Iguana Don
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Was in Coz this past weekend, really great trip as usual. Only had one bad experience and I would like to relive it with you so that you can learn. I credit my survival through this with good training and practice of skills learned and a good buddy.
While diving the Cedral Pass reef we were cruising along at about 60', when all of a sudden one of the divers in our group came down on top of me and ripped my reg out of my mouth. This has never been a problem having had it done on several ocassions with students. But this time it was different, I was on the intake side of the breathing cycle and sucked in a mouth full of SW, went down the worng pipe. My airway is blocked and I can't breath!
I reached down and picked up my safe second which I wear on a necklace around my neck, pruge it as I am shoving it in my mouth and holding it in because now it gets interesting.
I am starting to choke, gag and vision is getting blurry. I am feeling the urge to hurl but I can't get any air, I continue to hold the reg in my mouth while I am trying to work through this. Through the blurry vision I see my buddy looking straight at me and flashing the OK sign. I am not able to answer due to the coughing and choking going on, he takes me by the harness shoulder strap and we start to surface. I start to shake my head no to surfacing and wave the OK signal. He continues to wave the OK sign and I return it. I know that he is right there and if I don't wave the signal we're going up. Finally after several minutes I have worked through it, now I am feeling really nausious and feel like I am getting ready to hurl.
There is now way I am going to take this reg out of my mouth, it's worked with me this far, let's see if it's true you can hurl through one. The feeling passes after several more minutes and the dive continues. After all has calmed down I get out my "Wet Notes" and explain what had happened.
After the safety stop and we surface I get a really bad headache. Drink 3 bottles of real water on the boat and take some asprin. After about an hour the headache is gone and things are back to normal. Fortunalely this was the last dive of the day.
Things learned:
1) I fought off the urge to panic after the initial incident and kept presence of mind to hold reg in mouth during choking. Learned this in Rescue Class....Stop, Breath, Think and Act
2) Probably would have been a good idea to have let my buddy take me to the surface. But he was right there and I had things pretty much under control. And if I didn't wave the OK signal he knew we were going up, I had no choice.
3) I let my guard down and wasn't practicing good airway control or this would have never happened.
4) Our diving environment is a 3 deminsional environment and we need to be aware of what's going on all around us, not just what's in front or down or to the sides of us but above us as well.
5) It pays to have a good buddy, makes any situation that much easier to deal with. Just knowing he/she is there in case things go really bad.
Thought you might find this an informative posting, hope you learned from this.
ID
While diving the Cedral Pass reef we were cruising along at about 60', when all of a sudden one of the divers in our group came down on top of me and ripped my reg out of my mouth. This has never been a problem having had it done on several ocassions with students. But this time it was different, I was on the intake side of the breathing cycle and sucked in a mouth full of SW, went down the worng pipe. My airway is blocked and I can't breath!
I reached down and picked up my safe second which I wear on a necklace around my neck, pruge it as I am shoving it in my mouth and holding it in because now it gets interesting.
I am starting to choke, gag and vision is getting blurry. I am feeling the urge to hurl but I can't get any air, I continue to hold the reg in my mouth while I am trying to work through this. Through the blurry vision I see my buddy looking straight at me and flashing the OK sign. I am not able to answer due to the coughing and choking going on, he takes me by the harness shoulder strap and we start to surface. I start to shake my head no to surfacing and wave the OK signal. He continues to wave the OK sign and I return it. I know that he is right there and if I don't wave the signal we're going up. Finally after several minutes I have worked through it, now I am feeling really nausious and feel like I am getting ready to hurl.
There is now way I am going to take this reg out of my mouth, it's worked with me this far, let's see if it's true you can hurl through one. The feeling passes after several more minutes and the dive continues. After all has calmed down I get out my "Wet Notes" and explain what had happened.
After the safety stop and we surface I get a really bad headache. Drink 3 bottles of real water on the boat and take some asprin. After about an hour the headache is gone and things are back to normal. Fortunalely this was the last dive of the day.
Things learned:
1) I fought off the urge to panic after the initial incident and kept presence of mind to hold reg in mouth during choking. Learned this in Rescue Class....Stop, Breath, Think and Act
2) Probably would have been a good idea to have let my buddy take me to the surface. But he was right there and I had things pretty much under control. And if I didn't wave the OK signal he knew we were going up, I had no choice.
3) I let my guard down and wasn't practicing good airway control or this would have never happened.
4) Our diving environment is a 3 deminsional environment and we need to be aware of what's going on all around us, not just what's in front or down or to the sides of us but above us as well.
5) It pays to have a good buddy, makes any situation that much easier to deal with. Just knowing he/she is there in case things go really bad.
Thought you might find this an informative posting, hope you learned from this.
ID