How an easy dive can go south at the drop of a hat.

[toliver66]

I had an incident right after I got my OW cert. My buddy and I were cruising along at about 40ft against a slight current. There were a few jelly fish around so we were wearing full body protection including a lycra hood. We would swim a little ways and then stop and grab hold of a rock and look around and check stuff out. And then... WHAM!!! I got hit by what felt like a massive electrical shock across my forehead. I jerked back and some how the quick release buckle on my weight belt released. I'm not sure how... I think I must have brushed against it with my hand or arm when I brought it up to my face in a defensive manor. But I had the presents of mind to grab hold of my weight belt before it slipped completely off causing me to rocket to the surface. Well needless to say this left me in one hell of a predicament. Hanging there upside down, my weight belt in one hand, my head in the other, in immense pain to the point of making me nauseous, scared, confused as to what the hell just happened, desperately trying in vain to vent my BCD not realizing that I couldn't because both dump valves were on the shoulders and not only that but it wouldn't have done any good anyways as I was wearing a 1/4 inch farmer john wet-suit. All I could think was "LET GO, LET GO, LET GO!!!" but luckily my training kicked in and I herd my instructors voice in my head "Stop, Think, Act!". He drilled that phrase into us at every opportunity during our OW class and thank god he did. And that is exactly what I did. Stop... think about it... letting go and shooting to the surface is NOT a good idea! Your ok, your reg is still in your mouth, you have plenty of air, and your stationary so just chill out and relax a minute. So I just chilled out for what seemed like an eternity and let the pain subside somewhat. Once I calmed down I realized I had gotten popped good by a jelly fish that raked across my fore head where my hood had pulled back from my mask. And once again my training kicked in and I realized I wasn't bad off at all and all I had to do was put my weight belt back on which I not only learned how to do in OW but also had to demonstrate multiple times to my instructor. So I did exactly that and except for still realling from the pain of getting stung I was back to square one. My buddy was in sight but apparently oblivious to what just happened. I caught up to him, gave him the surface sign, and we made a standard slow save ascent. Once on the surface I explained what happened and we called the dive.

It was one of these bad-boys that got me.


It left nasty swollen red whelps across my forehead that even vinegar did little to relieve. The whelps scabbed over and I had what looked like a funky nasty rug burn across my forehead for a few days.

I learned a few valuable lessons from this experience that have made me a much better diver.

1. I can handle myself under duress and think my way out of a panic situation.
2. As my indecent describes, any dive, no matter how elementary, can unexpectedly go south at the drop of a hat at any moment, so practice your skills, keep em fresh, and stay sharp.
3. Never get complacence, always plan for and be prepared for something to go wrong at any second.
4. And most importantly, jelly fish don't make good dive buddies!

Thanks for reading, be safe, have fun!

 

[Scuba_Noob]

Wow, good story. The solution to most problems underwater is to stop, breathe, and think. Once you realize that you have time to figure stuff out, you can fix things.

Good tips and lessons too.

 

[Todd-up-north]

Good description of stop think and act. Well done. I especially appreciate when you shared that when you realized you had air, you had time to consider your options.
I always liked a saying I heard from an old instructor, I think it was Lou Fead. "Look down for safety." Meaning stop and work it out - the panicked rush to the surfaces was last and least safe option in most emergencies. You just described that rather well.
Happy and safe diving to you!

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

It's always good to stop and think. But I have to ask, how did you go through all this an your buddy not notice anything? How far ahead of you was he?

 

[kathydee]

Glad you were able to pause, think and sort the problem out.

Maybe a Wing/BC with a bottom dump is a good investment ?

 

[Tigerman]

Good job keeping your cool and getting safely back to the surface - jellyfish stings can sting like a bitch.

Just one thing I dont understand though - Why whould you rocket to your surface while holding the weight belt in your hand instead of having it around your waist? The bouyancy wouldnt be different regardless of where you put the weight. Trim will, but not bouyancy.

"desperately trying in vain to vent my BCD not realizing that I couldn't because both dump valves were on the shoulders and not only that but it wouldn't have done any good anyways as I was wearing a 1/4 inch farmer john wet-suit"

...

Maybe a Wing/BC with a bottom dump is a good investment

?

I use my assdump all the time myself

 

[kathydee]

Just one thing I dont understand though - Why whould you rocket to your surface while holding the weight belt in your hand instead of having it around your waist? The bouyancy wouldnt be different regardless of where you put the weight. Trim will, but not bouyancy.

Was exactly my thought: He managed to solve everything, so good job!

But it probably would have been a bit less stressful to butt dump gas from the BC, establish neutrality, and then sort the issues out.

If he was properly weighted with plenty of gas still in the tanks, AND holding his weight belt - buoyancy control with dump valves in the BC shouldn't be any issue. I can't see how diving a 1/4" wetsuit at 40 ft has any bearing not being able to dump BC gas and establish neutrality in this situation.

Perhaps his weight was light, or he just didn't realize there was gas in the wing that could be dumped? It's easy to over look details when in that kind of pain - My mind went blank with anguish the day I ran directly into a long stream of Lion's Mane tentacles at 50 feet. Glad I didn't have a free weight belt, trim/buoyancy loss/and no rear dump valve to deal with also!

It's impressive that he solved all those problems .

 

[toliver66]

Hi guys and gals, thanks for reading and for your interest. But it seems like some clarification and/or more detail is in order. So Lets see... first in answer to ScubaSteve1962 , my buddy was leading, facing away from me, about 10 to 15 feet away, and totaly enthrolled by what ever it was he was looking at,. I was swiming along be hind in a follow the leader sort of fashion. One thing you have to realize is that this happened in probably less time than it took to read the story. To answer Tigerman's question, when I was thinking "LET GO, LET GO, LET GO!!!" I was thinking let go of the weight belt which would have caused me to rocket to the surface (well.. maybe not "rocket to the surface" but a very rapid ascent at any rate, but that was my thinking at the time). My farmer john has a jacket that I was wearing at the time which makes it 1/2" thick in the torso area and it's really not compressed all that much at 40'. And your right, my trim shift was the problem. I was hanging there upside down with all my weight in my hand instead of around my waist. My main focus at the time was the intense pain in my head and not where I was holding my weight belt so my arm just kind of went were it was being pulled and my body went where it was being pulled. Which left me in an upside down predicament. To answer both kathydee and Tigerman... we didn't have wings or ass-dumps 20 years ago. Or at least not that I remember, at any rate I didn't have one at the time. And finally in response to kathydee, I was 20 something years old at the time, 163 lbs soaking wet, skinny as a rail (think Jacques Cousteau size), and wearing 16 lbs of weight which is what it took to float eye level at the surface. There was very little if any gas in my BC so I may have been a little light. But as you pointed out I was in excruciating pain, on the verge of panic, and not thinking clearly. I didn't start to think clearly until after I put the "Stop, Think, Act!" philosophy into action. Once I calmed down and gained control of the situation instead of the situation controlling me I quickly realized that I wasn't in dire straights at all and quickly remedied the situation.

There were ample opportunities for my situation to have escalated to a very bad situation. I could have wound up bent from a rapid ascent from 40' at the very least or drowned at the very worst. Thank the gods I'll never know!

 

[Tigerman]

Thanks for the clarifications. And yes, I do agree that letting go the weight belt woulda been kinda extremely bad
It was however the part that "you couldnt dump because you where inverted" and "it wouldnt have done any good if you could because you wore a 1/5'' farmer john" that confused me, not the letting go part..

EDIT: Looks like the suit got compressed a bit along the way.. 1/4" that shoulda been ofc

 

[kathydee]

Thanks for the clarification, the story makes much more sense now .

I must have had 700+ish dives when the jellyfish slapped me, so had the capacity to just observe the pain. Took out my regulator and purged some bubbles on the jelly fish fragments plastered all over my mask, gloves and face to remove the aggressive stinging cells without rubbing them and creating a bigger problem.

As a beginner, I can only imagine the moment of panic, glad you didn't drop that weight belt & all ended ok ;-).