Panic Attacks?

[TSandM]

I find these answers fascinating. While I was going through my OW class, I talked to a number of instructors and divemasters. ALL of them said that virtually everyone will, at some time, have a panic event underwater. All of them had personal stories to tell. Some of those events occurred to people when they had a lot of experience under their belts.

 

[verona]

ALL of them said that virtually everyone will, at some time, have a panic event underwater. All of them had personal stories to tell. Some of those events occurred to people when they had a lot of experience under their belts.

I think there is a difference between someone who has a one-off panic and someone who suffers from panic attacks more generally. Many divers will have had frights where they panic, sometimes this can be part of the learnign process. But a full blown panic attack is something slightly different. As another poster has said, a propensity to this does not mix with diving.

 

[ghostdiver1957]

A panic attack underwater usually starts before you even jump in.

The things that lead up to a panic attack are
1. High stress levels at work or home prior to your dive / dive trip
2. Haven't dove in a while and are stressed out about the upcoming dives
3. You know you're about to do a deeper dive than ever before, an overhead environment, a wreck penetration etc... you've never done or have done very little
4. You're being rushed into the water
5. You're having equipment problems just priot to entering the water
6. Rough seas etc... have you concerned
7. You're diving with a buddy you don't know...
etc. etc.. etc...

Thenyou hit the water and you start to have issues almost immediately. Things such as:
1. You ears wont clear
2. Your mask keeps leaking
3. You having trouble getting down / underweighted
4. The vis sucks
etc. etc.. etc...

If you're uncomfortable at this point (within the first 2 minutes of hitting the water... you may want to abort the dive rather than take a chance with your life. All of these are precursors to a panic attack.

If you continue with the dive anything might send you over the edge... bouyancy problems, a continuously leaky mask, can't find your buddy, a slight bit of narcosis, who knows...

Panic is common only in divers that either don't recognize or don't react to the early signs and symptoms... Be smart, dive smart... and enjoy

Ken

 

[Jarrett]

I've got about 20 dives under my belt. In low viz enviroments, I get really anxious every time during the first 5 minutes at depth. Today was the first time I didn't shoot to the top and have to restart the dive. After I get passed this initial anxiety, I can do the rest of the dive no problem.

I don't have panic attacks or anxiety like at any other time. Just the first 5 minutes of a low viz dive. I am hoping its something I can just overcome with time. I see it as a challenge now.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

I find these answers fascinating. While I was going through my OW class, I talked to a number of instructors and divemasters. ALL of them said that virtually everyone will, at some time, have a panic event underwater. All of them had personal stories to tell. Some of those events occurred to people when they had a lot of experience under their belts.

A panic event? I haven't heard it called that. After thousands of dives I have never panicked. Not even close. I have only had a couple of students panic and only one in open water. That one caught me by surprise. I maintained contact and allowed them to ascend safely but as I said eariler, if you are a person that suffers from panic attacks you have no business in the water.

 

[Scuba]

I don't know the exact medical definitions, but I think it's important to differentiate between a panic attack being an anxiety attack where fear and apprehension is present, yet one can still function, and panic, where the ability to think and act rationally is lost.

The former has probably happened to just about every diver at one time or another to varying intensity. Fear and apprehension is a normal response to a perceived threat. The important issue is to identify the cause and find ways to effectively deal with it. Did a real external event cause the attack or was it a mental response devoid of external stimulus to warrant such an attack in a normal person? The former can be corrected through study, training and experience. The latter is a medical condition. Either one places a person closer to the edge of out of control panic.

Anxiety is signal to Stop, Think and Act.

 

[Hammerhead]

I was taught - stop, BREATHE, think, act, it works, too!

 

[String]

I was taught - stop, BREATHE, think, act, it works, too!

Id certainly vouch for that. Admittedly few but i can recall a few times where ive felt some sort of panic building. Oddly none really related to a problem or incident. In ALL occasionally, stopping, taking 3 good breathes then thinking through what i was worried about cured it.
At the bottom struggling for air after a hard surface swim agianst a current and pulling down a line was on i recall clearly. Stopped, breathed, got my breathing under control and realised there was nothing wrong in that case.

Once inside a small cave and i got a really odd panic thinking that "what if theres an earthquake now and traps me!". Totally irrational and again, stopping, taking a breath and reminding myself that was incredibly unlikely to happen.

3rd time got sightly wedged between the bottom and a metal platform. Yet again, stopped moving, breath, think, wait for silt to clear and think through a twist and direction to get out.

Hard to describe but in all those cases could feel if not panic a sense of unease building up through my stomach and getting bigger and acting almost like a feedback loop. The worse it felt the more you worried. It only takes a few seconds of something not "feeling" right.

I can see how someone can panic and the flight instinct kicks in though. If you just react as opposed to stopping i think theres more of a chance of doing something stupid and bolting etc. Being underwater isnt natural for a human and all pre-conditioned reflexes and reactions that are appropriate on the surface can be 100% wrong and dangerous underwater. Part of training is to condition someone to control those urges. Everyone is capable of getting scared or panicing- what separates the experienced from inexperienced i think in this is how that feeling is dealt with.

 

[TSandM]

I used the term "panic event" in an attempt to differentiate it from a "panic attack", which is a medical term to describe an episode of panic with no specific, reasonable inciting event. The panic events that were described to me were frequently as a result of some unexpected external influence . . . one was a diver bolting for the surface after being hit hard in the mask by a diving cormorant. The diver didn't know what it was or whether it was going to happen again, and fled. Said diver has never had another panic event underwater, so I certainly don't think he can be said to be prone to panic attacks.

 

[ghostdiver1957]

Close to panic... I agree... stop, breathe, think, act is the way to go... and most experienced divers will do this almost instinctively. Newer divers may not do so as instinctively... but there is one other element to add for newer divers... that is - Look.

Look for help. The mere action of looking for help may cure the building panic. Look up, look down, look side to side and look behind. If you see others nearby it will give you a sense of calm. In addition, if you see them, you can attempt to signal them that you are having some sort of trouble. Wave them over to you... do something to get their attention. Bang your tank, shake a rattle... do something to alert them.

My best example is that one time I was diving around a boat dock cleaning a boat. The vis was about 2 feet. There was a fishing net snagged on one of the pilings. As Murphy would say... if anything can go wrong... Well Somehow The knob of my cylinder and my first stage got tangled up in that net. When I turned to try to see what I was caught on, the fin buckle on my fin got snagged as well. I was caught at top and bottom and unable to turn around to deal with the problem. I went through the normal processes... stop, breathe, think, act... and decided my best bet was to wiggle out of my BCD, spin around and cut myself out of the mess using my trusty knife. I took the aforementioned action when it dawned on me that my buddy was still somewhere under the pier. By this time I had surfaced, riding my BCD and cutting the last bits of net off as I went. When he finally came up and I told him all the excitement he had missed, he so kindly reminded me that if I would have banged my tank, he would have come and helped. From that point on, I have added the word LOOK to the sequence I teach my students... I think it's a pretty good one.

Ken