Coroners report:throwing up while scuba diving

[Akimbo]

@farkur: the exhaust is quite large. If you chew your food normally it will pass easily. And there is a no return valve.

Apparently not. This makes two diver’s I have heard of with a blocked airway. Amazingly, this one survived to tell us about.

A friend of mine is skipper on a charter boat in Monterey. About 10 years ago at Erick’s Pinnacle he had a diver that puked in his regulator at around 40’. He aspirated some chucks which blocked his airway. As described to me, the diver was aware of his situation and had to make the conscious decision to embolize himself.

Fortunately, he surfaced next to be boat and they got oxygen in him. They got him in the shore based chamber in Pacific Grove and saved his life.

This is one of those situations where you must choose the situation that sucks the least. My take is to remove the second stage with a finger poised on the purge. Position yourself face-down, puke, and shove the mouthpiece in with purge depresses. Obviously, if you get a little warning, head to the surface. Screw safety and decompression stops. My priority is avoid drowning, embolism, and the bends – in that order.

 

[farkurnell]

@farkur: the exhaust is quite large. If you chew your food normally it will pass easily. And there is a no return valve.
if you keep the reg in your mouth you can keep on breathing. .

Fair enough.. although I think it depends on what you ate, sometimes it isn't as fluid as ya hope!

 

[uncfnp]

Apparently not. This makes two diver’s I have heard of with a blocked airway. Amazingly, this one survived to tell us about.

@farkur: the exhaust is quite large. If you chew your food normally it will pass easily. And there is a no return valve.
if you keep the reg in your mouth you can keep on breathing.
Don't worry so much about this uncfnp, you barf and live on.

No expert but I could easily see some chunks lodging in and around the teeth, gums and mouthpiece.

 

[sphyrnidus]

@Akimbo: It might be that the people who aspirate kept the barf in their mouth and then aspirated. I'm sure it will not come back once it is in the exhaust.

 

[Phil_C]

Sensible answer -

As I understand it when you vomit there is frequently an involuntary inhalation of breath immediately afterwards - which is why you often get a small amount of vomit in the airways. With your regulator kept in, the inhalation just draws air in through the regulator. The risk is if you have this gulp reflex and you have taken your reg out you will inhale water. It takes a great deal of self control to vomit with your reg out and not inhale, it can be done, but most people instinctively take a gulp of air.

If you get a lung full of water at any depth it creates a whole lot of other problems for you that you don't need. - P

 

[Akimbo]

@Akimbo: It might be that the people who aspirate kept the barf in their mouth and then aspirated. I'm sure it will not come back once it is in the exhaust.

No it probably won't come back, but chunks large enough to block your airway are too large to fit through the exhaust. These pieces can easily get stuck in the exhaust valve and cause it to leak water back in. There's all kinds of space in the regulator housing for bits large enough to block an airway.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Can I ask why people say to keep the reg in and spew through it?? I'd have been worried about chunks getting stuck in it, and the after taste....

Chunks will pass through the exhaust valve as already noted.

The main reason to keep it in is to prevent accidental inhalation of water as you retch; choking is pretty scary underwater, but "ok" if you have a functioning 2nd stage in your mouth, since you can breath until the choking reflex passes.

But if you begin to choke with the 2nd stage out of your mouth, it could potentially be VERY bad, inducing panic, or if you inhaled enough water blackout and drowning.

As an aside, my daughter, when getting certified at age 15, got nauseous on her OW checkout dive. At 60' she calmly removed her 2nd stage, vomited, and replaced the 2nd stage, and continued the dive. However, she is a competitive swimmer and water polo player, and to her this was a non-event. When I told her after the dive that she should leave the 2nd stage in her mouth if she ever needed to vomit again, she responded "Ewwww, gross. Why would anyone need to do that"??

Teenagers....

Best wishes.

 

[petarddd]

I used to get very easily sea sick even before I started diving (seemed to be related to waves and boat exhaust gas). I believe I vomited on 3 out of my first 20 dives and one of those times was under water. Somehow I managed to take the regulator out of my mouth, vomit and place it back in automatically, without much thinking (and without much skill, given my experience at the time). Everything was well (except for the unpleasant aftertaste of having vomited ).

 

[TracyN]

The worst is when you are in a cave facing 45 min of deco and have no choice but to suffer through bouts of vomiting. So went my otherwise awesome dive this past weekend. Sometimes pressure changes make me sick if I don't time my Dramamine doses just right. I find no problem with taking the regulator out to purge and then quickly replacing it when I get the urge to take a breath. It does take some self control though.

 

[Kharon]

If I felt quesy on the surface I wouldn't dive. If I got quesy while underwater I would treat it as an emergency and abort the dive. I haven't ever hurled when I didn't know for some period of time that it was coming.