I visited the OP at his hotel this afternoon and we had a long chat. My conclusion from that is that although he made many mistakes, which he is more aware of than probably anyone, I do not believe that any of them significantly contributed to his DCS (which was real, but relatively minor). However, we both concluded that in his particular case there is a significant likelihood that he has a heart complaint, specifically a PFO. He is going to post more specifics after he has flown home. My suggestion was that after that medical issue has been researched and dealt with appropriately, I see no reasons other than directly medical why he should not dive again. Whatever happens he will now be out of the water for several months.
We also concluded that although more proactive attendance from the dive staff might have been helpful, they really did nothing wrong. He never told them he was suffering from any symptoms and as he wasn't displaying any signs no-one was put on alert. He did mention his symptoms to whoever happened to be sitting near him on the boat, but they were almost all very inexperienced so would not have recognised the significance. They should have done of course, but such is the standard of recreational dive training these days that they would not have known.
A point on the borrowed computer. It WAS taken on the first dive, by almost the only other experienced divers on the boat, and the OP noted that they were deeper than he was for virtually the entire dive. Borrowing that computer was not silly.
On the final dive, which he undertook with no computer or depth gauge, he made a point of staying above the group for the entire dive. It's not ideal but it can work quite safely.
The OP is an engineer and was as thorough as an engineer in his self-deprecation and description above of his malfeasances. His actual behaviour was nothing like as bad as he has painted.
I am convinced that his was an "undeserved" hit, prompted by a medical condition of which he was aware but of which he had not thought through the full consequences.
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Let me make a general point. A number of us, all ex-pat dive instructors with much dive experience in varied and often tough conditions, and teaching experience in far harsher conditions than found in Belize, all believe that standards generally here are inadequate. We would like to change it, but due to the "Tour Guide" laws and the restriction of that qualification to Belizean citizens, we neither have the clout to do anything nor are we listened to. I know many incidents are never reported, and whilst I don't want to alarm people into thinking it's worse than it actually is, nonetheless I hear occasionally (this afternoon there was a case in point) of incidents/accidents that never reached the newspapers or even street gossip. I worked for several years in close association with the Chamber here, the only one in Belize, and I learned of many incidents that never saw the light of day. There seems to be a feeling that if people don't hear about it it never happened. This is not restricted to diving incidents, but anything in any sphere of tourism that could be considered "bad news". A visitor picked up on this recently in the diving context and posted much the same in these pages, but he perhaps didn't express himself very well and earned a lot of approbium for saying what was essentially the truth. We are trying to change this culture, but it is a very steep uphill struggle. A major part of this is that Belize has no governing body for diving, effective or otherwise. Extraordinary for a country so dependent on the activity. I have dived in no other country with such a total absence of oversight, and that is at the root of the problem. There are nonetheless some pretty competent dive centers, but even they do silly things sometimes.
