Hi guys, first post here, so I'm gonna try and not be too presumptuous.
I'm a new diver, but I'm not new to "Extreme" sports, which have more than their fair share of accidents. I've been rock climbing, riding sport bikes, and 4-wheeling/dirtbiking, boating/wakeboarding, gun building and all manner of shooting sports, and all sorts of other expensive and 'dangerous' sports, for many years.
I've been participating in forums dedicated to those sports for as long as forums have been around.
A few things that I've gathered in my time reading accident debriefings in these sports:
First, nobody likes criticism. It takes a big person to admit that they found themselves in a compromising situation. And often even when those people admit it, they tend to seek to minimize their own culpability. For this reason, the "Whole" story is almost never all there.
Secondly, everybody fancies themselves an expert. The internet has no shortage of armchair quarterbacks/armchair commandos. The people who are most likely to talk about how THEY would have responded in a situation, are the ones who are most likely also ones who have yet to find themselves there. And there's often a great deal of poetic justice to be observed when those people actually DO find themselves there (often reacting exactly the same way that they have criticized others for reacting, in the past).
Thirdly, people quickly lose interest in sharing their learning experiences if they observe that sharing will be met with harsh criticism by those who fancy themselves so elite as to never make a mistake.
It's always easy to examine an event after the fact, without the confusion and judgment-clouding factors of pain, disorientation, adrenaline, and just downright physical shock. There is a list of "ideals" a mile long as to what SHOULD have happened, in any incident. And number one on that list is that the incident never happened in the first place. Ideally, the eel wouldn't have bitten her. Ideally, the Dive Master would have been paying attention to his group and not jacking around with lion fish, and feeding wild animals. Ideally, after the bite occurred, the victim would have been able to remain calm, and unaffected by the pain, shock, fear, and adrenaline. Ideally, she would have been able to examine the wound, and determine that it wasn't supremely dangerous, and end her dive in a more controlled manner...
There's always something to be learned from these situations, and there's no harm in pointing out what might have been done differently, or what one should do differently in the future to avoid such situations. But demeaning and hounding the poster for their mistakes is only counter productive, and serves no real purpose other than to stoke the egos of those who are assessing the situation from the comfort of their beds.
There's no reason to get nasty.
I've been on both sides of incident debriefings. I've done stupid things that all my training told me better than to do, but in the heat of the moment my instincts got the better of me. It's embarrassing enough that it happened, and even more embarrassing to admit on a public forum. And it can be downright dehumanizing when the A-holes come out of the woodwork to tell you that you're an idiot.
Reviewing incidents after the fact (both mine, and others) has been useful in further conditioning my mind to not have the same reaction; and constructive criticism has always been something I tried to be open to. But lambasting people and haranguing them for admitting when they've messed up doesn't help anybody. Take what you can learn from other people's mistakes, and try not to repeat them. Take what you can learn from your own mistakes, and try not to repeat them.
And try to give your advice and criticisms to people in the same way that you would give them if you were talking to them face-to-face, say, for example, somebody you just met on a dive boat, or at the local climbing spot, or wherever, who shares a story of a mistake they've made. It's easy to blast people and forget that they're real people, when you're not making eye contact, or, perhaps sitting within fist swinging distance.
To the OP, I'm glad you weren't seriously injured. I hope your bite wound, and the wounds to your pride heal quickly. I've always been kinda proud of my scars; and while I can say with certainty that I DO NOT want to be bitten by an eel, I'm a little jealous that I don't get the badge of honor (scar) and the epic story that you now have of having been bitten by an eel, but while still maintaining a full inventory of appendages.
Yeah, tetanus is one you want to keep current for US or international travel. The vaccine covers diphtheria and pertussis (Tdap) now.
:yuck:
