Question Panic in the experienced diver?

It would seem to me that, as we gain experience and go through some minor glitches on dives, we should increase our capacity to tolerate issues underwater. I'm wondering what could cause an experienced (say, more than 200 lifetime dives) diver to become distressed enough to lose rational thought. Has anyone here (who meets those criteria) been through a panic event? What caused it, and what did you do?

 

[Texas-Tom]

I don't have 200 dives, but i did have an experience relatively recently that was somewhat near panic.


So in general, i have had incidents occur and whenever they do, i seem to react pretty well to them. I keep a very detailed dive notebook, and i have listed in it things to do/check prior to a dive, things to check/do post dive, and a long list of things to keep in mind during a dive, as well as a very detailed "If X occurs, do Y" list of items. Any time someone on Scubaboard discusses something that I haven't thought of, or just some small item that could help me, i write it down. Before every dive I review this notebook, I'm by trade an engineer and it just seems like i should have attention to detail and know how all this stuff works before i take it on. I'm comfortable in the water, and i dive in Texas lakes so I'm used to somewhat low visibility, and my buoyancy/trim is getting there, so I guess I just feel confidence building dive by dive.


So I fly to Cancun for three days of diving a few weeks ago. Prior to this have only been in Texas lakes, or quick Florida trips, sites not too advanced in terms of diving. Go on cenotes dives the first day (first time doing that), going in and out of caverns, just feel comfortable, I even tell my dive partner I'm going to switch out my mask to backup just to practice while we are in the darker parts of the cavern, no problems. Next day, go on deep dive to about 85', while I'm down at the wreck, feel strong current, my backup regulator free flows, i fix it, keep going, just feel fine. I'm down there, a guy is trying to fight the current and uses his hands to do a swimming motion (i find out later) versus just
kicking, and 100% rips my mask completely off with his hand. Like it was on my face and then bam, it was just GONE. I don't even think, i just
grab my backup out of my side pocket, put the backup mask on, and I swear i don't remember doing it, my body just did it, i replaced it,
and i was fine, didn't even lose buoyancy. Perfect day of diving. Day 3, i do my very first drift dive, and current is very strong, like I've never experienced current like this. I see my first shark, a few barracuda, very cool stuff. But i was having some problems equalizing, so i was probably 6' higher than everyone else in the pack. And that was just high enough to have stronger current. I'm having so much fun, I'm looking around, and then I look and I'm about 20' from the pack. Felt like i was ok, but what was happening was i was starting to kinda drift away from the pack, faster and faster. No idea why its happening, all of a sudden I'm like 50' from the pack, and I was downstream of them. I swear then
where i was at had a current starting to point in a different direction, and i felt like the group was kinda curving and i was going in another slightly different angle. I felt (step 1) uncomfortable, like i needed to get back fast, because i was drifting away. I tell myself to point towards them and use about 50% kick to get back to them. Doesn't work at ALL. I felt (step 2) very uncomfortable, like i was in a pretty strong current and it was odd, i literally felt like i was all of a sudden in a very powerful world and i was a tiny little spec in it, hard to describe, like i was nothing compared to the water. I tell myself to kick 90% throttle back to group, it does very very little, to the point where if i kept that pace up, it wouldn't matter that much and i wouldn't make much headway, and I'd burn thru my air, and thus i feel (step 3) like on the edge of low-level panic, and maybe beginning of C02 hit, not sure. I just 100% stop at that point, breathe deep, stop thinking about things, just focus on maintaining control of my senses, and walk thru the worst case scenario. Im ok on air, im not tired, Im just worried about stuff and I need to stop worrying, but if i had OOG situation, I was too far away from my dive buddy to be able to do much about it. About three seconds later, im completely fine. i lower my altitude so im closer to the coral, less current, and i slow down enough and kick gently a bit and catch up with everyone, perfectly fine. We ascend, things are fine, and I felt embarrassed. Things were going well and it was a scenario I hadn't accounted for, and the WORST thing about this is that i felt TERRIBLE about being a bad dive buddy. If my dive buddy had needed air from me, i was NOT there for him. It was a mistake because I should have been paying more attention. Lesson learned. But the part that i will never forget was feeling a sequence of events in my mind of going thru stages of closer and closer to panic, and its like i could see it happening in my mind and i just had to stop going down that path and things would be perfectly fine.

 

[TMHeimer]

Capable is a safe choice of words. Arguing that anyone will panic in the right circumstance defies a lot of evidence. Many people have died resigned to their death or continue trying until losing consciousness.

I agree with both you and bowlofpetunias. I don't RECALL having really panicked at all (not just diving) and am almost 61. But as I said, I don't know how one could ever prove that one of these "non-panickers to their death" are really immune to panic, or the right situation just never came about. Anyone with ideas let us know.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I agree with both you and bowlofpetunias. I don't RECALL having really panicked at all (not just diving) and am almost 61. But as I said, I don't know how one could ever prove that one of these "non-panickers to their death" are really immune to panic, or the right situation just never came about. Anyone with ideas let us know.

Ok try this one on for size. You are in bed with a beatiful women. You are naked. It doesn't matter if you are home in your bed or in her home....

Suddenly you hear the front door slam open and a voice yells out "Honey I'm Home".

 

[Akimbo]

… But as I said, I don't know how one could ever prove that one of these "non-panickers to their death" are really immune to panic, or the right situation just never came about. Anyone with ideas let us know.

I suppose that proving someone will never panic requires being dead in addition to being exposed to an unusual number of life-threatening experiences. I think it is fair to say that military Special Forces are proven to be very effective at selecting and training for it. Has anyone ever heard of a Special member from a major military power panic? I suppose someone suffering from severe PTSD who is left undiagnosed is a possibility. I am “guessing” that they would be more likely to go catatonic that panic though.

---------- Post added March 16th, 2015 at 05:56 PM ----------

… Suddenly you hear the front door slam open and a voice yells out "Honey I'm Home".

That is a case where I would resign myself to death or run like hell. That is no time to waste time on frenetic and unproductive activity.

 

[TSandM]

I do think people vary in temperament, some being more anxious at baseline than others. And I also think tolerance for stress is very trainable. We used to laugh and say that, by the end of your second year of surgical residency, your panic button had been pushed so often that it didn't work any more. When you read the story of Parker Turner's death, you read the story of someone who kept working a problem to the very end. What his mental state was when he had to take that first breath of water, we will never know, but up until that point, he appears to have been functioning rationally. I don't think many of us would do that, and I also don't know whether a stress that came out of nowhere might have been harder for him to cope with than one he could see coming from a long way away.

 

[ozzydamo]

I don't have 200 dives, but i did have an experience relatively recently that was somewhat near panic.


So in general, i have had incidents occur and whenever they do, i seem to react pretty well to them. I keep a very detailed dive notebook, and i have listed in it things to do/check prior to a dive, things to check/do post dive, and a long list of things to keep in mind during a dive, as well as a very detailed "If X occurs, do Y" list of items. Any time someone on Scubaboard discusses something that I haven't thought of, or just some small item that could help me, i write it down. Before every dive I review this notebook, I'm by trade an engineer and it just seems like i should have attention to detail and know how all this stuff works before i take it on. I'm comfortable in the water, and i dive in Texas lakes so I'm used to somewhat low visibility, and my buoyancy/trim is getting there, so I guess I just feel confidence building dive by dive.


So I fly to Cancun for three days of diving a few weeks ago. Prior to this have only been in Texas lakes, or quick Florida trips, sites not too advanced in terms of diving. Go on cenotes dives the first day (first time doing that), going in and out of caverns, just feel comfortable, I even tell my dive partner I'm going to switch out my mask to backup just to practice while we are in the darker parts of the cavern, no problems. Next day, go on deep dive to about 85', while I'm down at the wreck, feel strong current, my backup regulator free flows, i fix it, keep going, just feel fine. I'm down there, a guy is trying to fight the current and uses his hands to do a swimming motion (i find out later) versus just
kicking, and 100% rips my mask completely off with his hand. Like it was on my face and then bam, it was just GONE. I don't even think, i just
grab my backup out of my side pocket, put the backup mask on, and I swear i don't remember doing it, my body just did it, i replaced it,
and i was fine, didn't even lose buoyancy. Perfect day of diving. Day 3, i do my very first drift dive, and current is very strong, like I've never experienced current like this. I see my first shark, a few barracuda, very cool stuff. But i was having some problems equalizing, so i was probably 6' higher than everyone else in the pack. And that was just high enough to have stronger current. I'm having so much fun, I'm looking around, and then I look and I'm about 20' from the pack. Felt like i was ok, but what was happening was i was starting to kinda drift away from the pack, faster and faster. No idea why its happening, all of a sudden I'm like 50' from the pack, and I was downstream of them. I swear then
where i was at had a current starting to point in a different direction, and i felt like the group was kinda curving and i was going in another slightly different angle. I felt (step 1) uncomfortable, like i needed to get back fast, because i was drifting away. I tell myself to point towards them and use about 50% kick to get back to them. Doesn't work at ALL. I felt (step 2) very uncomfortable, like i was in a pretty strong current and it was odd, i literally felt like i was all of a sudden in a very powerful world and i was a tiny little spec in it, hard to describe, like i was nothing compared to the water. I tell myself to kick 90% throttle back to group, it does very very little, to the point where if i kept that pace up, it wouldn't matter that much and i wouldn't make much headway, and I'd burn thru my air, and thus i feel (step 3) like on the edge of low-level panic, and maybe beginning of C02 hit, not sure. I just 100% stop at that point, breathe deep, stop thinking about things, just focus on maintaining control of my senses, and walk thru the worst case scenario. Im ok on air, im not tired, Im just worried about stuff and I need to stop worrying, but if i had OOG situation, I was too far away from my dive buddy to be able to do much about it. About three seconds later, im completely fine. i lower my altitude so im closer to the coral, less current, and i slow down enough and kick gently a bit and catch up with everyone, perfectly fine. We ascend, things are fine, and I felt embarrassed. Things were going well and it was a scenario I hadn't accounted for, and the WORST thing about this is that i felt TERRIBLE about being a bad dive buddy. If my dive buddy had needed air from me, i was NOT there for him. It was a mistake because I should have been paying more attention. Lesson learned. But the part that i will never forget was feeling a sequence of events in my mind of going thru stages of closer and closer to panic, and its like i could see it happening in my mind and i just had to stop going down that path and things would be perfectly fine.

Welcome to the thermocline! A humbling experience.
Highly likely you were a good tad positive, catching lots of current, sailing and wasting your energy. You've reach the point where you begin to realise, hey "I could die here!". You over play it for a while, after 50 dives it(that fear/anxiety) should slowly back off, at 100dives you'll be happy as larry!

Try to do lots of dives quickly now, it will help you stay in the dive scene.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I do think people vary in temperament, some being more anxious at baseline than others. And I also think tolerance for stress is very trainable. We used to laugh and say that, by the end of your second year of surgical residency, your panic button had been pushed so often that it didn't work any more. When you read the story of Parker Turner's death, you read the story of someone who kept working a problem to the very end. What his mental state was when he had to take that first breath of water, we will never know, but up until that point, he appears to have been functioning rationally. I don't think many of us would do that, and I also don't know whether a stress that came out of nowhere might have been harder for him to cope with than one he could see coming from a long way away.

The divers that recovered Aggie's body also said there was absolutely no evidence of panic. She appeared to be trying to work her way out of her problem right to the very end.

I wonder if determination, strong self belief and perhaps even a bit of embarrassment play a bit of a role as well. I remember the crew from my son's Ambulance Station talking about recovering the body of a guy who ignored advice not to use the Ice Road across the lake, to go the long way by land because the ice was getting to "rotten". His truck went through the ice and he was found in the cab of his truck still in his seat belt, arms crossed. They said if a dead person could look angry he did!

I think there is danger in assuming that nothing can push you over your limit. It seems to me that our continued efforts at training and extending our comfort zone are mostly suprred on by the desire to extend out limits to make us safer.

 

[SillyQuestions]

Do you really feel that high levels of panic resistance are that uncommon?

My third cave dive, I'm alone, 60 minutes of hard dry caving from the surface, then 3 sumps beyond the end of that.

I was squeezing through a 8 inch high gap by shovelling grit out the way with the top of my head/side of my face.

BAM, ripped the diaphragm on my second stage, next breath was water, no space to swap regs, no time to get out the restriction, mouth/throat full of water, I paused, thought, pressed the purge valve into the grit floor and breathed. Did this for several metres until I managed to get out the restriction and change regulators.

Closest thing to panic during the entire episode, is I had a go pro with me, in the blackout digging through the floor had kicked up, with the sound of shovelling grit, you can audibly hear me utter a 4 letter word through the flooded reg....


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[Akimbo]

… Closest thing to panic during the entire episode, is I had a go pro with me, in the blackout digging through the floor had kicked up, with the sound of shovelling grit, you can audibly hear me utter a 4 letter word through the flooded reg....

If that is the standard for defining panic I will have to correct my previous statements. That would mean that most of the Navy and commercial divers I have ever know were in a constant state of panic.

 

[SillyQuestions]

If that is the standard for defining panic I will have to correct my previous statements. That would mean that most of the Navy and commercial divers I have ever know were in a constant state of panic.

I did say closest thing to panic as panic in my eyes are ineffectual actions.

Doing that was ineffectual when faced with a much bigger problem.


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