On Verge Of Panic!!!
- Thread starter OnceLoyal
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FranzKafka
Contributor
Once Loyal. First thanks for your useful post. As many have said it is very useful for others to read about your mistakes so all can learn.
1) I think the reason you took so much heat from the more experienced divers was that they were shocked about the many really bad decisions made prior to the dive (and I think this lies at the feet of the DM.) To candy coat your DM's lack of judgement in a forum where other newbies are reading to learn would be a dis-service to all. And never forget the bottom line that ultimately you are responsible for your own safety.
2) You are to be commended for staying calm and not panicking.
3) The advice about experience might sound like a cliche, but in diving there is no better teacher than experience.
4) The advice about not being properly geared up is spot on. At 130-140' there is no rapid ascent to the surface if things go wrong. Redundancy, redundancy redundancy. Get a good book on wreck diving and read about all the gear you really need.
5) Dives to 130'+ can be very safe if you approach them with the level of respect and prep/consideration for these depths. There is nothing mysterious about diving deep. But as others have posted what you don't know you don't know. If you are serious about diving deep then get the training, get the experience, get the equipment you need.
6) I think the DM did you a great dis-service by taking you on this dive. I think when we all started diving we all put blind faith into our DM's. A good lesson to learn is that the DM is not always right when it comes to diver safety. Your story really brings home this point.
7) Dive computers are quite inexpensive these days. Do yourself a favor and buy one. Preferably one that you can download your dives onto a computer. You can learn a lot from looking at you dive profile. Descent rate, Ascent rate, safety stop, air consumption. They are a great learning tool.
8) Based on your original post I would have to say you need more experience to do a dive like this again. With experience comes the judgement, the skill sets and the confidence to dive your limits.
I don't think anyone should have flamed you. I don't think they meant to. After reading all the posts it just boils down to the fact that this was a very un-safe dive and hopefully many divers have learned from your post. On a side note I have read that you can get addicted to nasal spray. It is called rebound congestion (I think someone mentioned this in a post here). Be careful, dive safe. And please take to heart all the good advice you have gotten here.
1) I think the reason you took so much heat from the more experienced divers was that they were shocked about the many really bad decisions made prior to the dive (and I think this lies at the feet of the DM.) To candy coat your DM's lack of judgement in a forum where other newbies are reading to learn would be a dis-service to all. And never forget the bottom line that ultimately you are responsible for your own safety.
2) You are to be commended for staying calm and not panicking.
3) The advice about experience might sound like a cliche, but in diving there is no better teacher than experience.
4) The advice about not being properly geared up is spot on. At 130-140' there is no rapid ascent to the surface if things go wrong. Redundancy, redundancy redundancy. Get a good book on wreck diving and read about all the gear you really need.
5) Dives to 130'+ can be very safe if you approach them with the level of respect and prep/consideration for these depths. There is nothing mysterious about diving deep. But as others have posted what you don't know you don't know. If you are serious about diving deep then get the training, get the experience, get the equipment you need.
6) I think the DM did you a great dis-service by taking you on this dive. I think when we all started diving we all put blind faith into our DM's. A good lesson to learn is that the DM is not always right when it comes to diver safety. Your story really brings home this point.
7) Dive computers are quite inexpensive these days. Do yourself a favor and buy one. Preferably one that you can download your dives onto a computer. You can learn a lot from looking at you dive profile. Descent rate, Ascent rate, safety stop, air consumption. They are a great learning tool.
8) Based on your original post I would have to say you need more experience to do a dive like this again. With experience comes the judgement, the skill sets and the confidence to dive your limits.
I don't think anyone should have flamed you. I don't think they meant to. After reading all the posts it just boils down to the fact that this was a very un-safe dive and hopefully many divers have learned from your post. On a side note I have read that you can get addicted to nasal spray. It is called rebound congestion (I think someone mentioned this in a post here). Be careful, dive safe. And please take to heart all the good advice you have gotten here.
RubberDucky
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The nicest possible word I can think of to describe your DM is "reckless", and even then I feel that is an understatement. Thanks for sharing.
Franz I think your right on with the blind faith part. Like I said before I kind of treat diving like flying. In flying a lot of times you have to have blind faith, at least for a couple ratings. After that I think the same applies.. You are 100% responsible for your own safety. The more I read, the more I look back and realize how stupid it was. I have a computer. No air, but I still love it and besides a few dives I have not dove without it.. I just didn't have it on that trip. I really do take all the advice in, this is the reason for posting this. I am not ashamed of what happened. Just a couple thins that I consider to be total neglect on my part. How much danger was I really in? I am not sure... Probably more, or a lot more than I realize. I think if I couldn't control the panic lol I would'nt be here. Thanks again for everyone's response..
OnceLoyal: With narcosis, panic may not be present to control until its too late... 
Ed Palma
Contributor
Thank you for posting your experience.
Reading through it made me think of my own experiences. I too have done "blind faith" dives in the past. Granted, these dives served to highlight my shortcomings. The one thing that I absolutely do not want to do is to let my dive buddies - my team - down. I do not want to be a liability that will put others at risk. I think its okay to be pushed a little during training dives, so as to expand your limits, but to go beyond during a dive where responsibilities are not clear cut (insta-buddies?), is something I really wouldn't do.
Additionally, I'm pretty much okay with people coming down hard on me, because I do that to myself as well. Coming from the first series of wreck training dives this past week-end, I have a healthy respect for the dangers involved in penetrating a wreck at depth. I'd like to know right away if I was doing something wrong because knowing the right way to do it definitely is a great boost to lady luck at staying alive.
Reading through it made me think of my own experiences. I too have done "blind faith" dives in the past. Granted, these dives served to highlight my shortcomings. The one thing that I absolutely do not want to do is to let my dive buddies - my team - down. I do not want to be a liability that will put others at risk. I think its okay to be pushed a little during training dives, so as to expand your limits, but to go beyond during a dive where responsibilities are not clear cut (insta-buddies?), is something I really wouldn't do.
Additionally, I'm pretty much okay with people coming down hard on me, because I do that to myself as well. Coming from the first series of wreck training dives this past week-end, I have a healthy respect for the dangers involved in penetrating a wreck at depth. I'd like to know right away if I was doing something wrong because knowing the right way to do it definitely is a great boost to lady luck at staying alive.
OnceLoyal, thank you again for your posts. I commend your honesty in discussing this incident here. Your desire to learn from the incident speaks well of you.
Thank you also for answering questions I posted.
There are a few things that stand-out. I'll enumerate below.
The DM is dangerous. As a PADI Instructor, I'd love to know who he is. If you are willing, please PM me and give me his name. I'd be more than happy to contact PADI and initiate a Quality Assurance process.
I suspect that you were NARCed. You were at 140'.
140' is way too deep for your training level and for an aluminum 80. Deep diving is NOT the goal. Stay away from divers who brag about how deep they went.
Keep diving, OnceLoyal, but keep it shallow and take some additional courses.
Hmmm, you know what I am wondering now is, If I had plenty of air left and still surfaced with 700psi, I wonder what the others had on the boat. I wonder this because I dove with the same people at 40-50ft range and they all had to surface about 20 min before me, I sware one guy was even sooner..... Just makes me wonder if they were below 500....
I had some incredible dives today with my intructor. He kicked me in the @ss pretty bad about this, but was very impressed with how I have come along.
I had some incredible dives today with my intructor. He kicked me in the @ss pretty bad about this, but was very impressed with how I have come along.
StreetDoctor
Contributor
Keep in mind their air is your air. You say you're great on air but if you have an equipment malfunction and your buddy has 600psi at 140' chances are one or both of you aren't going to make it. I know you said this was pretty much a solo dive, but rock bottom applies to both divers and it's whomever gets there first. You might think I'm being harsh on you but I'm just being honest. As your diving progresses and you get more experience hopefully you'll learn to discuss a gas plan ahead of time and you choose dive buddies that will agree.
I agree 100%.. Just wondering how low they were.. As stated before on previous dives these guys were like choochoo trains. It makes me think or wonder how chaotic the dive was as a whole. Not just my incident.
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