoyancy though..

[Mark Chase]

I posted the full trip report on YD if you do a search under DUKE and look for a thread by Andyp you will find it. The Duke is a 60m deep wreck off the south cost. The incident happened at the end of the dive.

Here is an excerpt:

Just after this point in the dive at about 25mins I noticed a dull pain in my sinus. By 30mins it was a noticeable ache and I wasn't feeling too good. Plan was 35mins and I had a new reel so at 32mins I decided to get this ready early.

I looked round to see Andrew struggling with his reel and being dragged up. Viz was poor and I didn’t want to get separated so I followed him up to 45m (from 55m) at which point Andrew gave up on Gucci reel and deployed back up SMB. I fafed with my new kit but it deployed OK but as I was doing this a massive wave of nausea flooded over me and I thought I was going to pass out.

The over whelming urge to rush to surface was some what abated by the fact we had the best part of an hours deco to do. I was struggling to focus on my tables but I managed to get to our first stop depth and take a few deep breaths. Andrew was all sorted by now which was good but the pain in my head was making it difficult to read my tables.

The ascent was a combination of panic and confusion but some how I made the first gas switch did all the stops and arrived at the 9m Deco gas switch only 1min late. I did the switch to 80% and I hoped the high 02 would clear my head. It didn’t. I was quite scared now I had 40mins deco to go and I really wanted out now. After 7mins at 9m I ascended to 6m for the final stop but the effort needed to do anything was immense. I looked at my hard tables and saw a confusing garbage of black ink. I totally lost track of where I was. I looked at the VR3 and focused hard on the Time To Surface figure which said 28mins and I nearly broke down and cried. I just didn’t know how I could cope with another 28mins.

At this point I clipped my self to the SMB. I thought if I passed out I would at least stay at 6m and give Andrew the chance to inflate my jacket and send me up. I really didn’t want to be drifting back down for any reason.

Andrew was keeping close and doing all the usual things we do in deco to keep our routine going which was very helpful he has got a great range of facial expression under water, which always makes me smile.

When I looked at my VR3 and it said 10min to surface I was the happiest man alive. If it weren’t for the blurred vision, the brain numbing headache and the overwhelming desire to vomit I would have laughed out loud.

When the VR3 hit 0 Andrew asked me how we were going and I signalled that the computer had cleared and he gave me the BIG up signal. I was so relieved as the plan was to sit out the tables and then do our usual 5min ascent.

We went up in about 1min and I spat the reg as soon as I hit the surface.

I dry retched a few times and looked around to see we were right next to the boat. There is a God.

The question was how did I cope? Easy I was totally buggered but mentally aware that if I went to the surface I would be seriously injured. QED I had little or no choice but to sit it out. More common sense than anything else. I also acknowledge that had the deco been 2 hours and not 1 I probably wouldn’t have made it and at best would have been bent. So it was a lucky day in a lot of ways Having a buddy as good as Andrew who stayed calm but aware throughout was a Godsend. Having a computer that in simple terms told me how much longer I had to sit there was also a godsend. I had lost the ability to keep track of time.

Since that dive I have added key run times to my deco slate so in the future I only have to work it out back maybe two stops. This would have kept the tables usable. As it was all I had were depth and stop times and I had to back calculate where I was. Easy during a normal dive but not this time.

The crack bottle SMB was useful as it has good lift so by clipping off to my reel it was imposable for me to pass out and sink back down as so many have before. I am quite proud that I had the sense of mind to do that but apart from that little gem it was all a blur.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Mr T.]

I've got three - not that that's a good thing.

1. Panicking at 26 metres in the Red Sea, on a wall which dropped off in to the Abyss (as recounted here a few years ago) and realising that I could not go up/topside - whether I wanted to or not. Managed to retrieve myself by ascending about 8 metres before all became clear and OK again - narked and descending fast with no involvement -stupidly - in my buoyancy control.

2. Again as recounted on here a few years ago: recovering a diver's body (when he was on honeymoon) in the Maldives, in a channel at 54 metres on air; only to find he'd had half his head removed by a shark. Then having to recount to his new bride/new widow how we found him and why we thought it had happened.

3. Catching/snagging the hose of my SPG behind the handle of a hatchway in the engine-room on the wreck of the 'MV Maverick' (Tobago) at 34 metres (not deep by comparative standards, but deep enough to focus the mind) - the irony being that I carry all my 'extends off the first-stage' kit in my BC pockets when in the Blue (my UK rig's different), it's just that on this occasion - and being neatly squared-away - I had passed, in the dark, the hatchway door and the hose had caught between the handle and the door/hatchway, preventing me from progressing any further. Stopped. Turned round. Saw the problem. Tried to release the SPG and it was stuck. Thought of using my knife to cut through the hose and then breath off the 'giving' hose after it had been sliced before making as composed an ascent as possible, given the amount of air pissing out. Got my shit together and tried again, slowly, to release the hose and SPG. After a couple of minutes it came free after it had been wedged behind some coral/sea-growth (hopefully the only time I'll knowingly have to damage coral) and I replaced it in my BC pocket before carrying on with the dive. There was only myself and the DM in the engine-room and he was off around the valves and deck-spaces. Joining him, trying to act like nothing had happened, we continued our tour of the smoke-stack and cabin-spaces. Knowing my wife was with another DM diving the exterior of the wreck - she doesn't like 'penetration' - made me think about what I needed to do.


Stop, breath, think act.

Take care all and dive safe.

[turbanator]

Diving the M2 with a DL that had only dived in sunnier climes.
She was way heavy and also lost a fin on the descent.
She indicated that she was happy continue the dive and to pull herself along the wreck, but when we got to the bow, she 'dropped off'.

Followed her to the bottom and she was getting a bit tetchy by this time, so I took over and started a CBL, she gave up trying anything, even helping at this point. I had to fill her stab to vent point and mine and put quite a bit of air in her suit, I also had to fin like buggery to get her to start to lift.

Lots of mistakes on my part, since I was the same grade, but much more used to UK diving than her, but I learnt a lot from it.

[Helen F H]

Oh SHIT moments.

I have recounted this one a few times, so only brief.

Buddy faffed with his SMB, pulled out too much line and got it caught around his octopus. He got a rapid ascent. I recall being very calm, seeing him shooting to the surface. The logical training thoughts just clicked in. Ok, deploy own blob, ascend. 1 min safety stop. Unfortunatley my blob had gone walkabout during the dive (we actually found it floating on the surface all rolled up where it had come out of my pocket). Normal ascent. Got to the surface. No buddy! Fuck fuck FUCK. Did diver in distress signal to the boat. I have never been so glad to see 9m of rib coming at 35 knots. By the time i got up to the boat, my buddy appeared. He tried to play it down - nothing happened, until his computer having an utter fit gave him away. Bunged him on O2. Got back to the shed (which was all of 5 minutes away) phoned the coastguard. I removed my drysuit to find i had a rash over my chest, arms and back. I was put on O2. Both of us were checked out at the local A&E and were both fine.

Moral of the story. If there are two of you and you are struggling with an SMB, do it as a team. Otherwise get a crackbottle one.

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by turbanator

Lots of mistakes on my part, since I was the same grade, but much more used to UK diving than her, but I learnt a lot from it.

Presumably that "Dive Leader" is a misnomer.

(And "intructor" judging by April's Dive mag!)

Chris