So
I've been doing my dive master training here in Thailand since November, and it's been great. My instructor is a trip leader on a liveaboard to the Similan islands, which means that most of my training has happened on the boat. I've done 87 dives so far during my DMT, and gained a LOT of experience, which is what I wanted. The diving's great, the crew is awesome, and I really can't complain
Our liveaboards are 4D/4N, with 4 dives on the first 3 days, and 2 on the last day. The first two dives of the day have a max allowed depth of 30m, the third dive is 25m and the last is 20m. We usually have 2-3 hours of surface interval between dives. This was my second trip actually guiding people by myself, the first was during Christmas, I had two open water divers and did most of the dives with max depth of 18m. The New Year trip wasn't much different, I started off with two open water divers, but then in the middle had to rearrange groups because one of the instructors ruptured her eardrum, so for the last two days I had 4 advanced divers. Still, all the dives were nice and calm (for the most part) and I was nowhere near my deco limit in any of them.
On the first day of the liveaboard (December 29), we did two rescue scenarios in between dives (with a 45 min si), quick dives of about 2 minutes, bringing up an "unconscious" diver from about 7 meters. I also did my 100m tow that day, and decided to skip the night dive since neither of my divers wanted to dive and I was tired
Second day was calm enough, my divers didn't want to dive the first dive so I went with another group for a fun dive. I also skipped the last dive of the day (again, my divers didn't want to dive Go figure) and ended up missing a whale shark! Boo :-(
Third day I got my new group, so the dives were a bit deeper, but still no deeper than 25 meters. The last dive of the day was supposed to be a sunset dive, but we ran a bit late and ended up doing a half-night dive. The place we were at (Tachai Pinnacle) isn't really the best place for a night dive, as there can be a lot of current and it's a bit too deep (top of the pinnacle is at 14m, and you kind of have to go deeper to get protection from the current). I told my instructor that I wasn't comfortable guiding at this site at night (for some reason it's the site I have the most trouble with, even during the day), so he got someone else to lead my group and I went as an assistant. There was a LOT of current, and I was very nervous, not to mention tired from having to swim against the current to GET to the pinnacle, and then to get to the mooring line. Safety stop was pretty long (about 8 minutes, as the line was very congested). At the end, we let go of the line and let the current take us to the side of the boat. With the current and darkness, I got disoriented and ended up popping to the surface a bit faster than I should have (I think I didn't even realize I was going up until I got to the surface). We got out of the water at around 7:15pm.
That night was new years, and we had a party on the boat. I did drink, but not much, and not nearly as much as everyone else on the boat (I'm not much of a drinker). Maybe two Sangsom cokes and a beer. Went to sleep at around 2am.
On the last day, we got up at around 7am. I felt crappy, which I wrote off as a hangover. I drank a full bottle of water with electrolytes before our first dive, and another one between dives. On the last day we dive at the Boonsung Wreck, which is a nice quiet dive, with sandy bottom at 18 meters. After the first dive, I started feeling soreness on my ribcage (center to right side), which I thought was due to sleeping in a bad position, or even from the mooring line on the previous day. After the second dive, when we were heading back to port, I started feeling some pain on my right thigh, as if I'd hit something hard and bruised it (no visible bruise, though). It got more and more painful (and a bigger area as well), and by the time we got to mainland just the fabric from my pants touching my thigh was painful. At that point, I actually asked two instructors if this could possibly be DCS, and both said they'd never seen symptoms like these for DCS. On the way back to the shop, I started feeling the exact same thing on my left thigh, and that's when I felt sure that something was wrong (there was no way I could have bruised both thighs and not have noticed). Up until this point, there wasn't a rash (I kept checking), but when I got to the shop, a red rash had shown up on my chest, around the area where I felt the bruised rib, all the way down to my stomach. This was around 4pm. The shop called the chamber, and I laid down on the floor of the shop to wait for the ambulance. There was no oxygen on the shop (we called around and none of the shops had it), so I only got on oxygen when the ambulance arrived, at around 4:30pm.
Got to Phuket hospital at around 6:00pm, and was greeted by the lovely doctors from the chamber, who performed a neurological exam (I think that went fine, except for the balance part, but I reminded them that I had been on a boat for 4 days, and also that I'm not the most balanced person in general I've been known to fall off stationary bikes ;-) ). There was no doubt that I was bent, and I learned that the place where the rib meets the sternum is considered a joint (if I'd known that before, I would've gotten on oxygen on the boat and not done the second dive at all). I was also dehydrated, so they put me on an IV and got me to my first chamber session 5 hours (table 6, I think?), with two extensions, so I got out at 2am. Slept at the hospital, and went in for another, shorter session the next day (3 hours). Slept at the hospital AGAIN (what a great way to kick off the New Year!), and was discharged the next day. All symptoms were gone (as well as a couple other cuts and bruises from before, and a big jellyfish rash on my hand
)
So I'm not allowed to dive until the 31st, which people tell me isn't all that bad. I'm heading back to Phuket in a couple of days to get checked out by the chamber doctor. They told me that although my profile for that trip was pretty conservative (I think the deepest dive was 25 meters and the closest I got to my NDL was about 10 minutes on my suunto d6i), because of the dehydration and lack of sleep, they don't consider it entirely undeserved. According to them, the rescue scenarios didn't help, nor did the coming up too fast from the safety stop on Tachai, but that none of these things by themselves should have gotten me bent. So in their opinion, it was a combination of everything.
And now I'm scared. I'm really scared of getting bent again. I wish there HAD been something very specific that had happened and that was definitely to blame. Being tired and not sleeping a lot is part of the job description I did three liveaboards back to back at the beginning of the season, without skipping a dive, and I was dead by the end of it. This is the rhythm here, and this is where I want to work. And once I get instructor (next season, probably), there will be rescue scenarios that will need to be done in between dives, and search and recovery, and PPB and navigation and lots of other things. There will be pool sessions in between liveaboards. It'll be much harder, I believe. So if I got bent just during my training, how the hell am I gonna be able to work as an instructor?
This is what's been going through my mind these past weeks, while I wait for January 31st to arrive I'm worried and scared that I might never be able to dive again. I'm scared that if I get bent again, it'll be worse. I have almost 200 dives at the moment (110 in one year, and the other 86 in the past 2 months), and I've never had any problems Until now.
I would like to know your opinion Was it undeserved? Is there anything I should do? People have told me to set my computer to a more conservative setting, and to dive on Nitrox on an air profile, but for work that's not always possible. I would also love to hear people's experiences with DCS, and with getting back to diving afterwards Any help will be much appreciated.
Sorry for the long post, but I did want to put as much information in there as possible so you got a clear picture of what happened. Thanks for reading!
Mariana
Our liveaboards are 4D/4N, with 4 dives on the first 3 days, and 2 on the last day. The first two dives of the day have a max allowed depth of 30m, the third dive is 25m and the last is 20m. We usually have 2-3 hours of surface interval between dives. This was my second trip actually guiding people by myself, the first was during Christmas, I had two open water divers and did most of the dives with max depth of 18m. The New Year trip wasn't much different, I started off with two open water divers, but then in the middle had to rearrange groups because one of the instructors ruptured her eardrum, so for the last two days I had 4 advanced divers. Still, all the dives were nice and calm (for the most part) and I was nowhere near my deco limit in any of them.
On the first day of the liveaboard (December 29), we did two rescue scenarios in between dives (with a 45 min si), quick dives of about 2 minutes, bringing up an "unconscious" diver from about 7 meters. I also did my 100m tow that day, and decided to skip the night dive since neither of my divers wanted to dive and I was tired
Second day was calm enough, my divers didn't want to dive the first dive so I went with another group for a fun dive. I also skipped the last dive of the day (again, my divers didn't want to dive Go figure) and ended up missing a whale shark! Boo :-(
Third day I got my new group, so the dives were a bit deeper, but still no deeper than 25 meters. The last dive of the day was supposed to be a sunset dive, but we ran a bit late and ended up doing a half-night dive. The place we were at (Tachai Pinnacle) isn't really the best place for a night dive, as there can be a lot of current and it's a bit too deep (top of the pinnacle is at 14m, and you kind of have to go deeper to get protection from the current). I told my instructor that I wasn't comfortable guiding at this site at night (for some reason it's the site I have the most trouble with, even during the day), so he got someone else to lead my group and I went as an assistant. There was a LOT of current, and I was very nervous, not to mention tired from having to swim against the current to GET to the pinnacle, and then to get to the mooring line. Safety stop was pretty long (about 8 minutes, as the line was very congested). At the end, we let go of the line and let the current take us to the side of the boat. With the current and darkness, I got disoriented and ended up popping to the surface a bit faster than I should have (I think I didn't even realize I was going up until I got to the surface). We got out of the water at around 7:15pm.
That night was new years, and we had a party on the boat. I did drink, but not much, and not nearly as much as everyone else on the boat (I'm not much of a drinker). Maybe two Sangsom cokes and a beer. Went to sleep at around 2am.
On the last day, we got up at around 7am. I felt crappy, which I wrote off as a hangover. I drank a full bottle of water with electrolytes before our first dive, and another one between dives. On the last day we dive at the Boonsung Wreck, which is a nice quiet dive, with sandy bottom at 18 meters. After the first dive, I started feeling soreness on my ribcage (center to right side), which I thought was due to sleeping in a bad position, or even from the mooring line on the previous day. After the second dive, when we were heading back to port, I started feeling some pain on my right thigh, as if I'd hit something hard and bruised it (no visible bruise, though). It got more and more painful (and a bigger area as well), and by the time we got to mainland just the fabric from my pants touching my thigh was painful. At that point, I actually asked two instructors if this could possibly be DCS, and both said they'd never seen symptoms like these for DCS. On the way back to the shop, I started feeling the exact same thing on my left thigh, and that's when I felt sure that something was wrong (there was no way I could have bruised both thighs and not have noticed). Up until this point, there wasn't a rash (I kept checking), but when I got to the shop, a red rash had shown up on my chest, around the area where I felt the bruised rib, all the way down to my stomach. This was around 4pm. The shop called the chamber, and I laid down on the floor of the shop to wait for the ambulance. There was no oxygen on the shop (we called around and none of the shops had it), so I only got on oxygen when the ambulance arrived, at around 4:30pm.
Got to Phuket hospital at around 6:00pm, and was greeted by the lovely doctors from the chamber, who performed a neurological exam (I think that went fine, except for the balance part, but I reminded them that I had been on a boat for 4 days, and also that I'm not the most balanced person in general I've been known to fall off stationary bikes ;-) ). There was no doubt that I was bent, and I learned that the place where the rib meets the sternum is considered a joint (if I'd known that before, I would've gotten on oxygen on the boat and not done the second dive at all). I was also dehydrated, so they put me on an IV and got me to my first chamber session 5 hours (table 6, I think?), with two extensions, so I got out at 2am. Slept at the hospital, and went in for another, shorter session the next day (3 hours). Slept at the hospital AGAIN (what a great way to kick off the New Year!), and was discharged the next day. All symptoms were gone (as well as a couple other cuts and bruises from before, and a big jellyfish rash on my hand
)So I'm not allowed to dive until the 31st, which people tell me isn't all that bad. I'm heading back to Phuket in a couple of days to get checked out by the chamber doctor. They told me that although my profile for that trip was pretty conservative (I think the deepest dive was 25 meters and the closest I got to my NDL was about 10 minutes on my suunto d6i), because of the dehydration and lack of sleep, they don't consider it entirely undeserved. According to them, the rescue scenarios didn't help, nor did the coming up too fast from the safety stop on Tachai, but that none of these things by themselves should have gotten me bent. So in their opinion, it was a combination of everything.
And now I'm scared. I'm really scared of getting bent again. I wish there HAD been something very specific that had happened and that was definitely to blame. Being tired and not sleeping a lot is part of the job description I did three liveaboards back to back at the beginning of the season, without skipping a dive, and I was dead by the end of it. This is the rhythm here, and this is where I want to work. And once I get instructor (next season, probably), there will be rescue scenarios that will need to be done in between dives, and search and recovery, and PPB and navigation and lots of other things. There will be pool sessions in between liveaboards. It'll be much harder, I believe. So if I got bent just during my training, how the hell am I gonna be able to work as an instructor?
This is what's been going through my mind these past weeks, while I wait for January 31st to arrive I'm worried and scared that I might never be able to dive again. I'm scared that if I get bent again, it'll be worse. I have almost 200 dives at the moment (110 in one year, and the other 86 in the past 2 months), and I've never had any problems Until now.
I would like to know your opinion Was it undeserved? Is there anything I should do? People have told me to set my computer to a more conservative setting, and to dive on Nitrox on an air profile, but for work that's not always possible. I would also love to hear people's experiences with DCS, and with getting back to diving afterwards Any help will be much appreciated.
Sorry for the long post, but I did want to put as much information in there as possible so you got a clear picture of what happened. Thanks for reading!
Mariana
