What is a known panic point for you while diving?

[Fish_Whisperer]

There are several things that get my heart thumping in scuba. I have yet to experience panic in my life in any situation, and I hope I won’t have to cross that bridge in scuba either.

The freaky things in scuba are often related to darkness and surprises. I really really HATE it when I am minding my own business in 2-10 feet viz, and all of a sudden out of nowhere there is a tree trunk or pole or piece of debris right in my face
I know this is some silly boogieman stuff “it’s coming to get me” –league. I hate it when I can’t see it coming, and can’t immediately see what it is. Those are the moments that I have felt that irrational “GET me out of here RIGHT NOW”, and have wanted to reverse big time.

I got this way when diving a quarry, once. A tree appeared out of the gloom, bare wicked looking branches, algae hanging off of them... I was having some other problems in my life, and I wasn't in the best frame of mind that day, anyway. When that tree appeared, all I could think was that I was going to get snagged and I was going to die. I didn't panic, but I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It just creeped me out.... It was damn eerie.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Guba that is too funny! A DM and I were doing a buddy breathing demo in the pool for a photographer. There is a window in the side of the university pool and the photographer was taking pictures of us from the observation room. We had been doing the exchange for so long the DM was no longer breathing with each exchange, he would purge the regulator when I handed it to him then hand it back. He would take a breath about every 3rd exchange. I started doing the same thing because I really didn't need to breathe that often either. He started making faces at me and I started laughing and handed the regulator to him. That's when I completely lost my rhythm and inhaled AFTER the hand off. I thought, "OK now I'm drowning" and started laughing even harder because it was a total "DUH" moment that caused me to inhale the water and the photographer was about to get a picture of an actual scuba emergency. The realization that I found my impending death funny made the entire situation even more entertaining and when I finally got the reg back I was in absolute hysterics laughing like a crazy woman while trying to cough the water out of my lungs. My dive buddy was looking at me like I was insane LOL!
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[drbill]

So far I haven't reached a panic point even when my tank valve failed at 70+ feet.

The closest thing to "panic" I think I've experienced is when a buddy disappears. If I take on a buddy (I dive solo 85% of the time), I take the responsibility very seriously. If they "disappear," I get quite concerned.

I once had a "pick up" buddy disappear within a minute as I was fiming. I could see her reflection in my rear housing port, then she was "gone." After filming the sequence (less than a minute) I looked around and she was nowhere to be seen. I searched for a minute, then went to the surface. She wasn't in sight. Instead of calling for help, I went back down and searched.

When I finally exited the water and walked up the dive park stairs, she was standing IN HER STREET CLOTHES ready to go get a margarita with some guys she had just met. I made it VERY clear to her that she would never dive with me again and read her the riot act about leaving me.

Her response? "I knew YOU were alright." Mine to that "But I didn't know YOU were." Needless to say, I didn't go for margaritas after that (but had a good stiff buffalo milk after the rest of my dives were over).

 

[Cacia]

When one of the bigger sharks looks at me funny in a personal way for too long.

when I am not making any headway in a current

when I suddenly notice a giant eel inches from my face or my hand

when the boat isn't there...anywhere

when I am 180 degrees "sure", just not which direction

when the people on the boat are not the same ones and the captain gets on the radio

when I know in advance the next wave is going to take me down, cause I timed it wrong.

 

[dsteding]

My big one, that I discovered ~75 dives ago, is the cold water in face throat-closing reflex. I'd had no problems with mask-off work when I got certified in Thailand, but found that the cold (45-50 degree) water really took my breath away when maskless. The inability to breathe would cause the panic level to rise.

It took a while to work through this, first by doing drills in the shallows, then by integrating mask flood/clearing into my dives. Before GUE-F, I spent a couple weeks filling my kitchen sink with ice-cold water (like 40-45 degrees) and immersing my face in it. I'd breathe off my AL40's reg for increasingly longer periods of time (got to about 8 minutes total), focussing on breathing in off the reg and then breathing out through my nose in a slow, measured, manner. I'm sure it caused some of my neighbors to think I was crazy (they can see my kitchen clearly through my windows).

By the time I hit fundies the maskless work was no big thing. Didn't lose control of buoyancy when doing remove/replace (actually got a compliment on that one) and the maskless, air-sharing swim was the most relaxed thing I did in the class. Just closed my eyes and went along for the ride. The technique I learned to get past this has been very helpful in handling other tasks underwater: it all boils down to control of your breathing, and that was the key to me getting through this issue. Now, when task loaded, I subconsciously focus on my breathing which relaxes me and keeps my buoyancy spot on, giving me a stable platform from which to complete the task.

Good thread. If you have known panic points I think you need to work to understand and control them. Avoiding them or ignoring them is a recipe for disaster. True, alligator-brain panic seems to be a big killer in this sport.

 

[JeffG]

when I am not making any headway in a current

That one freaks me out too.

 

[Buoyant1]

Disorientation when deprived of visual reference. This has been huge for me, and has come closer than anything else to bring me nose to nose with the panic monster. I have worked on it by doing mask-off work, eyes closed work, and recently, a whole lot of diving in EXTREMELY poor viz. It's gotten much better.

Seeing that I took my OW in poor viz...(well I guess NOT seeing) I was following the DI who had dark colored fins in murky quarry water (and being followed by another diver who was keeping en eye on me) the whole lack of viz never really bothered me.

I also had something stuck between my nasals and throat for part of one of the dives, but "horked" it out before having to just say ___it and surface thankfully...

But I'm sure I would be a little un-nerved with a free flow at any significant depth...haven't had that happen unexpectedly so I'm not sure how I'd react...

 

[Buoyant1]

When one of the bigger sharks looks at me funny in a personal way for too long.

when I am not making any headway in a current

when I suddenly notice a giant eel inches from my face or my hand

when the boat isn't there...anywhere

when I am 180 degrees "sure", just not which direction

when the people on the boat are not the same ones and the captain gets on the radio

when I know in advance the next wave is going to take me down, cause I timed it wrong.

Don't forget looking to the left (or right) and being nose to nose with a rather large great barracuda (4-5 ft) not a pleasant surprise! (and this was during a Discover Scuba Diving session a few years back!)

I ascended with a group diving the Benwood last year in Key Largo, and there was a guy that looked at us and said "You aren't the peopleI was diving with"! Luckily for him his boat was parked next to ours, but I'm sure it had a bit of a "pucker factor" for the poor guy!

 

[GA Under Water]

Nothing in Diving, but something that puts me on the cusp is when in an airplane the pilot will put on the breaks in the air then gun the throttle to speed back up. To me it's like a dentist that says "Oops" when drilling on my teeth.

 

[xiSkiGuy]

I've never had a full blown "alligator-brain" panic, but I almost panicked when I was taking my Basic Cave class. We had just finished a dive in Devil's Ear and were doing valve drills at "the log" (20ft and open water). I nailed the valve drill and the instructor turned to watch my classmate do his valve drill. Somehow I turned and positioned myself so that the flow was hitting my regulator just right to open the exhaust diaphragm and make the reg breathe very wet. I was having trouble breathing past all the water, so I switched to my backup. It started breathing very wet too, and I got this insane urge to bolt to the surface. I talked myself down, saying "you shouldn't be in a cave class if you can't solve your problems underwater!" I reached up and shielded my reg with my hands, cleared the water, and coughed for about a minute. Then I switched back to my primary and made my ascent like nothing had happened. To this day, I do my stops facing the opposite direction in Devil's Ear.