is there any way to prepare for scuba panic?

[corvettejoe]

The thread started by the post from Diver0001 is this one: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...-managing-task-loading-matter-priorities.html I agree that it's a fabulous thread, and well worth reading.

corvettjoe, any possibility of posting that paper or a link to it?

My buddy said he would be glad to share it... I just need to get a copy of it from him now.

 

[Hetuch]

Your concerned about panic. As I taught for 30 years. " Panic is being overcome by an unreasoning fear, robbing the individual of logical thought and causing him to act instinctively. " The simple answer is . " Stop, Think, & then Act, ". Sounds simple and it is . Do not ever react without
first Stopping, then thinking, then act accordingly .
Be safe my friend !

 

[JoMal]

Sorry to hear about anyone who panics doing scuba, but I know it can happen.

This is one of those things that really comes with experience. I know - how do you get the experience without first HAVING the experience. By going through the procedures during your first couple of dives. Take your reg out yourself - put it back in. Talk to your buddy prior to the dive - if they are new as well, they likely are thinking just like you are. Simply practice the buddy breathing a few times. Get in the habit of checking your air - and your TIME! Novice divers tend to over-compensate anyway. Husband and wife divers always are holding hands, for instance. They get over it.

Equipment failures can happen. Your training is actually ALL about what to do about it at depth more than anything else, so trust your trainer. It needs to become automatic, so practice, practice, practice. I still do and I have around 1,000 dives. At some point, go down sixty feet on a calm dive and remove your bc and put it back on. It is surprisingly easy and I actually like doing this in the water anyway because it seems to go smoother. Just have your buddy watch, but not help unless needed.

Everyone gets a little apprehensive once in a while diving. My trigger is getting back on board the boat in rough seas. Hate that. At depth, self-maintennance is the key. I strongly recommend taking the rescue dive course once you get about 100 dives under your weight belt. Much more relaxed diving since I took it.

 

[divepsych]

'Panic' is NOT a non-thinking survival response which inevitably leads to death despite a myth that has permeated the dive community since the late 1960's. As I have posted many times on Scuba Board over the last 10 or more years and as I have spoken at dive shows on this topic, there are things you can do to minimize and control a panic response underwater.

We published our first study of over 12,000 divers and found that panic and near-panic were common occurrences among divers and rarely led to any significant problems. I recommend that readers go to www.DivePsych.com for more information and especially consider downloading the FREE MP3 training on diaphragmatic breathing. Also, some recently published research from SMU showed that signs of anxiety were already present up to one hour prior to a "spontaneous" panic attack in panic disorder patients being monitored 24 hours a day.

Another published study done at the USAF Academy showed that cadets with higher ASI scores (Anxiety Sensitivity Index) were the most likely to "panic" or stress out during survival training. I included that new information in my most recent presentation at Our World Underwater in Chicago. This has clear implications for divers, especially newer divers.

As I have recently retired from 30 years of private practice, I am hoping to get back to all the data I collected from 2000 to 2004 and may initiate new studies. In the meantime, it has been my pleasure to work with traumatized divers and get them back in the water.

 

[kentrobin]

There are a lot of good suggestions others have posted. Experience will help and practicing your skills, flood your mask dozens of times and clear it, practice your out of air signals with your buddy. Remember you can always make an emergency ascent (as long as you are not in a cave which you should not do as a beginner). I have found that yoga helped me a lot by helping me to control my breathing if I felt panicky. I tell myself mentally to be calm and control my breathing with slow rhythmic breaths. I found that scuba panic is 90% in your head and 10% related to the situation. There have been a few times when I felt panicky. Once I went in a lava tube, realized I was claustrophobic and felt panicky, the only thing that got me through it was mentally telling myself to be calm and breathe calm. If you are not hyperventilating you will be able to behave more rationally, getting your breathing under control is key. When you are a beginner and you are nervous ask your dive buddy to stay close, if they are a good dive buddy they will do this to give you peace of mind until you have more experience. If they can't understand, it's time for a new buddy. Get a noise maker so you can signal your buddy if you get in trouble. I have been diving for 15 years and follow the safety rules so I have never been out of air and luckily have never lost my regulator, the biggest problems have resulted from strong currents. When faced with a strong current I can't fight, I stop, hold onto something and get my breathing under control, signal my buddy and we go up (carry a safety sausage and whistle). Don't try to be a big shot macho diver, do what is safe, if you have to abort the dive - abort the dive.

 

[schai]

It is really good that you are thinking about avoiding panic NOW before you might encounter a problem.

I am absolutely in agreement with the people that recommend practicing holding your breath, developing a bit of endurance, and familiarity with the feeling of needing to breathe, but can't right at this moment. Safety warning: When you practice, be very sure and do it with diaphragm (chest) control and not by closing your airway at the throat.

I'm a really old fart. When I learned to scuba, everyone that learned scuba did it as an extension of their free diving skills. When you can get along for a while without any scuba at all, it is not a big deal if you don't have it for a bit.

Practice flooding and clearing your mask so when (not if) the mask floods, you can calmly clear it. If your eyes burn for a little bit, accept it. Swim under water without a mask. Sooner or later, someone is going to kick you in the mask, so expect it as a normal part of the fun. If you completely lose the mask, realize that you can safely get to the surface on bare eyeballs.

Regulator knocked out? You have lots of time to find it and get it working before your body has any danger of loss of consciousness.

You might feel that you need to breathe at this very second, but it really is okay if you don't. Remember that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by becoming excited. All you do is use more oxygen and exacerbate the situation. You don't need a full breath of air to hold your breath, as diving mammals EXHALE before going down. It feels different, but the reality is that even though your lungs may feel empty, the oxygen in the blood stream is about the same for awhile. It won't feel good when you want air, but you should have already practiced it so it is a known side effect while dealing with the problem, which is the only real concern. Simply by knowing that you have a few seconds to use your mind and a few moments to deal with the situation, you should be far, far less likely to panic.

Demanding underwater swimming skills of scuba students will cut into the participation of the entire industry. It is probably better to not be so demanding and keep up with the liability waivers.

Steve

 

[tkwinston4]

It is really good that you are thinking about avoiding panic NOW before you might encounter a problem.

I am absolutely in agreement with the people that recommend practicing holding your breath, developing a bit of endurance, and familiarity with the feeling of needing to breathe, but can't right at this moment. Safety warning: When you practice, be very sure and do it with diaphragm (chest) control and not by closing your airway at the throat.

I'm a really old fart. When I learned to scuba, everyone that learned scuba did it as an extension of their free diving skills. When you can get along for a while without any scuba at all, it is not a big deal if you don't have it for a bit.

Practice flooding and clearing your mask so when (not if) the mask floods, you can calmly clear it. If your eyes burn for a little bit, accept it. Swim under water without a mask. Sooner or later, someone is going to kick you in the mask, so expect it as a normal part of the fun. If you completely lose the mask, realize that you can safely get to the surface on bare eyeballs.

Regulator knocked out? You have lots of time to find it and get it working before your body has any danger of loss of consciousness.

You might feel that you need to breathe at this very second, but it really is okay if you don't. Remember that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by becoming excited. All you do is use more oxygen and exacerbate the situation. You don't need a full breath of air to hold your breath, as diving mammals EXHALE before going down. It feels different, but the reality is that even though your lungs may feel empty, the oxygen in the blood stream is about the same for awhile. It won't feel good when you want air, but you should have already practiced it so it is a known side effect while dealing with the problem, which is the only real concern. Simply by knowing that you have a few seconds to use your mind and a few moments to deal with the situation, you should be far, far less likely to panic.

Demanding underwater swimming skills of scuba students will cut into the participation of the entire industry. It is probably better to not be so demanding and keep up with the liability waivers.

Steve

Blimey just reading what you said here has made me feel panicky and I am sat at my desk at work!!

On my second to last dive on my O/W course I had a massive panic attack when trying to blow my BCD up and I was screaming on the surface "I am going to die!". The water was only 3 degrees and I was cold and tired. I hope to never ever experience that again!

I have only done 4 or 5 dives since and every time I can feel a panic coming on but I HAVE to talk myself out of it because I don't want to die. My buddy/husband is as new to it all as me so I'm afraid I don't feel confident with him. But I always go in a group with at least two experienced dive masters and its them that give me the confidence and control my panics. If they were not there I just would not go. TBH I don't really enjoy diving, I just do it for my husband because he really wanted to get into it and he needs a buddy.

Maybe one day I will enjoy it but at the mo if I never dived again it would not be a problem.

I am claustrophobic so I panic on the plane, in a lift, on a busy bus or even in the back of a small car. Over the years I have learnt how to control them or I just avoid that particular small space. I HAVE to just talk myself out of it and control my breathing; there is nothing else. I do also take an antidepressant which helps with panic attacks.

As a novice diver I cant really offer much advice apart from take your confidence from those that are confident around you. If you ain't confident in them then don't dive.

 

[divepsych]

There is no way to avoid stressful events in diving other than not diving. Learning to control your anxiety by controlling your breathing is the best way to handle anxiety and panic along with lots of repetitive training of the basic dive skills and experience. As already said, "STOP, BREATHE, THINK, ACT."

I recommend that readers go to www.DivePsych.com for more information and especially consider downloading the FREE MP3 training on diaphragmatic breathing that was produced specifically for dive students. That will teach you how to breath to control anxiety and panic using standard behavioral methods. This natural anantomically-physiologically-correct way of breathing is also a part of pretty much every meditation and relaxation exercise in every culture around the world. I have taught this technique to many private psychiatric patients over the last 30 years and to many divers, including those having a problem on the surface or underwater. Ideally, divers will learn to breath with their bellies early in their training and will practice it often. It is, after all, the natural way to breathe and is hard-wired in your body and mind to calm you down where ever you are. Just don't do it while you are driving a vehicle or flying a plane as you might fall asleep and have an accident.

I would be glad to discuss this with anyone who wants to call me. I am hoping to be at DEMA Show next month and would glad to talk to people there.

I am currently resuming analysis of all the dive panic data I gathered in the last decade and recently was even recently asked to look at an incident report involving loss of a regulator mouthpiece in a relatively new diver who panicked.

 

[carolynaznv]

This is a great thread. Just yesterday I was thinking to myself during a dive when my buddy got a little to close to my mask: "what if he kicked off my mask? The water is cold and I haven't taken off my mask since class sitting on my knees in a heated pool. I would probably freak out and head to the surface. Do I tilt my head up or down to clear my mask? This is not good." I looked up and saw that if that did happen there was heavy kelp right above me. Today I am practicing mask and reg skills at the beginning of the dive, and every dive until I am no longer scared of that happening. And then practice more.

 

[Skittl1321]

The water is cold and I haven't taken off my mask since class sitting on my knees in a heated pool. I would probably freak out and head to the surface.

I flood my mask and clear it at the end of every dive. I still hate it. (I haven't taken it off again yet though) What is really weird is that I had no problem with it at all in the pool- it was the one skill I did with no issue at all, but then in open water I freaked out and nearly refused to take it off at all (the instructor ended up having me do two other skills, signaled for me to go to the surface and then I realized I wasn't going to get certified if I didn't do the skill, so I signaled to do it.)


I live in absolute fear of having my mask kicked off though. However, I was talking to my husband the other day- if that happens, can't I just hold my nose until I can recover the mask or surface? We weren't allowed to in OW class, but is there any reason not to in real life?