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Near Misses and Lessons LearnedHere is a forum to discuss those incidents that ended well but could easily have ended badly, and the lessons learned from them.
Please note: The last reply in this thread was more than 2 month(s) ago.
This is the second time this has happened to me in as many years. I got bends symptoms (aka Decompression Sickness – DCS) but didn’t really have DCS. I’ve been diving steadily for the last seven years and have logged over 135 dives. I’m 59 and in very good health.
I was on a boat dive out of Jupiter, FL doing two drift dives in about 90 swf. Before the dives the Dive Master instructed that those of us breathing air should keep our bottom time to 25 minutes.
On my first dive my maximum depth was 91 swf although I kept my nominal depth between 77 and 83 swf. After 25 minutes I started my ascent at a rate under 1 ft every 2 seconds. Keep in mind this was a drift dive, so there was no anchor line to make my ascent on. It was purely finning up and keeping an eye on my depth gauge. At 30 swf I made a safety stop for one minute and a five minute safety stop at 15 swf. My total surface-to-surface time was 38 minutes. I had a 1 hr, 2 min surface interval between dives.
On my second dive my maximum depth was 78 swf keeping a nominal depth between 66 and 75 swf. Again, after 25 minutes I ascended at the same rate making a one minute safety stop at 30 swf and a five minute safety stop at 15 swf. My total surface-to-surface time was 37 minutes.
As I was driving home, I started getting a rash on my chest and abdomen about two hours after the last dive. An hour later I got those headaches that cause part of your vision to get blurred. Needless to say, I thought, “Oh s__t! Am I getting the bends?” But after a while, both of those symptoms went away. Then I started feeling tingling sensations in small areas of my arms and legs, but there was no joint pain. I was also feeling extremely fatigued. Let me caveat that by saying I had a 3 hour, 15 minute drive each way to Jupiter and had to get up at 4:30AM to make it to the boat.
That night I woke up at 2AM and started getting really scared because I had a 2 hour flight scheduled for 7PM that day and still had some tingling in my bicep and still felt wiped. I tried to reason that my flight was more than 30 hours after my last dive but that didn’t help. I called DAN (thank goodness I had DAN!) and relayed my situation. The dive physician on the line believed I didn’t have DCS, but suggested I go to the emergency room in the morning.
After spending four hours in ER where they took blood, x-rays, and an MRI of my head, the attending physician who had experience in dive medicine said it didn’t look like I had DCS and cleared me for flying that night.
Now my wife, who hates me diving to begin with, went ballistic since this was the second time something like this has happened and strongly recommended I give up diving.
Sorry this is so long, but this forum is a good place to vent and I need some good feedback. I plan to suspend diving for the next month but don’t plan on giving it up. I know I’ll be paranoid about getting those symptoms again even though I plan to dive conservatively once I get back into it. Has anyone out there had similar situations?
__________________
Best know shark repellent: Play a banjo underwater.
This is the second time this has happened to me in as many years. I got bends symptoms (aka Decompression Sickness – DCS) but didn’t really have DCS. I’ve been diving steadily for the last seven years and have logged over 135 dives. I’m 59 and in very good health.
I was on a boat dive out of Jupiter, FL doing two drift dives in about 90 swf. Before the dives the Dive Master instructed that those of us breathing air should keep our bottom time to 25 minutes.
On my first dive my maximum depth was 91 swf although I kept my nominal depth between 77 and 83 swf. After 25 minutes I started my ascent at a rate under 1 ft every 2 seconds. Keep in mind this was a drift dive, so there was no anchor line to make my ascent on. It was purely finning up and keeping an eye on my depth gauge. At 30 swf I made a safety stop for one minute and a five minute safety stop at 15 swf. My total surface-to-surface time was 38 minutes. I had a 1 hr, 2 min surface interval between dives.
On my second dive my maximum depth was 78 swf keeping a nominal depth between 66 and 75 swf. Again, after 25 minutes I ascended at the same rate making a one minute safety stop at 30 swf and a five minute safety stop at 15 swf. My total surface-to-surface time was 37 minutes.
As I was driving home, I started getting a rash on my chest and abdomen about two hours after the last dive. An hour later I got those headaches that cause part of your vision to get blurred. Needless to say, I thought, “Oh s__t! Am I getting the bends?” But after a while, both of those symptoms went away. Then I started feeling tingling sensations in small areas of my arms and legs, but there was no joint pain. I was also feeling extremely fatigued. Let me caveat that by saying I had a 3 hour, 15 minute drive each way to Jupiter and had to get up at 4:30AM to make it to the boat.
That night I woke up at 2AM and started getting really scared because I had a 2 hour flight scheduled for 7PM that day and still had some tingling in my bicep and still felt wiped. I tried to reason that my flight was more than 30 hours after my last dive but that didn’t help. I called DAN (thank goodness I had DAN!) and relayed my situation. The dive physician on the line believed I didn’t have DCS, but suggested I go to the emergency room in the morning.
After spending four hours in ER where they took blood, x-rays, and an MRI of my head, the attending physician who had experience in dive medicine said it didn’t look like I had DCS and cleared me for flying that night.
Now my wife, who hates me diving to begin with, went ballistic since this was the second time something like this has happened and strongly recommended I give up diving.
Sorry this is so long, but this forum is a good place to vent and I need some good feedback. I plan to suspend diving for the next month but don’t plan on giving it up. I know I’ll be paranoid about getting those symptoms again even though I plan to dive conservatively once I get back into it. Has anyone out there had similar situations?
Get checked for a PFO. Over 25% of all divers have them, and this would easily cause your problem..If it is the cause, your choice is either to have the PFO "repaired", or to give up scuba diving....you could still freedive though :-)
I remember I always used to get this shoulder ache almost everytime I went diving. I assumed it was a reoccuring DCS problem. Then I dove a pure O2 rebreather a few times and had the same ache. Turns out it was just a normal joint pain...
Sounds like you get worried a lot. Maybe you should just dive in a really conservative way to remove any doubt that you are ok.
Prior to the PFO checking, I should ask what your fitness level or body fat level is---not to be cruel, but people who are severely overweight "can have" such poor perfusion --poor bloodflow between tissues, that normal dive tables could be too aggressive for them. If this is unlikely to apply to your bodyfat level and or fitness, then I am back to the PFO checking..
Dan
Over 50% of reported DCS cases in the US are in divers who did not offend the table limits-so said a neurologist during a Feb. 2008 lecture on neurological complications of diving.
patent foreman ovale - condition where the Foreman Ovale, an opening between the right and the left atria, fails to close after birth. It allows blood to circulate between the right and the left atria in unborn children.
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