Lessons Most frightening moments

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After seeing how the post I wrote about the reverse block resonated with people, I would like to make another post today, namely about the most frightening moments I've ever had.

It's easy, particularly for novice divers, to think that people like myself, with decades of experience, thousands of dives and a deck of c-cards have everything under control and nothing bad ever happens.

I wrote about the reverse block because of that. I wanted to show that I am still human and I can still make mistakes. On the internet there is a strong tendency for (technical) divers and instructors with a lot of experience to project an image of themselves as always solving problems correctly, always making the best decisions, and in the case of instructors in particular, having a monopoly on good ideas that lead to perfect students diving perfectly.

None of that, of course, reflects reality at all.

So I will start. I urge experienced divers to share their own stories.

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First
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1985. I was certified as AOW and we were making a deep dive along a wall. The bottom, for all intents and purposes, at the bottom of the wall was unsurvivable. A diver who diving with a group slightly ahead of us got caught in a large ball of discarded fishing line that he didn't see. He started sinking. The incident started at 42 meters. My buddy and I had just started our dive and we saw this happening. Nobody in his group did. We went after him. This was the first time I had dived deeper than 42 meters. I couldn't tell how deep we were when we caught him because the (analogue) depth gauge I was using was pinned at its maximum depth. This was also my first deco dive or at least my first dive where I was "off the tables" and unable to to know how to ascend. I was, at that time, unaware of oxygen toxicity, gas management and ascent protocols. We returned (at a rapid pace) to 30ft. (10m) and waited there until our tanks were empty on the assumption that any damage done by our deep incursion would be fixed by that. Upon surfacing we didn't know if we were going to get the bends or not. I was, frankly, scared. It still gives me the heebiejeebies to think about this incident more than 30 years later. We did something there that was completely out of control (also the rescue) and we got off easy.

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Second
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2002, I think. I was working as a DM. We temporarily lost a diver during a dive. The situation was that we were on a platform at 25m and doing some exercises for the AOW (deep) dive. A group of divers (maybe 6) descending LANDED on us and kicked up so much silt in their attempts to slow down before impacting the bottom that the visibility went from 5m to black-out in a matter of seconds. I grabbed the two divers right in front of me and dragged them out of the silt cloud. One of them turned out to be our diver and the other one turned out to be one of the idiots who landed on us. We were missing a diver. We surfaced. Naturally our divers were told to surface if they became separated but this diver did not. He remained where he was and waited to be rescued. On the surface we decided that I would search for the missing diver because I had the most experience of everyone (including the instructor). At that point I was a DM but I was already technically trained. I had very limited time. I went back down and eventually found him but it was luck. He survived and my beard got grayer overnight. If I couldn't have found him in the next 5 min his death would have been on my conscience until I died. This was so frightening to me that I nearly abandoned all plans I had to become an instructor.

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Third
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The accident. My team saved the life of a diver who ran out of air during an AOW training dive (by another group, not mine) and was left for dead on the bottom at 18m. We acted quickly and professionally and got him into the hands of paramedics within about 10 min. As an aside, the fact that the Dutch paramedics were able to be on scene so quickly was no small part of this! He looked dead when we retrieved him. He lay in coma for several weeks after the incident. Doctors had basically written him off when -- unexpectedly to all -- he woke up and subsequently made a reasonable (albeit not full) recovery.

The impact on myself and on the members of my team was substantial, particularly because of what we viewed as our 'mistakes'. One diver (the DM) stopped diving. He started hyperventilating during the descent to find the "body" and after that he started to hyperventilate on EVERY dive. He stopped diving.

To me it changed EVERYTHING about how I view training and my role as an instructor. I didn't organize things on the surface as well as I could have, if I had had a second run at it. Yes, I had the EMS on site in 10 min. Police, paramedics, trauma doctor, helicopter, fire department with a boat, a private boat.... all of that I had..... but I was overwhelmed and not communicating as well as I could.

Someone tried to chase my (uncertified) OW students into the water to go search. He didn't know that they were uncertified and I ripped him a new one in a way that I regret, giving in to the emotion. An NOB (CMAS) instructor showed me by example how to control the dive site in a way I had never learned, I missed seeing a diver (the DM who caused the accident) displaying passive panic. It only became apparent to me when they had to take him away by ambulance when he collapsed.... it was MUCH more messy scene than I had ever imagined and I was not in control as well as I would expect from myself. At one point, once the EMS had control of the surface situation I grabbed another diver (a DM) and went searching myself. This was a mistake. I can't get over the mind set that drove me to ACT when I SHOULD have been coordinating! I'm like the guy who charges into a burning building because I can't fight the urge to DO SOMETHING! I HATE that about myself.

Since that time (it's been years) I've been replaying that event in my mind and thinking, "if I had only done XXXX then YYYY". It drives me CRAZY to think that if we were sharper we could have found him 30 seconds or a minute earlier and his recovery could have been better. The fact that he survived is utterly astounding. These things never end like that.... but I feel responsible for the fact that it took so long.

This was a formative moment in my diving. I considered stopping as well but eventually decided not not to. To this day I cannot -- and will not -- teach or participate in the Rescue course, even though I may be the one instructor in my circle who is most qualified to talk about the differences between theory and practice. It's just too intimidating.
 
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Never thought I would be on this one. March 17, 2019 on the Big Island with a bunch of other retired schoolteachers. My wife, buddy, and I were doing a shore dive at Two Step. We had dove this site two days earlier, no problems. We went out 200-300 yards on the surface, planning to follow the coral back. My buddy started having issues at the surface, hyperventilating, coughing up yellow gunk. Didn't stop, so we called the dive. He was having enough trouble, I had him slip out of his BC then climb on it so I could backpedal him back and watch him more easily while my wife pushed. After about 50 yds, he said "John, I think I messed up.", eyes rolled back, head dropped toward the water. My wife caught his head, I rolled him into a cross chest carry and we kept going. 50 yds from the entry, his wife came up, needless to say concerned, I told her to go clear out the entry as we had a medical issue. As we came in, I realized I was going to have fun getting out of my gear to get him up on the rocks, but figured we were just going to have to deal with it. As we approached, two people who somehow hadn't cleared out, reached past me and in one motion pulled him up and began compressions and rescue breathing. There were about 5 people obviously way past my training and I became the timer. It was like a CPR training video, all these were trained medical professionals on vacation who jumped in when they heard of the need. There was an MD and her husband an anesthesiologist who was administering one of two oxygen tanks that had appeared while she monitored vitals. Took 7 minutes to get good pulse and breathing, three people doing compressions and two nurses rescue breathing as needed. An AED appeared, but wasn't needed. Took 25 min for the ambulance to get there, then he coded inside and had compressions for 4 more minutes. The hospital said they had a 2% survival rate on water rescues at that site, and to expect severe neurological damage due to lack of oxygen to the brain. My friend is a miracle man. He's at home, trying to get stronger, using PT for help. but still has the sense of humor that's made him famous. Spent two weeks in the hospital in Oahu, cardiologist said after the heart catheter he has no arterial blockage, valves working perfectly, no heart damage at all. He put in an ICD, internal cardiac defribulator, similar to a pacemaker but only hits if there's an electrical malfunction. The cardiologist at home said he might have suffered from immersion induced pulonary edema, something he said was extremely rare. Since then my wife has found articles about it in the DAN site and on this months Undercurrent. I wasn't scared during the process, but looking back I wondered if I may have done my friend a disservice by getting him back if he would be brain dead. I know God saw to it that the willing crew was there able to jump on this medical emergency. I wish I could find them to thank them. I wrote this without crying, that's a first, I'm getting better too. That's my most frightening moment on a dive, though we didn't dive.

John
 
Medical care pretty good in Honolulu

Ya done good!

Sounds like pulmonary edema if it yellow and frothy

Take care
 
Medical care pretty good in Honolulu

Ya done good!

Sounds like pulmonary edema if it yellow and frothy

Take care
They are good, but wouldn't fly him to Honolulu until he showed neurological function. They had him in an induced coma, reduced drugs, his wife got him to respond. He's a miracle man!
 
They are good, but wouldn't fly him to Honolulu until he showed neurological function. They had him in an induced coma, reduced drugs, his wife got him to respond. He's a miracle man!


Huh

Interesting

Spouse was MD over there and I’m a nurse

I wonder if that is cost containment

They only had Kaiser and FHP when we lived there

What insurance does he have

That’s disturbing if they were counting him out

And not airlifting him

Years ago my kids biology teacher died diving out there, that’s another story

Probably shallow water black out
 
Never thought I would be on this one. March 17, 2019 on the Big Island with a bunch of other retired schoolteachers. My wife, buddy, and I were doing a shore dive at Two Step. We had dove this site two days earlier, no problems. We went out 200-300 yards on the surface, planning to follow the coral back. My buddy started having issues at the surface, hyperventilating, coughing up yellow gunk. Didn't stop, so we called the dive. He was having enough trouble, I had him slip out of his BC then climb on it so I could backpedal him back and watch him more easily while my wife pushed. After about 50 yds, he said "John, I think I messed up.", eyes rolled back, head dropped toward the water. My wife caught his head, I rolled him into a cross chest carry and we kept going. 50 yds from the entry, his wife came up, needless to say concerned, I told her to go clear out the entry as we had a medical issue. As we came in, I realized I was going to have fun getting out of my gear to get him up on the rocks, but figured we were just going to have to deal with it. As we approached, two people who somehow hadn't cleared out, reached past me and in one motion pulled him up and began compressions and rescue breathing. There were about 5 people obviously way past my training and I became the timer. It was like a CPR training video, all these were trained medical professionals on vacation who jumped in when they heard of the need. There was an MD and her husband an anesthesiologist who was administering one of two oxygen tanks that had appeared while she monitored vitals. Took 7 minutes to get good pulse and breathing, three people doing compressions and two nurses rescue breathing as needed. An AED appeared, but wasn't needed. Took 25 min for the ambulance to get there, then he coded inside and had compressions for 4 more minutes. The hospital said they had a 2% survival rate on water rescues at that site, and to expect severe neurological damage due to lack of oxygen to the brain. My friend is a miracle man. He's at home, trying to get stronger, using PT for help. but still has the sense of humor that's made him famous. Spent two weeks in the hospital in Oahu, cardiologist said after the heart catheter he has no arterial blockage, valves working perfectly, no heart damage at all. He put in an ICD, internal cardiac defribulator, similar to a pacemaker but only hits if there's an electrical malfunction. The cardiologist at home said he might have suffered from immersion induced pulonary edema, something he said was extremely rare. Since then my wife has found articles about it in the DAN site and on this months Undercurrent. I wasn't scared during the process, but looking back I wondered if I may have done my friend a disservice by getting him back if he would be brain dead. I know God saw to it that the willing crew was there able to jump on this medical emergency. I wish I could find them to thank them. I wrote this without crying, that's a first, I'm getting better too. That's my most frightening moment on a dive, though we didn't dive.

John


Sounds like he was never at depth?

Maybe he has a little CHF brought on by exertion

In any case you saved his life
 
Brilliant job! I guess it just wasn't his time. It is so wonderful and all too rare to hear stories with happy endings. Thanks so much for sharing!
 
/snip

John
Be proud of what you did. Sounds like you did everything pretty much perfectly.

You definitely did not do him a disservice (even if there were brain injuries). Without your help (as well as all the others that aided you), he had ZERO chance of any function at all. At the very least, your actions gave him a fighting chance of a positive outcome.
 
@hook, awesome job. Your friend was blessed to have you there at the right time and to help to the best of your ability. He was equally blessed to have had those others on shore.

I completely understand your emotions. Give yourself some time.
 
Be proud of what you did. Sounds like you did everything pretty much perfectly.

You definitely did not do him a disservice (even if there were brain injuries). Without your help (as well as all the others that aided you), he had ZERO chance of any function at all. At the very least, your actions gave him a fighting chance of a positive outcome.


Good point, hadn't thought of it that way honestly.

Thanks

John
 
@hook, awesome job. Your friend was blessed to have you there at the right time and to help to the best of your ability. He was equally blessed to have had those others on shore.

I completely understand your emotions. Give yourself some time.


I wish I understood them! Thanks for the kind words, it is obvious God has something in mind for my friend. All the people were there and jumped in to do the things they knew. After being a pack mule (that's my expertise), I was really glad they were there.

Thanks

John
 
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