DCS question

[NAUI Wowie]

Once the crisis is past and some time before your next dive, sit down with your girlfriend and explain to her that competent divers do not inflate their BCD's prior to ascending. The inflate/deflate mechanism on a BCD inflater hose are not to be treated like up and down elevator buttons.

exactly!!!!! times fifty, ill add to that and say once the guy knows his girlfriend is hard shooting the surface , ta heck with it. better only ONE of you gets the bends ....if it was long time at depth...than to have 2 victims at the surface.

Counterintuitive I guess but if you both got bad bends how would you help her out? gotta let er go man...let er go.

 

[CWK]

I was told of a case of skin bends resulting from a dive to a maximum depth of 12 meters. It was a student on her very first dive who took off for the surface when the regulator retrieval exercise went wrong.

If you hit the surface too quickly, you can always immediately go back down to 5 meters and do a long safety.

 

[Jcp2]

I was under the impression that a redo of a missed safety (not mandatory deco) stop was not recommended and that the better alternative was to get on the boat, and if there are signs of DCS, administer oxygen.

 

[yle]

I guess the main two questions that I couldn’t get answers to which prompted this post; is a rapid accent in itself enough to potentially cause DCS or other harm?

Yes, a rapid ascent is associated with a greatly increased risk of DCI (i.e. DCS and/or lung expansion injury.) This is why the call to DAN was important: they can assess your circumstances and symptoms and give you an opinion that is based on a lot of experience. So you were right to be concerned, and you were right to call DAN... but if they told you there's nothing to worry about, trust their opinion.

As Esprise suggested above: your fatigue is probably due to the stress of the situation, sore ankles are most likely due to getting used to your fins.

And second question, is DCS generally a all at once type of thing or can symptons start small and eventually get worse in the following days if not treated? My thought was if somebody ignored small signs that started quickly and then it didn’t get worse for three or four days later could be an issue, or is it pretty much within 24hrs whatever is going to happen has already happened?

Yes and... yes. Most incidences of DCS manifest relatively quickly (minutes? hours?) A delay of days is very rare. And certainly symptoms can start small and get worse. But mild cases tend to be asymmetrical. For example, if both ankles are aching symmetrically its very unlikely due to DCS. More likely due to the symmetry of your fins.

 

[yle]

I was under the impression that a redo of a missed safety (not mandatory deco) stop was not recommended and that the better alternative was to get on the boat, and if there are signs of DCS, administer oxygen.

That's a fine impression. Simple logic dictates you're right:

If you really don't need the safety stop, no reason to go back and do it.

If you really DID need the safety stop, you now have a greater risk of something going wrong. Better to be on the surface than underwater if something bad is going to happen.

 

[HKGuns]

This is a good teaching example for new divers like myself. Stay with your buddy seems a best practice, even if you think it may not be the safest thing for you to do personally. Your buddy may be in worse shape than the risk you pose to yourself.

Glad you asked the question.

 

[CWK]

TDI Deco Procedures manual on omitted deco procedure says that if diver is asymptomatic upon surfacing, and last stop is 9 mtrs or less, and surface interval is 1 min or less, then return to depth and increase stop time by 1 min and resume original deco schedule.

If you are asymptomatic upon reaching the surface, it does not mean that you will remain asymptomatic an hour later. I personally would treat a mandatory deco stop as being more serious than an optional safety stop, so I have no issues going back down to do a long safety if I miss one.

 

[yle]

TDI Deco Procedures manual on omitted deco procedure says that if diver is asymptomatic upon surfacing, and last stop is 9 mtrs or less, and surface interval is 1 min or less, then return to depth and increase stop time by 1 min and resume original deco schedule.

If you are asymptomatic upon reaching the surface, it does not mean that you will remain asymptomatic an hour later. I personally would treat a mandatory deco stop as being more serious than an optional safety stop, so I have no issues going back down to do a long safety if I miss one.

I'm pretty sure that mandatory deco stops and "safety stops" for recreational divers are two very different things, and that procedures for the former don't really translate to the latter.

This thread was about a recreational dive; it might cause confusion for new divers (as the OP was) to muddy the waters (so to speak) by talking about procedures for "deco stops".

 

[NAUI Wowie]

This is a good teaching example for new divers like myself. Stay with your buddy seems a best practice, even if you think it may not be the safest thing for you to do personally. Your buddy may be in worse shape than the risk you pose to yourself.

Glad you asked the question.

thats a very broad statement. Not always recommended especially if someone bolts to the surface and you cannot stop them.

 

[chillyinCanada]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

The OP question is what is being discussed in this thread. We've invited the poster wanting to discuss potential technical diving practices to start another thread

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