Ansell Pt Dive Incident

[openmindOW]

The diver in the article was me. As StuartT pointed out, the article is just guessing at some of the details. I had an "undeserved" hit, at least as far as profile went. I've been meaning to write a full post describing the incident but have been putting it off. Later today I'll try to fill in the details, but the short story is I'm doing fine now but won't be back in the water for about 3 months.

Get well soon.

 

[DaleC]

Dustin, just saw this thread today. Good gravy, glad you're ok!
Let us know when you are ready to go again. I will be more than glad to do warm up/conservative profiles with you for as long as it takes. It's all just diving to me.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Cram, thanks for taking the time to post the details. Most of the time all one knows is questionable info.

PFO.. possible...raising body temperature.. also possible, one of those people that are just more susceptible to DCS also possible...wonder which one?

 

[Sintax604]

Wow, I can't believe I missed this post! Sure would be nice to have a duplicate post in our local forum...

Cram, I'm glad to hear you're feeling 100%. I'm sure the 3 months will fly by (who wants to dive in scummy summer water anyway!?)

It's unbelievable how the media takes creative license on their stories without doing a whole lot of investigation. Ascending too fast and diver error - no way man!

Let's just hope someone will be able to tell you definitively how to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

 

[AquaSocMan]

All the best and speedy recovery dustin!

 

[rrb]

Sorry to hear about the accident! But, thank-you for taking the time to post the details.

 

[adriancl]

Glad to here you are OK. Look me up in Sechelt if you are interested in some great shore dives here. No walk-up, great spots, 40min ferry ride from HS bay. Adrian

 

[JB]

Hi Cram glad it all worked out and you are fine. Would just like to clear up a few points that have been raised.

I think your doctor made a very reasonable diagnosis of hyperventilation syndrome. This occurs under exertion, (I had a friend who gets it while playing squash, and takes a paper bag onto the court), or when anxious, or in pain, or I have even seen people with very mild asthma present this way. What happens is you breath too deep and/or fast, and blow off CO2. This causes "acral paraesthesiae" ie. lips, nose, hands and feet go numb and have pins and needles. You can have chest pain as well. This usually provokes extreme anxiety as you feel you are having a heart attack, feel awful and tend to hyperventilate more (vicious cycle). The treatment is to rebreath into a paper bag to build up the CO2 in the blood stream again. So I have never heard of CO2 deprivation, we are all deprived of it because air has about 0.03% CO2. The easiest way to confirm or refute the diagnosis is a blood gas sample, in which arterial blood is taken and passed through a machine that tells the exact pCO2 and pO2 in the blood if it is low confirmation, if normal or high look for another cause. What sways me to hyperventilation is the global nature of the paraesthesiae,ie. all limbs, you had just done some unusual exertion.

In contrast most divers trying to conserve air do the opposite and breath slowly, and end up retaining CO2. This results in a post dive throbbing headache. Your need to breath is almost entirely governed by the CO2 level in your blood.

Ok, now I'm lost with what subsequently happened because as you said there was a very conservative dive profile, yet your symptoms of paraesthesiae persisted the next day. I suppose the safest thing to do is to decompress early even if the diagnosis is not clear. The down side (apart from the cost) is that you are now labelled as having suffered DCI, and most importantly the break from diving.

So overall still not clear as to what exactly happened, but then basing it all on heresay and one first hand witness. The net result is who cares as long you are fine and came out without permanent problems.

 

[cram]

Hi Cram glad it all worked out and you are fine. Would just like to clear up a few points that have been raised.

I think your doctor made a very reasonable diagnosis of hyperventilation syndrome. This occurs under exertion, (I had a friend who gets it while playing squash, and takes a paper bag onto the court), or when anxious, or in pain, or I have even seen people with very mild asthma present this way. What happens is you breath too deep and/or fast, and blow off CO2. This causes "acral paraesthesiae" ie. lips, nose, hands and feet go numb and have pins and needles. You can have chest pain as well. This usually provokes extreme anxiety as you feel you are having a heart attack, feel awful and tend to hyperventilate more (vicious cycle). The treatment is to rebreath into a paper bag to build up the CO2 in the blood stream again. So I have never heard of CO2 deprivation, we are all deprived of it because air has about 0.03% CO2. The easiest way to confirm or refute the diagnosis is a blood gas sample, in which arterial blood is taken and passed through a machine that tells the exact pCO2 and pO2 in the blood if it is low confirmation, if normal or high look for another cause. What sways me to hyperventilation is the global nature of the paraesthesiae,ie. all limbs, you had just done some unusual exertion.

Hi JB, Thanks for the response. I don't know how I forgot to mention it in my earlier post, but they did do the arterial blood gas test, and the doc said it clearly showed that the CO2 levels were very low. In addition the symptoms you describe are a perfect match for what I experienced. And yet, the doc said that hyperventilation couldn't explain why I was still feeling paraesthesia the next morning, which I definitely was.

In contrast most divers trying to conserve air do the opposite and breath slowly, and end up retaining CO2. This results in a post dive throbbing headache. Your need to breath is almost entirely governed by the CO2 level in your blood.

I had problems with CO2 retention when I started to dive, and consistently got the headaches. As soon as I read about CO2 retention I realized I had been subconsciously skip-breathing, so I made an effort to correct it and the headaches disappeared. I'm thinking I may have been over-correcting for this, since I have been making an effort to breathe very deep.

Ok, now I'm lost with what subsequently happened because as you said there was a very conservative dive profile, yet your symptoms of paraesthesiae persisted the next day. I suppose the safest thing to do is to decompress early even if the diagnosis is not clear. The down side (apart from the cost) is that you are now labelled as having suffered DCI, and most importantly the break from diving.

So overall still not clear as to what exactly happened, but then basing it all on heresay and one first hand witness. The net result is who cares as long you are fine and came out without permanent problems.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible that I had both CO2 issues and DCS. Perhaps one contributed to or provoked the other? Questions to discuss with the doc at my follow-up next week I guess.

 

[randy76]

glad to hear your ok