Stupid mistakes....lucky,scared stiff

[Scuby Dooby]

Hi Firemedic,

No one seems to have come out and said this literally - sounds like you hyperventilated which led to a panic attack. As I'm sure you've seen lots of times in your line of work, panic attacks are powerful things. Uncontrolled breathing, tunnel vision and extreme unreasonable fear (ie spitting the reg out) are pretty obvious signs of a panic / anxiety attack.

I agree that a key point to having stopped this would have been to take your time on the surface and re-compose yourself before descending. Anytime you start a dive scared you are likely to start breathing fast, this makes the retention of CO2 even worse, leading to more anxiety. You then went to about 100 feet (as we all know, narcosis to the point that you notice it is present at much lesser depths than this) which made the anxiety even worse again. All of this together left you in a state of panic, good thing that you were able to keep under control and calm enough to finish the dive. I also doubt that nitrox had much to do with this situation, it likely would have happened on air also.

I think the point here is that fear is natural, if you are feeling anxious don't worry to much about it but make sure you get your mind and body under control and that you aren't under too much stress before you hit the water. If you are not feeling well - wait a bit until you are. Still not feeling good? call the dive. If that anxious feeling is still dogging you before dives then make sure to plan some nice easy ones with conditions that aren't too challenging until you feel like you can't wait to get into the water again! (as opposed to nervous before the dive even begins - no fun)

Hope that 'heavy feeling' leaves soon, don't obsess about this one too much, I"m sure it's happened to lots and lots of divers.

 

[RichLockyer]

Had to dig out my Padi AOW manual just to make sure and I was right in remembering that Nitrox is not included in their AOW course.

The nitrox specialty can be taught concurrently with AOW provided that the two required nitrox dives are also elective AOW dives... IOTW, deep and nav cannot be used for credit toward the nitrox cert, though they can be performed using nitrox if the qualifications for the cert have been met by prior dives. In this case, it appears that at least one of the elective dives was a wreck dive, so it would qualify as credit toward the nitrox specialty (provided the classroom requirements were met prior to getting in the water, which they obviously had not).

So AOW electives can provide credit toward nitrox, but nitrox does not in itself qualify as one of the three electives.

 

[divenut2001]

The nitrox specialty can be taught concurrently with AOW provided that the two required nitrox dives are also elective AOW dives... IOTW, deep and nav cannot be used for credit toward the nitrox cert, though they can be performed using nitrox if the qualifications for the cert have been met by prior dives. In this case, it appears that at least one of the elective dives was a wreck dive, so it would qualify as credit toward the nitrox specialty (provided the classroom requirements were met prior to getting in the water, which they obviously had not).

So AOW electives can provide credit toward nitrox, but nitrox does not in itself qualify as one of the three electives.

Thanks for the info Rick. I went back and reread Bob's posts and he stated in his first post that he was not "briefed" on the use of nitrox and in a later post stated that his OWI threw it in at the last minute, which means he had no idea he would be using nitrox until just before the dive.

Diving with a gas he was not properly trained on probably contributed to the anxiety he was experiencing.

Sounds like Bob needs to start shoping for another instructor...

 

[hvulin]

hm, first thing to change is your instructor, the second is your attitude to diving (or stop diving)...

diving is not a game!!!

Never trust anyone but yourself and never allow others to change dive plans without prior notice (not even instructors)... You should have learned better in your OWD class...

sorry if this sounds rough but this type of attitude could make you a figure in someone's statistics.... - and we don't want that...

for the next time: if you're not confident that you can do it safely and with pleasure then don't do it! - no one has a right to object to this (specially your brother)

 

[Uncle Pug]

divenut2000: who's Bill?
hvulin: telling Bob to change his attitude or quit diving is uncalled for. His attitude seems fine to me. I don't see anything in his posts that would indicate he takes diving lightly or treats it as a game. I *gently* brought up the ego issue since it is an underlying factor in many of the misjudgements we all make.

 

[FireMedic]

Hvulin, just so you know, my diving attitude is fine. I will not quit, and I have already found another instructor. I know this is not a game and dont believe I called it one.
Thanks, Bob

 

[FireMedic]

Thanks Pug, I was responding to this one at the same time you were.....

 

[FireMedic]

Depth was in the 70' range. Sorry I didnt post that earlier.

 

[Uncle Pug]

As a FF/paramedic you have no doubt experienced the value of training under the pressure.

It would be great if you could take a Stress/Rescue class or even a DIR fundamentals class.

 

[ReneeC]

Hey FireMedic - don't blame you for getting a little touchy about that post. It was clear to me that you were thinking during this incident. As I said - it was your instructor that got me fired up. As an Instructor I know that fellow divers - not only students - assume that I won't put them in jeapardy. So it is natural that if your instructor made it seem perfectly alright that you would not question it. So now we all know that Instructors aren't Gods and that they do stupid things that others follow. I have no doubt that in the future you will question and not play "follow the leader." Glad you found a new instructor. And you really should consider reporting that instructor to his agency.