HolyHandGrenade
New
Hello all
I'm new to diving, and taking my sixth dive tomorrow to finish my OW certificate. As I'm from Norway, where the water can be pretty cold all year 'round, I have been using a drysuit for all my dives, with a hood and three-fingered gloves.
There was a situation today, and I'm not sure my instructior realized in full just how panicked I was getting. I feel I did a few things right, and a few things wrong, and I'd love some comments on how I could have handled it differently, as it's been haunting me since it happened. I ask you to remember my very limited diving experience when commenting, but don't hold back on things I need to hear
Here's what happened:
We were doing a dive to about 12 metres, and descending by following a rope. It had taken me some time to get the emptying of the BCD just right for a controlled descent (I had a tendency to release the button to early, so that it never completely emptied), so I was going down a bit faster than I was used to. Since the beginning, I've had problems equalizing the pressure in my ears, which makes me descend slowly, going up half a meter now and then to properly equalize, but this time it was harder, and hurt like hell before I could get it right. No biggie yet, but it did make me very focused on getting it right, which made me kick around a bit to get up as my ears hurt. I signalled to my instructor that I was alright, but needed to go slow and sometimes up a bit. At the same time however, I was starting to get mask issues, because my drysuit hood was a little crooked put on, which made my mask leak more than usual. I reached the bottom, instructor in sight, and started to empty the mask as I'd learned (and never had any problems with), but experiencing that it did not help. Quite the opposite, it filled up even more. I tried again to get it out, and at this time I was also breathing heavily because of the kicking with the equalization issues, so even though I tried to control my breathing, it was way faster than I was comfortable with. It turns out my mask had moved a bit, so that my nostrils were not actually covered. As I couldn't empy my mask, my breathing was rapid and shallow, my ears hurt (although getting better), and I was getting water in my nostrils, I started to panic. For a few seconds, I breathed extremely heavy, and felt salt water in my mouth because in panic, my mouth was opening wider to consume more air. I've always seen myself as a rational being, and not easily panicked, and I forced myself to bite down on my regulator and not open my mouth as wide. I told myself "I DO NOT PANICK!" and "Relax, you may feel panicked, but you do have air, and as long as you can breathe, you're alright". Still, the feeling of not being able to relax my breathing because of panic was extremely uncomfortable, and I did "in flashes" fear for my life. I managed to get buoyancy and swam towards my instructor, while still breathing very heavily. I tried one more time to get the water out of my mask, and not being successful, and with the heavy breathing, I felt I was not getting enough air, and the panicky feeling of having to get to the surface really forced it's way in.
My instructor (who has been diving for 20 years and is very observant and cool) signalled to me to wait and calm. I signalled back to go up, and he showed me with his hands that my mask was crooked. Having thick gloves on, my confidence in my ability to correct my mask with my panicked breathing was low, and I signalled again to go up. We were one more diver with us for whom he was also responsible, so he signalled once again to hold. I shook my head and signalled up, and he signalled up back. At this point I do not know where my buddy diver was, but I'm guessing he got her attention and signalled the up for her as well. I kicked like hell, managing to not inflate my BCD until surfaced, and we talked things over at the surface. He did well in speaking trivially of other things, and not making a big deal of the incident, and did not end the dive (which I didn't feel the need to), and getting back in action I guess helped me cope better.
So here's what I'm trying to tell myself that I did right:
And here are a few things I know I did wrong:
A few things I maybe should have done, but did not know at the time:
Now, it may not seem like a huge deal what happened here, but I can assure you, for a new diver it was a very frightening experience. It did, on the bright side, make me very aware of just how easily things can go wrong, and how your body reacts when it senses extreme danger.
As I said, I would love some comments on how I did here, and I also hope, if any new divers read this, it can be of some help to realize how the most trivial thing can be very dangerous when underwater.
I'm new to diving, and taking my sixth dive tomorrow to finish my OW certificate. As I'm from Norway, where the water can be pretty cold all year 'round, I have been using a drysuit for all my dives, with a hood and three-fingered gloves.
There was a situation today, and I'm not sure my instructior realized in full just how panicked I was getting. I feel I did a few things right, and a few things wrong, and I'd love some comments on how I could have handled it differently, as it's been haunting me since it happened. I ask you to remember my very limited diving experience when commenting, but don't hold back on things I need to hear
Here's what happened:
We were doing a dive to about 12 metres, and descending by following a rope. It had taken me some time to get the emptying of the BCD just right for a controlled descent (I had a tendency to release the button to early, so that it never completely emptied), so I was going down a bit faster than I was used to. Since the beginning, I've had problems equalizing the pressure in my ears, which makes me descend slowly, going up half a meter now and then to properly equalize, but this time it was harder, and hurt like hell before I could get it right. No biggie yet, but it did make me very focused on getting it right, which made me kick around a bit to get up as my ears hurt. I signalled to my instructor that I was alright, but needed to go slow and sometimes up a bit. At the same time however, I was starting to get mask issues, because my drysuit hood was a little crooked put on, which made my mask leak more than usual. I reached the bottom, instructor in sight, and started to empty the mask as I'd learned (and never had any problems with), but experiencing that it did not help. Quite the opposite, it filled up even more. I tried again to get it out, and at this time I was also breathing heavily because of the kicking with the equalization issues, so even though I tried to control my breathing, it was way faster than I was comfortable with. It turns out my mask had moved a bit, so that my nostrils were not actually covered. As I couldn't empy my mask, my breathing was rapid and shallow, my ears hurt (although getting better), and I was getting water in my nostrils, I started to panic. For a few seconds, I breathed extremely heavy, and felt salt water in my mouth because in panic, my mouth was opening wider to consume more air. I've always seen myself as a rational being, and not easily panicked, and I forced myself to bite down on my regulator and not open my mouth as wide. I told myself "I DO NOT PANICK!" and "Relax, you may feel panicked, but you do have air, and as long as you can breathe, you're alright". Still, the feeling of not being able to relax my breathing because of panic was extremely uncomfortable, and I did "in flashes" fear for my life. I managed to get buoyancy and swam towards my instructor, while still breathing very heavily. I tried one more time to get the water out of my mask, and not being successful, and with the heavy breathing, I felt I was not getting enough air, and the panicky feeling of having to get to the surface really forced it's way in.
My instructor (who has been diving for 20 years and is very observant and cool) signalled to me to wait and calm. I signalled back to go up, and he showed me with his hands that my mask was crooked. Having thick gloves on, my confidence in my ability to correct my mask with my panicked breathing was low, and I signalled again to go up. We were one more diver with us for whom he was also responsible, so he signalled once again to hold. I shook my head and signalled up, and he signalled up back. At this point I do not know where my buddy diver was, but I'm guessing he got her attention and signalled the up for her as well. I kicked like hell, managing to not inflate my BCD until surfaced, and we talked things over at the surface. He did well in speaking trivially of other things, and not making a big deal of the incident, and did not end the dive (which I didn't feel the need to), and getting back in action I guess helped me cope better.
So here's what I'm trying to tell myself that I did right:
- I did manage to force my way out of a panic when my instructor was ten feet away
- Throughout the whole ordeal, I did manage to signal my instructor
- I did a controlled swim over to him, and remained relatively calm with my body
- I tried several times to empty my mask without panicking
- I did not make any clearly irrational choices, such as removing my regulator etc.
- I "listened" to the instructors signals
And here are a few things I know I did wrong:
- My equipment was not checked thoroughly enough
- Although I managed to control my mind, and consciously tried to control my panicked breathing, I was not able to do that
- My ascent was way to quick
- I spent way too much energy kicking around when I was having trouble equalizing, which made my breathing heavy and added to the feeling of panic later on
A few things I maybe should have done, but did not know at the time:
- I should have removed my mask and calmly put it on correctly, as we did in training (I tried to correct it without removing, and panicked when it didn't help after several tries. The feeling of water coming up to my eyes and filling my nostrils really ​made it feel like a surface drowning)
- Feeling that the gloves made me lose control, I could have removed them
Now, it may not seem like a huge deal what happened here, but I can assure you, for a new diver it was a very frightening experience. It did, on the bright side, make me very aware of just how easily things can go wrong, and how your body reacts when it senses extreme danger.
As I said, I would love some comments on how I did here, and I also hope, if any new divers read this, it can be of some help to realize how the most trivial thing can be very dangerous when underwater.
