Denisegg's incident and near miss at Jackson Blue

[Rick Murchison]

VERY interesting thread. Would I be correct in thinking if I feel good 15/20 minutes into a dive then I can pretty much forget about IPE ?

Heh, heh... Yeah, well, I reckon you can forget IPE in the sense of the "no underlying issues" variety, but throw in a little hypertension, or cardiac insufficiency, etc., and all bets are off.

Rick

[denisegg]

VERY interesting thread. Would I be correct in thinking if I feel good 15/20 minutes into a dive then I can pretty much forget about IPE ?

One thing to consider and I am not sure how much and at what depth this becomes an issue but I had made it down to 94ft deep when the symptoms began. It just happened to take us about 15 minutes to get to that depth. An intro cave diver was running the reel to the gold line for practice and we were taking our time. I had absolutely no symptoms prior to this, we just happened to be close to 400ft back into the cave when we dropped to that depth. The symptoms came on RAPIDLY. I was coughing and having trouble breathing almost immediately upon turning the dive.

[Reef_Haven]

Denise,
Thank you for posting.

I found this while researching what could cause this while not diving.

"Pulmonary edema may be caused by damage directly to the lung, such as that caused by poisonous gas or severe infection,"

Apparently Bad Gas can be a contributing factor.
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No F*rt jokes here please!

[ianr33]

Hi Denise. Really glad you are doing OK.

Seems the only good thing about IPE is it tends to occur relatively early in a dive. If it happened after,say, an hour, when 2000 feet in I doubt it would be survivable.

[Kevin Carlisle]

Ok here is a scary thought. DAN said there were 12 of these on record. I assume per year but I could be wrong. I wonder if it happens that fast, maybe a cave is the best place so you can't go up too fast and embolize. Denise had to make a gradual ascent, that might have been a good thing. I know that this will be on my mind tomorrow when I start into the cave.

[TSandM]

Pulmonary edema, in general, can be caused by anything that damages the lung, and that includes corrosive or otherwise tissue-toxic gases. It is HIGHLY unlikely you would be willing to breathe anything bad enough to be likely to cause it -- this is the type of thing we see with chemical spills and house fires and the like.

Immersion pulmonary edema has been seen in swimmers, so there is no need to descend to depth to be susceptible to it. One of the theories is that it is volume redistribution in the body, due to water buoyancy and negation of gravity changes, as well as temperature changes.

As I said, we have one case here where symptoms were noted at the end of an hour's dive, although I do not know if she had any warning signs while underwater.

[denisegg]

Hi Denise. Really glad you are doing OK.

Seems the only good thing about IPE is it tends to occur relatively early in a dive. If it happened after,say, an hour, when 2000 feet in I doubt it would be survivable.

My respiratory acidosis levels as recorded at Jackson Hospital indicated I only had 1 to 3 minutes left to survive. It is a good thing I opted to forgo the safety stop. I didn't have enough breath or strength left to do it anyway.

[Cave Diver]

VERY interesting thread. Would I be correct in thinking if I feel good 15/20 minutes into a dive then I can pretty much forget about IPE ?

I dunno. I understand what you're saying in regard to the IPE, but I think that a constant self assessment of a diver's own mental and physical well being should be as ingrained as checking depth or gas. I would be reluctant to "forget about" something just because I've hit a predetermined time limit.

Not trying to sound argumentative or dismissive or your statement, just illustrate that, especially in technical diving, it's important to pay attention to what your body is telling you. Personally, I like being just a little bit on edge because it keeps me from being complacent about things.

[Kevin Carlisle]

My respiratory acidosis levels as recorded at Jackson Hospital indicated I only had 1 to 3 minutes left to survive. It is a good thing I opted to forgo the safety stop. I didn't have enough breath or strength left to do it anyway.

That news made Dave and I find a place to sit down very fast.

[Cave Diver]

My respiratory acidosis levels as recorded at Jackson Hospital indicated I only had 1 to 3 minutes left to survive. It is a good thing I opted to forgo the safety stop. I didn't have enough breath or strength left to do it anyway.

Denise, when you surfaced with difficulty breathing and blue, where you put on O2 by anyone at the dive site?

Edit -- Respiratory acidosis definition for those reading along:

Respiratory acidosis is a medical condition in which decreased respiration (hypoventilation) causes increased blood carbon dioxide and decreased pH (a condition generally called acidosis).

Carbon dioxide is produced constantly as the body burns energy, and this CO2 will accumulate rapidly if the lungs do not adequately dispel it through alveolar ventilation. Alveolar hypoventilation thus leads to an increased PaCO2 (called hypercapnia). The increase in PaCO2 in turn decreases the HCO3−/PaCO2 ratio and decreases pH.