True story.......................

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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
 
Glad you got through it ok, Don. I saw the same thing happen to an instructor in Jamaica last year. The newly certified diver crashed into him with force and dislodged his reg. He however, wasn't in the middle of an inhale when it happened, but he didn't look to thrilled with his newly certified student. :)

And yes, you can hurl through a reg. I witnessed my buddy do just that on our 2nd open water check-out dive. We were ascending an anchor line when it happened. He signalled something was wrong and the next thing I knew he was doubled over and cutting loose. I think it scared me worse than it did him. He hurled for over a minute, took the reg out and sloshed it around, put it back in his mouth, cleared it, and we continued to surface. Needless to say I made sure he kept his reg for the rest of that trip. :)
 
IGD and Warhammer,

We got to stop meeting like this: people will talk!

It always amazes me that people do not look where they are going underwater. I do not like to think of the number of times someone has kicked or hit my reg! It has only been knocked out of my mouth three times--and always on the output of my cycle...But the law of averages says that the next time will....

I can personally attest to the efficacy of the second stage in dispersing fish food. One time I was at the end of a tag line in 3-4 ft seas (big mistake) and I decided to submerge a few feet to where the water was calmer. Unfortunately, my pancake breakfast was already on its way up the system! At ca. 10 feet down.

There are somethings one never seems to forget: the first kiss, etc. Well, for some reason, I remembered my dive instructor saying that no matter what, when you are underwater keep your reg in your mouth--even if you have a little "indigestion". So out it came--very spectacular the way it shot out of my side vents--and my tummy felt much better. I did, though, have to do more than the usual rinsing to get all systems "GO" before the next dive!

Hope nobody read this before dinner.

Joewr
 
Thank you for your report Way to stay calm. I was once told that "you breathe in 2 seconds breathe out 5 seconds any faster and your reg will fall out and you won't be able to inhale". Your story is another case in point.

personaly I rather read about something like that than write about it. I hope that when my times comes I will stay calm like yourself.
 
Wow ID - glad you made it!... and funny about your story - we just had a discussion about what to do if the urge to upchuck overcomes you down below... and then went and got seasick/vertigo underwater at 3m in almost zero viz and surge while doing our Peak Performance Buoyancy course... I really wanted to throw up but couldn't... It was the most unpleasant feeling I have ever experienced and took me hours to get over it. Have since had many debates over the best way to relieve yourself at depth but keeping the reg in always comes out on top. I hope I never have to try that theory out!

 
Well done in keeping the panic monster at bay ID. A question though, regarding number 3). You said you let your guard down and you were not practising good airway control. Could you explain what sort of breathing control you use please. Cheers
 
Don,

thanks for introducing this thread. The situation you described is one of the things that I, as a new diver, wonder about. I keep telling myself that if the reg gets knocked out of my mouth, I can retrieve it and resume breathing, but what happens when I am in the process of inhaling.....

Well, now I know that what happens is exactly what I fear, I get a lung full of water at 30meters and get to choke around for 5 minutes.

Does anyone else have any tips on how to deal with this situation?

And yes, Frog, I second that......a detailed description of practicing airway control would be nice for all of us.

gozu
 
Glad things came out ok Don. Lessons learned like this are always valuable to us all. This is the reason that if I am diving with an unknown group, I try to keep my buddy and myself behind the rest. That way I can keep an eye on them and there is less of a chance for collisions to happen. From the text you could not see this coming so this would not have helped you, but when I do see divers, wheather I know them or not, starting to get too close I put both hands on top of my head with my elbows straight out in frount of me to form a kind of face guard and try to put some distance between us. I also point them out to my buddy just to make sure he/she is aware of them. I have had my arms kicked several times but so far it has saved my mask/reg.
 
Glad to hear you're OK,guess all that hoof dodging practice paid off.
 
Wow! Close to the same thing happened to me, also in Cozumel, and it was dive #5 in my dive life.
Yep, It was on my first dive after doing my open water dives.
The reg was kicked out during my inhale. I freaked! I got a mouth full of water. I was at 60 feet also. There was 2 divemasters on escorting the group and one had agreed to be my buddy.
He saw what happened. He quickly took his reg out of his mouth, put it in mine and we went to the top.
I did a dry hurl at the surface, ( nothing came out even though it felt like it was going to ) I felt much better and we went down again, and caught up with the group.
Scared the living daylights out of me. I thought I'd never dive again.
But alas, I did. And it was all about having a great buddy!
Don, glad everything turned out for you. I was much too inexperienced to continue the dive without surfacing first.
:sunny:
 
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