Dark Narc or Why I don’t dive air to 100ft

[Flightlead]

I have not done too many ascents on drysuit from 100ft. None with no visual reference I admit. At that point I was quite sure that the next piece of gear I touch is going to be shot too. I was very concerned about my buddy – I was unsure how much help she would need with the ascent and whether I would be of much help. I was exaggerating everything. I felt responsible. I told myself I am OK, and I know what to do but constantly something new shook my stability because my brain was firing a lot of BS noise I had to wade through. .

I reckon I know what you will be practicing on your next few skills dives!

it ain't hard, just do it nice and slow. stop swimming, get head to head, hold hands if you have to, ascend slowly, stop when you hit your target depth. typically we have been free ascending as a team in a head-to-head orientation with teammate to approx 60' and shooting a bag or bags there. in your case by the time you hit 60' you would have been able to figure your bearing, take it, and soon pick up the rising slope thus avoiding surfacing around boats.

 

[Flightlead]

Damn I wish I had it that good! My local shop is a ripoff! I had to bail on my Trimix class this year due to illness but my buddies keep telling me what the shop is charging. On a side note, what is the normal cost of Helium say by the cuft. ?

get a gas blender card, a good quality xfer whip, an account at a gas supplier, and find a store who will just top off your tanks with grade e modified to the pressure you specify.

 

[Flightlead]

Ever done a whippet? The first time I ever got narced, I recognized the feeling right away: feels very similar to what one feels like after taking a hit of nitrous oxide.

Makes me wonder if you could "practice" dealing with narcosis on land by hitting a whippet and trying some sort of task, like tying a certain knot or something.

Dunno, but it might be fun trying. If nothing else, I think it helps the narcosis situation because afterward the feeling isn't such an unfamiliar experience, thus reducing anxiety. I have never felt anxious when narced - it's a strange trip all right, but I've certainly had stranger...

>*< Fritz

heh heh, not telling it might help. I've been narced and dark narced a couple of times, most recently I swam around a small cloud of silt and then tried to go "though" the quarry vall head first....resulting in a bump on my forehead.

what helps me with being narced is instrument flight training and experience. learning to put vertigo away and concentrate on instruments, working through things logically when your body is screaming at you that you are in a death spiral.

i've got to figure out this m-quote thing

 

[tomboyy]

Well, honestly, piikki, the narcosis you needed to fix was the reason you couldn't make a rational choice to ascend. I don't think anybody is blaming you . . . That's the terrifying thing about the story, is that you were too impaired to take any effective action about your impairment.

The more I think about this story, the scarier it gets. This is precisely why I made a decision over two years ago that a) I would keep my Nitrox dives shallower than 100 fsw (and I actually don't do very many that even get into the 90 foot range) and that b) I would get a helium card.

I think this is a good thread, but it does point out that everyone is different. While TSandM likes it less than 100fsw with Nitrox or else Helium, others are good on air when they go deeper. The Op stated that he had anxiety, along with Kinetic and visual hallucinations. An ascent right away with bottom visual or not was called for. Whether every diver can do this or not is another story,but, Ascending without any visual reference is something that a diver should be able to do in the water column. Anything else is massively increasing the risk.

Tom

 

[SPG3K]

I am astounded every day by the difference every person's body plays in the sport of diving. It's almost as if nothing the Navy or PADI or anyone can come up with is truly a "safe" way to dive. If Narcosis is any measure of the difference in physiology, it would seem to me even the dive tables themselves could be so adaptable based on an individual person.

During my deep dive class I had a margin of only 1 second difference in solving problems at the surface and at 90 feet. My lifetime dive buddy was nearly unable to complete the sequences of problems at the same depth.

I get OCD about my pressure gauge below 95 feet. Below 95 feet my dive buddy can almost not function. He goes into like, paranoid fits, and blows his BC out, sinks, then freaks out and tries to go all triton missile to the surface, then freaks out, sinks, rinse, repeat. Which is why we don't dive profiles deeper than 85 feet together now.

My favorite instructor also takes extremely manageable narc hits around 100', but said that at 130-140' he gets loopy.

I am now remarkably interested to find out what my loopy depth is, if only to know for my own benefit.

But again - the complexity of the human body as related to diving just blows my mind.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I....
I am now remarkably interested to find out what my loopy depth is, if only to know for my own benefit.

But again - the complexity of the human body as related to diving just blows my mind.

There is probably not one single depth. Work load, visibility and psychological factors can be significant as does what tasks or problems you are trying to accomplish underwater.

I was diving solo yesterday working hard, swimming across currents, pulling a float and catching lobsters for 45 minutes at depths a little over 100 ft. I ALMOST felt a little buzzed when I got out of breath. I think it was just paranoia from reading this thread. Normally I don't give it a thought until diving depths past 160 feet.

 

[Tomeck]

I live in the country where there are many lakes, I often dive in very cold water at 40F, the visibility is often bad, the water is very dark, but I never had problem with narcosis at 100 feet.

 

[captain]

I think it was just paranoia from reading this thread. Normally I don't give it a thought until diving depths past 160 feet.

The power of suggestion can be strong. I once read somewhere that the more a diver was told he would experience narcosis at so and so depth then it was more likely the diver reported symptoms of narcosis at that depth.

 

[Nemrod]

The fear of narcosis is a psychosis or even a neurosis more times than not especially at such shallow depths.

N

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The power of suggestion can be strong. I once read somewhere that the more a diver was told he would experience narcosis at so and so depth then it was more likely the diver reported symptoms of narcosis at that depth.

Yeah, I remember about 10 yrs ago, my buddy talked me into an air spearfishing dive when we were 100 miles out. He kept telling me the depth was not too bad, it was only 40..... (fathoms that is). I wasn't really buzzed until I dropped off the deck of the wreck to shoot a grouper on the sand. I won't go over about 225 now due to narcosis and oxygen issues and rarely go below 200.