Drowning: A peaceful way to go?

[Cacia]

good idea.

I told them I wanted to be cremated and in an urn on the mantle. They said no way.

We joke a lot about death...sometimes if I am leaving on a "ninja" (doesn't take much, I am a big scaredy cat) dive I will say "hey...if I never see you again...you've been great kids" I want them to always remember us joking around. Kids pretty much mirror the emotional climate of the parents from what I have noticed. Their dad and I would not fly together when they were babies...I know I was biologically wired for awhile to be very careful. Then when they become teenagers, it seems they could recover in about a week.

So...if you ask your kids, aren't they going to be reluctant to say " hey mom, no problem...life goes on." ?

So, don't keep us in suspense...what did your wife say that surprised you?

 

[Tom Winters]

Twice surfing on Oahu I was down way too long and thought I was done. I wasn't wild about it, but after a point, I wasn't gonna get to the surface. I had been fighting so hard to get back to the surface that I didn't have time for any reflection. Made it up somehow, as far as I know.
If drowning was so peaceful, why do we use it as an interrogation technique on our enemies?
I was in a few 5-alarm fires in the South Bronx, along with countless lesser events, with the NYFD, and I'd pick drowning over getting roasted alive any two days of the week.

 

[Diver0001]

So, don't keep us in suspense...what did your wife say that surprised you?

She wants a body to bury (or cremate)....That's the key for her for processing the loss.

If I get lost in a cave (her thinking) and they can't find the body then she'll walk around without closure for the rest of her life.

Wreck diving.... Hunky dory.... Wrecks are small, they'll find me.... Ice diving.... thumbs up .... It will eventually surface. Technical diving .... no problem .... in the worst case I'll die in a chamber....

But not in a cave.

It's her fear, not mine but it's a crystal clear boundary in her thinking and I can only respect that. It does limit me because I'd love to do it but I've agreed not to and that's that.

That's what surprises me because it's not about the risk of dying. In some real sense, wreck diving can be more dangerous than cave diving is but it's not the risk that bothers her. She's convinced that I know *exactly* what I'm doing regardless of the risk and she's aware that some of the places I worm my way into would make her hyperventilate just thinking about it. But she'd rather have me crawling around in the belly of a wreck on the North Sea than think about me getting lost and drifting away on a shallow puddlestomp on the Red Sea.

In some morbid sense it also gives me clarity about what to do if I think I'm about to make a permanent exit. At the very least the highest priority is that the body gets recovered. I keep thinking about the skeleton at the bottom of the blue hole near Sharm. It's a nice subject for divers with cameras but somewhere someone is missing that person.... And that's the icon of my wife's worst case scenario.

R..

 

[fabasard]

What a perfectly Morbid subject.
If you're really curious, look up Ron Ault at HoodSportanDive over on the olympic penisula of washington state and ask Him. When he was in the navy's experimentental diving program back in the 60's, they strapped him to a board and drownd him just to see what happened.
Yes, they brought him back afterwards, and believe it or not he volunteered for it.

Ron is great to talk to in any case, not only is he the nicest guy I ever met but he's a guy who measures his bottom time in weeks not hours.

CIB, I respect your comment, but Ron did not COMPLETE the journey. Its when they CAn'T bring you back that its complete. I am certain no one (well lets call it MOST PEOPLE, can't be too sure of some) wants to die on this board. But The mystery is when its over. I am agnostic, and believe when its over its over. Just nothing more. I have had many bad things in my life, and MANY wonderful things, SCUBA is wonderful and if I have to go then I want to go doing something that brings me as close to "God" as I can get, SCUBA on a beatiful reef or amoung a school of sharks or other large creatures is a wonderful thing. No one can HONESTLY say what the last thing through a dead mans mind is (keep yer jokes), and we will never know. Life is wonderful and beautiful (my son, chief amoung things I consider wonderful and beautiful, and my wife for putting up with me (I'm a real *** sometimes)), when I am going to die I can look back on the good things and think "They were awesome" and the bad things I can think "No more of that crap" and die happy if I can die how I want, AKA SCUBA. Peace to one and all, (as far as I know I'm not dying tommorow, but you've been good mates if I do). Fab :angel:

 

[Tigerman]

CIB, I respect your comment, but Ron did not COMPLETE the journey. Its when they CAn'T bring you back that its complete. I am certain no one (well lets call it MOST PEOPLE, can't be too sure of some) wants to die on this board. But The mystery is when its over. I am agnostic, and believe when its over its over. Just nothing more. I have had many bad things in my life, and MANY wonderful things, SCUBA is wonderful and if I have to go then I want to go doing something that brings me as close to "God" as I can get, SCUBA on a beatiful reef or amoung a school of sharks or other large creatures is a wonderful thing. No one can HONESTLY say what the last thing through a dead mans mind is (keep yer jokes), and we will never know. Life is wonderful and beautiful (my son, chief amoung things I consider wonderful and beautiful, and my wife for putting up with me (I'm a real *** sometimes)), when I am going to die I can look back on the good things and think "They were awesome" and the bad things I can think "No more of that crap" and die happy if I can die how I want, AKA SCUBA. Peace to one and all, (as far as I know I'm not dying tommorow, but you've been good mates if I do). Fab :angel:

I see no contradiction between not being religious and believing theres something after death.
"Energy cant be created or disappear".. so where does the heat energy you generate end up? Maybe you become a ghost living in eternal bliss? Maybe you are reborn CS style and have another go with more SCUBA diving? Or.. ooohhh.. An eternally scubadiving ghost that never get bored of diving.. oooh, now THAT would be heaven..

 

[fabasard]

The heat energy is dissapated back into the environment. I am not asking anyone to believe my way, its simply MY way. I am AGNOSTIC which in simple terms means "I don't know, I hav eno proof either way." and the first person who can PROVE to me (with imperical evidence) that their way is the right way, is the person that has led me to the religion I will follow.

 

[Tigerman]

The heat energy is dissapated back into the environment. I am not asking anyone to believe my way, its simply MY way. I am AGNOSTIC which in simple terms means "I don't know, I hav eno proof either way." and the first person who can PROVE to me (with imperical evidence) that their way is the right way, is the person that has led me to the religion I will follow.

i wont even TRY proving one thing or the other.. That would make me a preacher, which im not. I also believe in letting people believe or not believe whatever they wish. .
Youre not alone either. The 3rd largest religious group is, well.. "not religious" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions

 

[douglasville diver]

I drowned Saturday June 7th 1975,in a farm pond behind our house.
Pronounced D.O.A @ Charlotte Memorial hospital and was on my way to the mourg when the attendent saw signs of life and efforts were again engaged to support my life. I remember waking in the I.C.U. to a very cold,dark and silent surrounding .
It was to say the least surreal as up until then I remember traveling through what I can only describe as star lit space in total freedom , almost like flying like superman just not on earth.
Five days I spent in the hospital afterwards, during that time I could recall some of the incedent,I remembered swimming across the lake ,blank,then a very short surface and feeling like I was screeming for help at the top of my lungs(although no one heard me) then I could see them pulling me from the lake by my foot no less and trying to revive me with my head up hill . All this time I was above this tree looking down at all of this,until they placed me in the back of a '63 Ford Stationwagon,thats when I began my journey.
I survived a level 3 drowing and I think my brain will not let me recall the fear and panic I experienced at the time nor would I want to experience it in real life again,I would ,(I think) like to try hypnosis to see if I could recall more.

 

[plot]

I'd rather dump my BC, get deep, get narc'd, get blacked out.

I'm assuming if someone knew they were going to run out of air and drown however, that they were in a cave or some other overhead environment where going for broke and heading to the surface wasn't an option (and in that case, neither would be going down for the narcosis)... in that situation, I'm not to sure what I'd do. Would definatly try to knock myself unconscious somehow...

 

[evensplit]

drug to the bottom of the show tank by shamu....