Can you tell us the story?
I would be really Interested, what happend. Because that event made u a better diver.
And if we can learn, without doing having the bad experience, that would be helpfull
Oh well, it's a long story, and not a nice memory, but...
I had been diving in stone quarries, small calm lakes, slow flowing rivers (often with nil visibility), under ice and even in some flooded mines and I was a pretty confident diver in these environments. Everything went just fine, buoyancy was spot on, no problems. I felt that I was an experienced diver. I had not been diving at sea however.
I had an urge to dive slightly deeper (mines are deep) and so I decided to participate in a diving course. The instructor and some participants thought that it would be good to do the dives at sea "because that's where everybody eventually will be diving".
Under some peer pressure and false beliefs in my skills I then decided that I should do the course dives at sea. It was the third dive ever that I carried a stage cylinder, and my fourth dive at sea, and the very first time wearing a stage cylinder in rough seas. The waves were at least a foot tall.
As you can guess, I was terribly seasick. Not long after the boat left the harbour, I was on all fours and vomiting. The dive briefing was done in cabin. I can remember that I only wanted out, and I did not memorize that much as I was on the brink of vomiting.
When the dive started, everybody else were faster, I was last, I was struggling with the slight current and the waves, and my drysuit inflator hose got detached. I noticed this at depth, tried to relocate it but somehow I couldn't, and then because of stress I did not come to think of my BCD, I did not inflate my secondary buoyancy device. The drysuit started to squeeze and moving became difficult. I could shake my wrist though, and so I sent a distress signal with my dive light and was helped by the team.
Sinking helplessly towards the abyss was not a pleasant experience and it was caused by my inexperience with waves, my proneness to seasickness, my new gear configuration, slight time pressure and peer pressure - and ultimately my false beliefs that I could easily tackle a completely new environment.
A good team saved me.
Later during that dive I encountered a new stressfull situation - the propeller sounds of a large ship - that brought me near panic as I thought I would be soon sucked into the propellers. In reality the ship was probably miles away. This near panic situation was completely unexpected. Lots of mistakes (and unmemorized plans) later I did run out of gas at 90 feet and also breathed wrong gas at depth (too much oxygen, ppO2=2.0). This followed: air sharing, difficulty thinking clearly, forgetting how to dump gas, partially skipped deco, loss of buoyancy control (it was really nice to be positively buoyant though, as I had absolutely nothing to breathe).
I could have died many times, but a combination of some emergency skills and a good team saved me. A reliable and aware and alert dive buddy/team can be a really wonderfull thing. It also helps if you have experienced something unexpected before and have the confidence to stop - think - act instead of just fleeing.
The whole ordeal would have been easily avoided, if I just had avoided the zero to hero attitude, proceeded with caution, and in small steps gained experience in that new environment.
I had practiced many scenarios and procedures indeed, and I generally tried to be a safe diver, and I planned all my dives well (with the exception of this unlucky one), but I still rushed into new territory too fast because I wanted to complete a course. Such is the fallibility of humans. Patience is golden.
ps. havent been to sea ever since, my environment of choice is different.