Vertigo on deco

[TSandM]

So, Saturday, my husband and I did a planned staged decompression dive at Whytecliff Park in Vancouver. The plan was a max depth of 130 and no more than 15 minutes of deco (which we knew we wouldn't reach). We were diving 25/25, with O2 for deco gas. We used scooters to get out to the wall, and the deep portion of the dive was uneventful. We averaged significantly shallower than our plan (which is not unusual) and actually had only about five minutes of mandatory decompression when we left the wall at its top, at about 50 feet.

We started swimming toward shore, and I was following the reciprocal heading we had used coming out. Peter wanted to get us shallower, following the deco plan, so I signaled that I wanted to get on the scooters, because my thought was that, rather than swim and do deco in midwater, we could follow the contour up if we could move faster. He didn't understand why I wanted to get back on the scooters, and he signaled to move up to 20 feet, which was our gas switch depth. I okayed that, but didn't move up as fast as he did, so he disappeared from my view. I am now in midwater with no visual reference and have lost visual contact with my buddy.

I have had serious problems with vertigo in midwater since I started diving, and only about a year ago did someone give me the key -- rapid head movement with no visual reference will start me tumbling. Since I got that piece of advice, I haven't had an episode. But on this dive, I was really worried about losing Peter, because we were both on scooters, in fairly poor visibility. If I continued to motor without being able to see him, it was highly likely we'd get separated, as we'd been disagreeing on the heading all along. If I didn't get on the trigger, we were SURE to be separated, because I could hear his scooter motor running, and it would only take seconds to be unable to see one another. So I began looking for him actively, which involved rolling up on my side and turning my head repeatedly . . . and sure enough, after a couple of iterations, the world broke off its moorings and began tumbling and spinning, and I lost all sense of where up was.

In every prior event like this, I have ended upon the surface. I knew I couldn't afford to do that this day. I couldn't use the scooter, because I didn't know which way was down -- but I knew if I exhaled and vented, I'd sink. The bottom was no deeper than 50 feet, and I was a lot safer hitting it than hitting the surface. I was clawing at the water with my hands, completely disoriented and trying desperately to use the tools I've gained from cave training to get myself sorted out -- where were my bubbles going, and how did my drysuit feel? I finally got to where I knew I was going down, and began trying to arrest my descent and overshot, and yo-yoed badly a couple of times before I got things under control. I could see Peter flashing my hands at one point, but there was NO way I was going to try to look up at him. (I should have given him a "hold" signal, but I didn't have enough processing power at that point to think of it.) Finally, at about 30 feet, I got stopped, got stable, got my breathing and my heart rate under control, and could begin to try to dive again.

Lessons learned:

1) I KNOW I can't search for a buddy in midwater. I shouldn't have tried. If you can't stay where I can see you, you need to stay where you can see me, and be aware that it's YOUR problem at that point.

2) I got it stopped. I could never do that before. I have gained tools from other training that were directly applicable here. No training is ever wasted.

3) It is useful to be able to decide quickly what the biggest danger is. In this case, it was being too shallow. Being too deep I could deal with, and was going to be limited in any case by the hard bottom. Once I decided shallow was bad, I knew what I could do to avoid it, even if I didn't know where I was.

4) If you have a weakness, don't ever think it's been overcome. It can sneak back and bite you at the most unexpected times. Constantly work on the things where you have problems (or, as my wonderful cave instructor said, "Just because you aren't good at something isn't a reason not to do it. It's a reason to do it more often.")

[mselenaous]

Disorientation alone is very unnerving. Glad you have developed some strategies and thought processes to implement them. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[SelkieDVM]

I too sometimes get vertigo when midwater. Usually it passes if I just get still, but I hadn't thought about rapid head movements setting it off. Thanks for the tip, I'll see if it works for me also.

[mania]

1) I KNOW I can't search for a buddy in midwater. I shouldn't have tried. If you can't stay where I can see you, you need to stay where you can see me, and be aware that it's YOUR problem at that point.

As a person who normally dives in a bad vis I and my buddies got used to two things. One - don't separate from your buddy (which sometimes means no scooters). Second - if I don't see the buddy I don't search for him - continue the deco and surface. If it's not a deco dive we have a rule that we look for each pother for a minute and then ascend to the surface and look for each other on the surface.

2) I got it stopped. I could never do that before. I have gained tools from other training that were directly applicable here. No training is ever wasted.

Absolutly agree. I did exactly the same you did - during the deco stop moved a bit, with my head "going around" - mainly because, honestly speaking, I find deco extremly boring . So even in the nidwater I try to look around. And he always says it will one day end up in the vertigo I would not be able to control.

4) If you have a weakness, don't ever think it's been overcome. It can sneak back and bite you at the most unexpected times. Constantly work on the things where you have problems (or, as my wonderful cave instructor said, "Just because you aren't good at something isn't a reason not to do it. It's a reason to do it more often.")

Easy to say. BUt I found out many times that even if I don't feel comfortable I think it will pass soon. The only exception are overhead (caves in particular). The moemnt I don't feel perfect I call off the dive.

Lynn thanks for you story because that's something I still have to have in mind and stop looking around so strongly as I normally do.

[piikki]

Ouch that is scary!
As I am not a scooterer, I’d be interested in hearing what is the general protocol for searching when losing a buddy in poor viz when scootering (or what was yours in this case)?

I think you did what you had to do, and like you said you know you have a fairly serious issue and it flared up because you tried to do something you knew would flare it up. Scooter, midwater, no viz, separation – I agree that’s enough reason to make a pre-dive agreement that once separated you will not be of much help because you will be trying to manage yourself to point X without getting into further trouble. Trying to figure out what to do, getting more anxious and most likely getting head movements jerkier is not helping any with triggering the vertigo. Either that or it’s back to clear water with scooter because to my understanding it’s fairly easy to lose a buddy on scooter.

The scary part is about the nature of the dive (even though for deco dive the deco was pretty insignificant), and what could have happened if the bottom was, say at 200ft. It would probably have added significantly to the stress you were experiencing not to have shallow hard bottom as a crutch.

I had a bad year with diving, and it was very frustrating to begin nearly every dive with “and I need to warn you that I won’t be able to do that” or “if it comes to that just hold, it will take me a little longer”. Yet buddies need to know about serious weaknesses and changes, so that nobody gets into unnecessary trouble. Or, I guess, someone can say “No” if the weakness is too much for them.

[DCBC]

Sounds like you have had an unnerving experience. You kept your head, thought it through and pulled everything together. The only thing I could add is that you didn't lose contact with your buddy; you lost contact with each other (I hope Peter learned something from this experience).

Thanks for sharing this with everyone. It really stresses the point that regardless of the equipment & training, situations can occur that are beyond our control. Something that we all have to consider. It's always a sobering reminder... :-)

[Jax]

Thanks, TS&M!

Question - if one is in your position, can't you use your bubbles and depth guage to "suspend" for deco? -- this is absent the vertigo, of course --

[TSandM]

Mania, I don't think it's necessarily the case that no one should look around on deco -- but if you're susceptible to vertigo, as I know I am, it's a definite risk. Most divers I know have never had vertigo, and often don't even understand what I'm talking about when I describe what happens to me in midwater.

Piiki, our normal separation protocol is search for one minute and surface; we had never actually discussed a separation protocol on a dive with mandatory deco (and come to think of it, we didn't discuss this in my class, either) but clearly we should. In this case, we were never actually separated; Peter could always see ME. I was just at a loss to know what to do when I couldn't see HIM, because if I didn't keep scootering, we could get separated (I didn't know if he knew I wasn't with him at that point) and if I DID keep scootering, we could quickly become separated if I was going even a modest amount in a different direction.

Had we been over 200 feet of water, we would have been doing a direct ascent with a bag shoot, and this wouldn't have happened.

And yes, I can use the bubbles going up each side of my head to stabilize myself, as well as how my feet feel in my drysuit and how my gear feels on my body. But it takes a little time to check all those things and integrate them, and during the few seconds it takes me to do that, my personal experience is that I am tumbling violently. It's very unpleasant. Of course, the kicking and clawing I do actually CREATES the instability I think I have (but don't), so it's really important to suppress the urge to do those things.

I was not at all happy that this happened to me, but I was, in the end, very pleased with myself that I got it stopped without ending up on the surface. The profile wouldn't be pretty, and it's certainly not optimal decompression ( ) but I GOT IT STOPPED. Having this lurking in the back of my mind has made me worried about the diving I'm doing, and has kept my profiles EXTREMELY conservative (even when I plan to go into deco, in the end, I usually either don't or I clear it early in the ascent process. The only exception was the Red Sea, where I could SEE.)

In debriefing the dive, one of the things we talked about is that we had not agreed on an ascent strategy -- direct or bottom contour. We did that on the second dive, and it went much better. I definitely learned that midwater scootering deco shouldn't be part of my dive plans yet!

We don't learn without stretching a little, but occasionally the ocean bites back and tells you you overestimated yourself

[piikki]

our normal separation protocol is search for one minute and surface; we had never actually discussed a separation protocol on a dive with mandatory deco (and come to think of it, we didn't discuss this in my class, either) but clearly we should.

Uh, would say so. I thought you had the deco separation covered but maybe the deco+scootering separation in low viz plan was missing (whether or not genuine separation happened).
Odd thing to omit from a course even if one was to give just the "depends" answers for couple of usual scenarios. Quite obvious the search 1+surface is not going to work here.

[pickens_46929]

Hey Lynn,

I really feel for you with the vertigo. It's definitely no fun when it happens.

I appreciate you sharing this experience (as well as all the other dive reports too!).

1) Since you know what triggers this -- midwater with no visual references and head movement, it sounds like it's time to develop a standard procedure to address just such a scenario (as well as perhaps a backup procedure as well).

1a) How about shooting a bag? Rather than spend the 1 minute searching, since you're at a disadvantage in terms of rapid head movement, you could shoot a bag which provides you with a visual reference and your buddy could instead come look for you.

1b) As a backup plan to shooting a bag, sounds like dropping to the bottom if you know the profile / depth would be good... again, not looking around to trigger the vertigo but rather simple drop to the bottom and follow the contour up... letting your buddy search for you or at least providing you some reference to search for your buddy a bit.

2) Since you know your predisposed to vertigo, you feel like there's an underlying cause or simple motion induced vertigo (ie. ears don't agree with eyes and brain gets confused)?

2a) Miniere's syndrome?

2b) Calcium deposits?

Again, thanks for sharing!