Collecting Narcosis Stories

[divin'dog]

I have 2 friends that got narc'd out of their minds... I'll call them Rick and Frank. Both of them corroborated this story at different times as well as other divers who were on this trip. It was a trip to the Caribbean and both Rick and Frank were having a great time in the warm clear water. Rick was the more experienced diver. Frank is a good diver and had just bought a brand new very expensive camera and enjoyed taking pics of everything. Rick and Frank, being dive buddies for the week decide to do a bounce dive way past 130'... The plan was to get to 200', take pics of each other at depth, then do an ascent to clear any deco. All was going well as they dove to 200'. Frank hands off the camera to Rick and Rick takes Frank's picture. He hands the camera back to Frank, who then looks at it all wide-eyed!... Then looks back at Rick. He takes the camera and throws it away like "What the h*ll is this?" Then Frank shoots to the surface! Rick chases after him in a WTF moment... Rick catches him and slows him down but Frank is intent on reaching the surface. Rick said he held onto Frank and tried to slow him down until about 60', where Rick said he had to let Frank go for his own safety. He watched as Frank was shooting to the surface! Rick said he was thinking the whole time during Frank's ascent "What am I going to tell his family? What am I going to say to them? How am I going to tell them what happened?" Rick watched as Frank broke the surface, then he made his own safe ascent. Upon surfacing, Rick feared the worse and asked Frank if he was ok? Frank in a totally calm, controlled voice, like nothing's wrong, said "Oh, yeah! ...But where's my camera?"

I can only vouch for the veracity of the story and not the sanity of these 2 divers...

 

[Mike.D]

I have 2 friends that got narc'd out of their minds... I'll call them Rick and Frank. Both of them corroborated this story at different times as well as other divers who were on this trip. It was a trip to the Caribbean and both Rick and Frank were having a great time in the warm clear water. Rick was the more experienced diver. Frank is a good diver and had just bought a brand new very expensive camera and enjoyed taking pics of everything. Rick and Frank, being dive buddies for the week decide to do a bounce dive way past 130'... The plan was to get to 200', take pics of each other at depth, then do an ascent to clear any deco. All was going well as they dove to 200'. Frank hands off the camera to Rick and Rick takes Frank's picture. He hands the camera back to Frank, who then looks at it all wide-eyed!... Then looks back at Rick. He takes the camera and throws it away like "What the h*ll is this?" Then Frank shoots to the surface! Rick chases after him in a WTF moment... Rick catches him and slows him down but Frank is intent on reaching the surface. Rick said he held onto Frank and tried to slow him down until about 60', where Rick said he had to let Frank go for his own safety. He watched as Frank was shooting to the surface! Rick said he was thinking the whole time during Frank's ascent "What am I going to tell his family? What am I going to say to them? How am I going to tell them what happened?" Rick watched as Frank broke the surface, then he made his own safe ascent. Upon surfacing, Rick feared the worse and asked Frank if he was ok? Frank in a totally calm, controlled voice, like nothing's wrong, said "Oh, yeah! ...But where's my camera?"

I can only vouch for the veracity of the story and not the sanity of these 2 divers...

Lucky it was only a bounce dive!

 

[TSandM]

Another story: Several years ago, I did three dives on the Numidia wreck on Big Brother island in the Red Sea. The first dive was on Nitrox 32, and the purpose of the dive was to take a look at the top part of the wreck, and then chase hammerheads. We looked at the wreck, which was rather boring, as all the coral seemed dead and there was no color at all -- the whole top part of the wreck was just various shades of gray. We then swam into the blue and found A hammerhead (which I think I remember, but we all agreed we had seen one) and ended the dive.

The next day, I did the same wreck on trimix with a planned depth of 150. I was astonished and delighted at the incredible color on the wreck -- sponges, soft corals, lionfish galore -- all kinds of colorful and spectacular things, all the way up into the coral above the end of the wreckage.

The following day, I did the top of the wreck on Nitrox again, and it was all gray.

I can't explain it, but it really happened.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I was diving solo spearfishing and was on top of the reef at around 170-180 ft on air. I had a lot of experience diving to 130 and narcosis didn’t bother me much at that depth, but very little experience at this depth. The edge of the reef where most of the fish were located was maybe 15 feet deeper.

Normally I would put my fish in a bag clipped to my waist, but in this location everyone was using a metal loop made from a steel rod – a stringer- which is faster and easier and different than a bag.

I was swimming along and shot a fish. I struggled with it a little and then got my hands on it and kinda hunkered over it. All of a sudden I feel a strong fluttering push on my hip and belly. I am immediately terrified that when I look down it will be a shark nuzzling me or something…..I look down and see a large fish on my fish stringer…I had been down only a few minutes and I don’t remember putting the first fish on the stringer!

Apparently, I had shot the fish, placed it on my stringer, and then loaded the shaft into the gun, pulled back the bands and swam.. and somehow sorta forgot all about it. I strung up the second fish and kept asking myself, don’t you remember shooting that first fish? I had NOT felt very narced at that time.

I very seriously doubt I would be affected like that now, but when you are not acclimated to the narcosis and you are diving in unfamiliar areas, using unfamiliar gear...I guess your mind can wander.

 

[tstormdiver]

Last year I was tagging along on a cave training dive, bringing up the rear, for a friend & dive buddy (soon to also be a cave diving buddy) of mine. We were diving in Ginnie Springs (about 90- 95 ft), right at the Hill 400 area. My buddy was working much harder than he should have been & was wearing down (kind of a right of passage, when first learning to dive Ginnie). The instructor was starting to get ahead, so I signaled him to get his attention. The instructor signaled "OK" with his light all the way to his student,... with no response. The student was just breathing (hard), but never moved. Once the instructor touched him, the student came back to reality. We turned the dive & swam out Once on the surface, the instructor asked why he didn't reply. The student said, " I did, I was signalling back the whole time". It told him he never moved, until touched. In his mind he was signalling, but in reality,.... not so much. The worst case of narcosis I've ever seen.

 

[boulderjohn]

Last year I was tagging along on a cave training dive, bringing up the rear, for a friend & dive buddy (soon to also be a cave diving buddy) of mine. We were diving in Ginnie Springs (about 90- 95 ft), right at the Hill 400 area. My buddy was working much harder than he should have been & was wearing down (kind of a right of passage, when first learning to dive Ginnie). The instructor was starting to get ahead, so I signaled him to get his attention. The instructor signaled "OK" with his light all the way to his student,... with no response. The student was just breathing (hard), but never moved. Once the instructor touched him, the student came back to reality. We turned the dive & swam out Once on the surface, the instructor asked why he didn't reply. The student said, " I did, I was signalling back the whole time". It told him he never moved, until touched. In his mind he was signalling, but in reality,.... not so much. The worst case of narcosis I've ever seen.

When I did my first cave diving classes, river flooding meant that only Ginnie Springs was divable, so the majority of my early cave dive training was done under the conditions you describe. I truly believe that a lot of the problems I had in performance were related to narcosis. At times I just had trouble remembering the things I was supposed to do on the dives, despite the fact that I had been thoroughly briefed by my instructor.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I remember being 15 and preparing for a solo wreck dive to 130 ft in NJ. For some reason, I forgot my wetsuit and had to borrow a suit and the suit included a hood with no bibb. The water was about 40 degrees and it was brutally cold at the bottom. I had no body fat at that time.

I was used to diving 80-90 and never felt any narcosis and did not expect much on this dive. I dropped down to the bottom on the outside of the hull and was looking under for lobster. Off course we always dove with a big light and utilization of it was second nature.

A fish surprised me and I moved my head to allow my eyes to follow it, but my hand moved the light laterally in the complete opposite direction. I immediately realized this, so I looked over to the side where the light was shinning and simulataneously swung light laterally AGAIN shinning it in the wrong direction. My gaze and light control where 180 degrees out of phase! I mean how hard is it to work a flashlight?

I quickly shined the light straight ahead, and looked straight ahead and decided that I was really cold and really narced. I had not felt that narced, but was experienced enough to know that I was having some major issues. I think I decided to finish the dive up on top of the wreck at 80 feet after that..

 

[lowviz]

Stolt? Sounds damn familiar. I noticed a really nice bunch of tie-offs (on mussels) on the way back up...

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Stolt? Sounds damn familiar. I noticed a really nice bunch of tie-offs (on mussels) on the way back up...

Yup...

 

[lowviz]

Hah!

BTW,
If you find any rusty tricycles down there the real divers used to.... Ooops, I'm off topic.