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As some of you already know I had an incident during a dive at Jackson Blue on July 4th.
Before I go into any details I want to thank everyone who helped me out and everyone who called, messaged me, sent flowers or came by to visit. I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back in touch with everyone yet, but things have been a bit overwhelming and I'm still pretty tired from the ordeal.
I'll try to answer as many questions as I can and provide as many details as I remember. Hopefully those that were there at the time can help fill in some of the blanks and some of the medical professionals on the board might be able to offer some insight
On Friday I did a dive at JB ending around 12:30 p.m. lasting 47 minutes with a max depth of 92' and an avg depth of 50.
On Saturday I did one at Hole in The Wall ending around 12:40 p.m. lasting 53 minutes with a max depth of 86' and 51' for the avg depth.
The incident occurred during my dive on Sunday July 4th. The diving ended at 1:00 p.m. and the total time was 23 minutes with a max depth of 94' and an avg depth of 51'.
I started feeling a pressure on my chest just after descending through the chimney and I stopped near the jump on the right hand side. This was probably approximately 15 minutes into the dive. I was having trouble breathing and I thumbed the dive and started heading back out with my buddy following.
During the exit I was coughing violently and was purging the reg to try and get more air. Coming out of the cavern zone I was literally crawling on the ground to exit.
When I got to where I could stand in about chest high water upon exiting the cave I was coughing up pink frothy sputum. Some people on the shore came to assist me. When they were finally able to remove my hood and drysuit, my face was blue and my lips white with some foam on my lips. I don't think they were divers and someone called 911 when I said that I needed to see a Dr.
I was taken to Jackson County Hospital by ambulance from JB and was there approx 2 hours before being transferred to Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan, AL where I was seen by Dr. Rao, a cardiologist. I was given enzymne tests every 6 hours and numerous ekgs, echocardiogram, heart cath, lung and leg crt for embolisms, clots. Everything was normal except an elevation in thyroid. They did not tell me how much.
I don't know all the technical terms but asidosis levels recorded at Jackson Hospital suggested I was within 1 to 3 minutes of suffocation from fluid in my lungs.
My computer did not show my ascent was too fast, it just told me to slow down. the nitrogen and oxygen loading were within normal ranges. I did not aspirate any water. The last approx 150 to 200ft i was purging my reg in my mouth to try to ease the labor of trying to breathe. Interestingly enough the doctor at the Jackson Hospital was told to use positive pressure to force air down into my lungs to displace the fluid.
Jackson Hospital said they were not familiar with dive related incidents so they immediately contacted DAN. DAN was told my symptoms and they said it sounded like IPE and told them to start a drip of lasik ? which flushes your body of excess fluid and to administer the mask they were using with oxygen with positive force or to do a c pap or a tube down my throat. I am a member of DAN and I truly believe they were very helpful to the doctors and staff.
Upon being transferred to the next hospital they continued to administer the same two procedures and started the tests on my hearts. Enzyme and ekg tests were done at the first hospital and they were on the phone with the cardiologists giving him this info. When my cardiologists continued to test and rule out heart related problems, I asked him to contact DAN and he did. They gave him info which is in the following link:
I talked to DAN the afternoon before leaving the hospital. They gave me the contact information for the 2 doctors closest to me that dealt with dive related incidences and they are both pulmonary doctors. He asked me to follow up with them before diving again because he had done all the tests he could do to determine what the cause was and he had found no cause.
The only thing that showed up at all was an elevated thyroid level. I attribute this to a doctor who was treating me for an underactive thyroid who was not monitoring me close enough and 6 weeks ago increased my dosage from 120mg a day to 180mg a day and did not retest me. My cardio doctor asked me to see an endocrinogist and he said I probably didn't even need the thyroid medicine to begin with. He took me off of it and I am to follow up with both doctors in 4 to 6 weeks as well as see one of the DAN doctors.
That is pretty much all I can think of at the moment.
Thank you so much to all the people who were there for me and have since expressed their concern. I really am exhausted. If someone has some answers for me I would love to hear them. Once again I want to tell everyone who visited me, called and has contacted me how much it has meant to me.
Moderator's Comments:
edited and posted by Cave Diver at Denise's request
It does sound precisely like IPE. This is a frightening phenomenon, poorly understood, that can happen to divers or swimmers. There seems to be some association with high blood pressure, although there are certainly people who have had it who had normal blood pressure. But that could be the link to the hyperthyroid state.
I'm glad you come out of this okay, and kudos to you that you had the wisdom to turn the dive when you didn't feel well.
I'm very happy to hear you are out of the hospital and on the road to recovery. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. You have all my best wishes and kindest thoughts.
It does sound precisely like IPE. This is a frightening phenomenon, poorly understood, that can happen to divers or swimmers. There seems to be some association with high blood pressure, although there are certainly people who have had it who had normal blood pressure. But that could be the link to the hyperthyroid state.
I'm glad you come out of this okay, and kudos to you that you had the wisdom to turn the dive when you didn't feel well.
Lynne,
IIRC, she told me that she had 6 liters of fluid removed from her lungs. 2 at the first hospital and an additional 4 at the second one. Is it unusual for such a rapid buildup of fluid in a 24 hour period (since the time of her previous dive)? She also reported feeling a bit more tired than usual, which is another possibly symptom?
"However, it is notable that immersion pulmonary oedema has occurred in divers who do not appear to suffer any of these predispositions." pg. 40 Deeper into Diving Lippmann and Mitchell. -Be well and content that you may never really know why.
The door was the way to...to...The Door was The Way. Good. Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to. ~ Douglas Adams
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Originally Posted by TSandM
