Diver panics - Cape Town

[billt4sf]

I just kept thinking: "Breathe from the reg! Breathe from the reg!" I guess panic is when you REALLY lose it. Difficult to watch.

- Bill

 

[Hatul]

I just kept thinking: "Breathe from the reg! Breathe from the reg!" I guess panic is when you REALLY lose it. Difficult to watch.

- Bill

Yes when I feel anxiety I stop and talk to myself. That helps to get the logical brain to take control. I go over the basics like tanks pressure, air and air time remaining, depth and no deco time and make sure those are OK and usually they are. With the type of diving we do here the issue is total loss of vis and disorientation or severe surge. In the case of surge I grab on to a rock. Then I decide what to do.

 

[pasley]

I know this is and old thread, but the video does show a common problem was in part responsible for this situation. The diver was bicycling like crazy and getting almost no propulsion out of her fins. Unfortunately I see this situation all too often.

Is it not amazing how in a persons panic from fear of dying they do everything possible to ensure their own death (removing regulator, removing mask, fighting off the person offering air and bolting for surface). Of course we do not know what happened after the video cuts off. Best speculation is a lung injury from holding her breath during the ascent. The person rendering assistance was not the DM of the dive, just another, experienced diver.

 

[2airishuman]

The reported fact that the assisting diver is neither her buddy nor a divemaster/instructor puts this video in a different light.

Much of the previous discussion centered upon how the "divemaster" should have intervened sooner.

 

[Hatul]

I know this is and old thread, but the video does show a common problem was in part responsible for this situation. The diver was bicycling like crazy and getting almost no propulsion out of her fins. Unfortunately I see this situation all too often.

Is it not amazing how in a persons panic from fear of dying they do everything possible to ensure their own death (removing regulator, removing mask, fighting off the person offering air and bolting for surface). Of course we do not know what happened after the video cuts off. Best speculation is a lung injury from holding her breath during the ascent. The person rendering assistance was not the DM of the dive, just another, experienced diver.

Mel, I think the explanation is that when we're in a panic our logical brain (the neo cortex) is not in control. Rather we revert to reflexes, and the reflex when we're short of breath or fear being short of breath is not to have anything in our mouth or in front of our airway. We're want out of water, and we're not built to fin but to walk and run so we revert to those movement even though they're not efficient in the water. Also we're not used to moving in the relatively viscous water, but in air. The resistance we feel to our movements build our panic because we want to move fast and the water is resisting. The end result is we thrash.
Adam

 

[Dan]

Mel, I think the explanation is that when we're in a panic our logical brain (the neo cortex) is not in control. Rather we revert to reflexes, and the reflex when we're short of breath or fear being short of breath is not to have anything in our mouth or in front of our airway. We're want out of water, and we're not built to fin but to walk and run so we revert to those movement even though they're not efficient in the water. Also we're not used to moving in the relatively viscous water, but in air. The resistance we feel to our movements build our panic because we want to move fast and the water is resisting. The end result is we thrash.
Adam

It sounds like she wasn't ready to do ascending & buoyancy control in the open water. She should have done more such practice in the pool & comfortable of doing it before doing it in open water. I wonder if the instructor just rushed through the course without accessing each students ability to ascend, descend & buoyancy control while in the pool, before conducting the course in the open water?

 

[billt4sf]

It sounds like she wasn't ready to do ascending & buoyancy control in the open water. She should have done more such practice in the pool & comfortable of doing it before doing it in open water. I wonder if the instructor just rushed through the course without accessing each students ability to ascend, descend & buoyancy control while in the pool, before conducting the course in the open water?

WHAT?! You;re supposed to be able to do blue water ascents after an OW course? I sure couldn't.

Bill

 

[Storker]

WHAT?! You;re supposed to be able to do blue water ascents after an OW course? I sure couldn't

Last time I checked, a PADI OW (or similar, like CMAS 1*, or BSAC OD) certified diver is supposed to be competent to dive unsupervised with a suitably qualified buddy. I've never heard that that excluded blue water ascents.

 

[Dan]

WHAT?! You;re supposed to be able to do blue water ascents after an OW course? I sure couldn't.

Bill

What I'm trying to say is that she clearly had a difficulty in ascending which is an important basic skill to have during OW certification. If paddling is not working, fill the BCD with more air. If that doesn't work dump the weights. I would think those are taught during the OW course, which is kind of fading out of my mind after 11 years of taking the course.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Is there something that I missed that says this stsrtedas a training dive? Potentially she'd received her cert ages before this happened. Potentially she'd never really wanted to be on the dive in the first place.