diver passes out at 10mt

[eternaljonah]

Hi guys Today while doing a combined Open water and Dive Master course I had an incident that i do not fully understand:


My dive master trainee's did their 800mt swim and shortly(10min) after that we all went for a dive. we slowly descended from 3 mt to about 10mt in 7 min at that moment one of the dmt's passed out. She continued breathing(had my hand on reg and bubble's were coming) but was unconscious.I tapped her mask and pinched her, then took her and my OW students and we all slowly ascended, skipped the safety stop, got to the surface, loosened her bcd, removed her mask and made sure she was still breathing. we started for the shore, as I towed her, I kept saying her name and trying to get her to wake up, after 2-4 min she slowly came round but took another 2 min to be fully there. (have sent her to a doctor for a check up again, she has a clean bill of he alt no more than 2 weeks old)
she is a little over weight but 19 years old.
I'm wondering what happened ?

 

[victor]

Wow, scary for you and your other students.
Have you kept all her equipment seperated, possibly air contamination.
Hope everything checks out Ok, or is that equally bad as she/you won't know what caused it this time.
Can she ever dive again if she does not understand and overcome what happend this time.

 

[eternaljonah]

she has come back from the doctor and doctor has given her another clean bill of health. same tanks as me and all the other students. she has no medical history and this is the first time its ever happened.

 

[victor]

I think a call to DAN would be justified here.
Obviously she cannot continue her DM course, or maybe even dive, until she understands what happened and will it happen again.

 

[chillyinCanada]

What is the neck seal on her suit like? Perhaps a little tight? What either clothing items or jewelry was she wesring around her neck if any?

 

[oly5050user]

sounds like an incident that happened to a student i had years ago. we surfaced and he went into convulsions , became unresponsive, kept on breathing. got him on the boat, gave him O2,EMS was alerted and we were met by EMS at the dock. student tells attending dr at the ER that 'he always has convulsions hours after doing cocaine! needless to say i did not certify him ..​

 

[eternaljonah]

she was in a swim suit at 29 degrees Celsius water. nothing constricting other than maybe her bcd but she has 20+ dives in that bcd. really not sure the key for me is she pushed herself to do the 800mt swim/with fins in 14.30 min but then again i'm no doctor. but the doctor has okayed her to dive again today after tests???

 

[vincent54]

Hyperventilation or dehydration? Maybe she got wore out in the swim. Thankfully you recognized the passed out diver in time. Cheers

 

[victor]

Maybe take her on a few dives with no stress, no other students, so you can give her your full attention.

P.S. Loved Pondicherry, was there about 4 weeks ago for the first time.
Next time we come to India I will need to look you up, maybe get in a dive or 2.

 

[TSandM]

Wow -- prolonged unconsciousness like that in a young person is quite rare. Did she have her eyes open or closed? Did you observe any trembling or jerking?

Consciousness is a distributed function in the brain. To lose it, you must either shut down both cerebral hemispheres or shut down the reticular activating system in the brainstem. Probably the most common cause of transient unconsciousness is reduction of blood blow to the brain, as occurs with vasovagal syncope (fainting at the sight of a mouse). But this is usually quite brief, and resolves as soon as the stimulus is gone, or the person assumes a recumbent posture. They usually wake up quickly and aren't confused afterwards.

Longer periods of lack of response in an otherwise healthy young person would make me worry quite a bit about a seizure disorder, especially if there was some confusion upon awakening. Seizures are considered to be an absolute contraindications to diving.

The final consideration would be a psychogenic problem. People in total passive panic can be entirely unresponsive to outside stimuli, and gradually come back to themselves. (I know this because the very first student I had to guide as a DMT went into passive panic and scared the pants off me!).

At any rate, I think it is quite cavalier of the physician to have cleared this young woman to return to diving without a diagnosis of what happened in this event, because in the differential is at least one thing that presents a possible lethal risk.