Question How Screwed Would I Have Been?

[chillyinCanada]

Hmm, I wonder if this works for sandfly/noseeum bites.

 

[RyanT]

It's fairly hard to get stuck while on a dive. You really need to push down on the dorsal fins, so a side bump while diving is unlikely to result in envenomation. I had the unfortunate experience of actually stepping on one in shallow water. It was really bad. I had 4 puncture wounds in the ball of my foot, near my toes. Within minutes the pain was excruciating. I went to the hospital because, never having been envenomated by one, I was worried about the potential for anaphylactic shock. By the time I arrived, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the bottom of the foot, repeatedly, with a kitchen knife. I had the hospital give me a bowl of hot water to immerse the affected area. It didn't really help. After waiting at the hospital for maybe an hour, I knew I wasn't going to experience anaphylactic shock, so I went home. The excruciating pain continued for about 8 hours before beginning to subside. My foot remained swollen and I wasn't able to walk for a couple of days. The really interesting thing, my toe joints remained stiff and painful for a couple of months after the incident.

So no, it likely wouldn't be a big impediment to getting out of the water, but I sure wouldn't wish the experience on anyone.

 

[Searcaigh]

We have plenty of scorpionfish where I dive locally as well as a few natural lion fish, and very very occasionally I see a stonefish.

I have seen plenty of stonefish in the Red Sea, and the local hospitals in Saudi Arabia used to carry astonish antivenom when I lived there back in the 80s/90s.

My buddy and I were diving an isolated wreck (known as the Mecca Wreck) south of Jeddah Naval Air Base when he brushed against a lion fish when we were in the hold, and he immediately signalled to surface.

On the surface next to the fringing reef, which was 2Km from the shore, he exclaimed he was experiencing extreme pain, and I swear his facial skin was a light green colour, and he started vomiting.

We immediately headed to shore to our vehicles, where I had a flask of hot water. This should have been in our float, (with the spare tanks/water cooler etc.), but in the rush to gear up and set off to avoid delays by any coast guard patrol I had forgotten to pack it.

By the time we reached the shore he was fine! I don't recall how long that took but probably close to 60 mins.

The instructions we had for marine stings was to use hot water as bearable on the area to denature the marine poison. Of course some poison will already be in circulation and not affected.

Our reference for this is based on a book called Red Sea Safety by Peter Vine (1980)

Note that there is a stonefish on the cover!

Antivenom instructions manufactured by CSL is included within the book. I do know that we held this drug in our hospital pharmacy as informed by one of the pharmacists who was one of my regular dive buddies at the time.

 

[scubadada]

StingMaster

StingMaster is an OTC topical ointment that blocks the pain caused by marine life stings.

www.divegearexpress.com

Topical anesthetic, lidocaine, widely available

 

[chillyinCanada]

In other words, that's just a fancy packaging?

 

[ATJ]

I vividly remember that as a kid (maybe 13) I was stung on the finger by a Fortesque (species of scoprionfish) that I caught on a line. It hurt like hell and my finger was very badly swollen. I did the hot water bath and that helped somewhat. To this day that finger is still fatter than its pair on the other hand.

 

[BRT]

It's fairly hard to get stuck while on a dive. You really need to push down on the dorsal fins, so a side bump while diving is unlikely to result in envenomation. I had the unfortunate experience of actually stepping on one in shallow water. It was really bad. I had 4 puncture wounds in the ball of my foot, near my toes. Within minutes the pain was excruciating. I went to the hospital because, never having been envenomated by one, I was worried about the potential for anaphylactic shock. By the time I arrived, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the bottom of the foot, repeatedly, with a kitchen knife. I had the hospital give me a bowl of hot water to immerse the affected area. It didn't really help. After waiting at the hospital for maybe an hour, I knew I wasn't going to experience anaphylactic shock, so I went home. The excruciating pain continued for about 8 hours before beginning to subside. My foot remained swollen and I wasn't able to walk for a couple of days. The really interesting thing, my toe joints remained stiff and painful for a couple of months after the incident.

So no, it likely wouldn't be a big impediment to getting out of the water, but I sure wouldn't wish the experience on anyone.

I have been on the Blue Angel shore dive in Cozumel when there were several scorpionfish in shallow water where you walk out. Scary

 

[SubNeo]

The PADI Rescue manuel does (did? I took it in '06) have some info. on how to treat stings, but nothing that I recall specific on how to deal with these occurrences while diving. But, I applaud you diving with a Rescue diver buddy and advise that for all new divers if possible.
We generally don't have those sort of nasties in N.S., just other things to deal with.
That DAN course RIHappyDiver mentions sounds like a good idea. If it were me, I guess I would do what my rescue training advises-- tow ASAP to shore and deal with the injury there. If far from shore, decide if rescue
breaths and/or removing the scuba unit while towing are things to consider. Can't do CPR in the water if it comes to that.

Got lucky with a Facebook posting, but he might be moving away in the summer. It's really my only buddy right now, I've not had an easy time trying to find others in the area.

 

[TMHeimer]

Got lucky with a Facebook posting, but he might be moving away in the summer. It's really my only buddy right now, I've not had an easy time trying to find others in the area.

Yeah, my first (and only steady) buddy also moved. We were both newbies. I had no concept of that not being ideal. But, we took it slowly and did a lot of shallow "benign" dives prior to extending depth some. After I took Rescue I showed him what to do should I ever become unconscious. As my rescue instructor said-- if only one of you are rescue trained it's probably best that it's your buddy....

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Was doing a casual dive off Ocean Reef park on Saturday (parking at Blue Heron was a joke) and almost bumped into a stonefish. I understand they are quite poisonous, and my buddy helped notify me that I was getting a bit too close to outright pushing off the little prickly fellow (we were close to shore so the back and forth was quite tricky, and in 10ft of water).

If I'd been pricked by the thing, would my Rescue diver buddy have to kick into overdrive and drag me up the shoreline? Same deal for lionfish or other dangerous animals?

Mostly asking this question out of curiosity. I'm not quite to qualifying for Rescue diver yet (need 40 dives under 15 ft according to SDI), but I feel like I'd be completely useless if the tables were flipped. What if my buddy had gotten stung and was half unconscious and unable to "hold my hand" as I try to help him?

Wear thick neoprene gloves.