David P
Guest
I see Dr. Bill mentioned our Saturday trip to Farnsworth/Little Farnsworth. I thought I would copy and paste my story from my own little online dive log...
Yesterday I went diving again. For some reason I put on a transderm Scop patch. I don't usually get too seasick but for some reason I decided to put on one anyhow. Boy was I glad, with the rough seas, many people were feeding the fish! As our instructor Jim was lecturing about the upcoming deep dive with decompression, and 80% blow off gas suspended at 15 feet.(check out dive for deco/adv. nitrox) Curtis was no where to be found. When the class was done and questions asked Curtis wanders in with his girlfriend and Jim has to go through everything again...We hit Farnsworth Banks on the backside of Catalina. No one was eager to get in the water after being ill the whole ride out... We in the class are all on nitrox 32 with an MOD of 111 feet. My partner Ron had an odd mix of gas so his MOD was 100 feet. We splash, kick over to the anchor line and decend. Vis appears to be about 40 feet or so with a good current. We decend to 107 for Ron 109 for me, and see nothing. We might have been able to make out the bottom but couldn't quite tell. Couldnt see anything off to the sides to go look at so we just hung on the line. We did see bubbles from Curtis, WAY below us. After a few minutes the line started getting crowded so Ron and I decided to start going up. We stopped at 50' for our 1 minute deepstop, and again at 20' for a simulated deco stop. We then swam over to a pair of tanks and switched on the 80% o2 for a 5 minute blow off. The current was so strong we were hanging onto the rope attatched to the stage bottles to keep from being blown away while at the same time trying to prevent being smashed into the side of the boat. There were no bite tabs on my mouthpiece so I had to hold the reg in my mouth, all this while the current is blowing us back and up towards the surface. For a while we were hanging at about 5 feet but then the current picked up and pushed to suspension rope at more of an angle and we started breaking the surface so I tumbed the dive. I shut off the O2 and drifted back to the back of the boat and exited the water. When asked why I aborted the deco procedures I explained that I was tought (by tghe same instructor)when to abort a dive, and in these instances when the bottle was for training and not a requirement for safety, I found it was too dangerous to continue in this manor. "What if your dive plan called for deco gas?" I replied,"If I planned on making a dive where I have to rely on deco gas, the gas would be slung from my body and not some rope in hopes I find it." Curtis surfaces and looked a bit grim.
Whew I cut that one close(this from a man how usually cheers when he has less than 300psi!)
how close?
too close, I only have 150 psi left
How deep were you
I don't know a bit below 130.
The MOD was 111
yeah I know, but I was so narced I didnt know what was going on
2 hours, 50 minutes, and a sandwich later Im feeling much better and ready for the second dive at Little Farnsworth. Most people are sitting the second dive out. I end up splashing with Kieth and Curtis. MAJOR current! Splash and grab the drift line, pull yourself to the anchor line to decend. Vis is only about 10-15 feet, I finally hit the bottom at 116' and see next to nothing, sandy bottom with a starfish and a half. My two buddies take off in opposite directions never looking back and I feel messed up! I think it must be narcosis so I should come up. I don't want to panic so I stop and think,
I check my breathing,
slow and steady,
check my pulse,
again, slow and steady,
check my air,
plenty of air,
check my computer,
hmm somethings not quite right but I dont know what.
I decide to come up about 5 feet and run my self diagnosis again with the same results, repeat with another 5 feet, one more time five feet high and I finally feel ok, my computer is in gauge mode wich I still dont know how I did that... so I dont know my ndl though I estimate 20 minutes minimum.(I know I know, I
REALLY should have known better) Im down here, cant see anything and dont dare let go of the anchor line because of this current so I just hang out and wait for my two buddies to come back. After a few Kieth comes back and grabs ahold of the line, he give me the OK and we wait. We see Curtis floating by so we yell through our regs for his attention. Curtis kicks like mad trying to reach the line but cant quite beat the current. Kieth extends his leg for Curtis to grab ahold of and pulls his way to the line. We slowly asend. Im just pulling off my hood when Jim motions for me to look out the back of the boat. A deckhand in a kayak helping 2 divers swim back to the boat on a drift line.
wow they're far!
they're golden now, you should have seen them earlier!
3 divers had to be rescued on that dive out of the 6 of us! After I strip off my gear I go inside and grab a cookie. "Jim I want to talk to you about narcosis" (as I'm not quite conviced it was just narcosis that hit me) He looks at me funny and tells me to hold that thought. He calls one of our group over (who is a nurse)to look at my eyes. Her eyes get big "Ah ****!" My pupils are different size and and my right eye is not responding to light. I am immediately put on O2 and given neuro tests. I immediately think of a class I had with a doctor who is head of hyperbaric medicine. I then run through all of the symptoms " I do not feel tingling in my extremeties, I dont feel nausous, have no headache, don't itch, my neck isnt making noise or hurt, I can wiggle all toes and fingers, I seem to be fine. I then think about my dive. Total run time of 19 minutes down to 116 feet for maybe, MAYBE 2 minutes, average depth about 70 feet. I don't deserve a hit! I came up slow, what the hell!?!?! The coast guard is called blah blah blah EKG, more neuro tests, more questions like does the victim wear contacts, was he wearing them at the time of accident (what effin accident?), is he wearing a Scopolamine patch,... Im being transported! Now I'm on the CG boat and they readminister all the tests, EKG, Neuro, BP, put in an IV, fresh bottle of O2... Between all the questions I here a radio squak ... treat and file as diving accident ... goes for a ride in the chamber... I am then transported to a second coast guard boat with more EKG, neuro, IV, O2... finally arrive at "The Chamber". more EKG, neuro, O2... more questions more squaking radios ... doctor flying in from USC Medical Center in Air 5... I'm now in a large metal shed/barn with a large chamber painted a very pretty blue next to me...I'm not sure if it was "Wolfgang", or the other guy at the medical center that looked like George Clooney "we need to shut the door ok?"
Its your building do whatever you want...
I then hear air 5, "wow that must be a big helicopter"
it is!
Something smashes into the big steel door of the shed and I jump straight up off the gourny (not an easy feat!)
Thats why we closed the door!
In walk 3 armed Sheriffs in flight uniforms looking more comando than ready to protect and serve. Then inwalks the Doctor. More EKG, neuro, O2.... he then pulls out a little bottle of eye drops. Puts a few drops in my dialated right eye and waits a moment. Ok your fine go home. Your eye is dialated because of the patch that was behind your ear.
Turns out that scopolamine patches have the same drugs as what optomatrists use to dialate your eyes. After a kickass ride back to Avalon(let me tell you the cg boats can move!) I meet up with my friends, finally get out of my drysuit and come on home. After all this I have to pick up my mask, snorkle, and fins from a friends home, my weight belt was left on the boat. This will be returned to me next time I visit the lovely island of Catalina. The highlight of all this was my suvenier from the Catalina Hyperaric Chamber, a cool Tshirt!
Yesterday I went diving again. For some reason I put on a transderm Scop patch. I don't usually get too seasick but for some reason I decided to put on one anyhow. Boy was I glad, with the rough seas, many people were feeding the fish! As our instructor Jim was lecturing about the upcoming deep dive with decompression, and 80% blow off gas suspended at 15 feet.(check out dive for deco/adv. nitrox) Curtis was no where to be found. When the class was done and questions asked Curtis wanders in with his girlfriend and Jim has to go through everything again...We hit Farnsworth Banks on the backside of Catalina. No one was eager to get in the water after being ill the whole ride out... We in the class are all on nitrox 32 with an MOD of 111 feet. My partner Ron had an odd mix of gas so his MOD was 100 feet. We splash, kick over to the anchor line and decend. Vis appears to be about 40 feet or so with a good current. We decend to 107 for Ron 109 for me, and see nothing. We might have been able to make out the bottom but couldn't quite tell. Couldnt see anything off to the sides to go look at so we just hung on the line. We did see bubbles from Curtis, WAY below us. After a few minutes the line started getting crowded so Ron and I decided to start going up. We stopped at 50' for our 1 minute deepstop, and again at 20' for a simulated deco stop. We then swam over to a pair of tanks and switched on the 80% o2 for a 5 minute blow off. The current was so strong we were hanging onto the rope attatched to the stage bottles to keep from being blown away while at the same time trying to prevent being smashed into the side of the boat. There were no bite tabs on my mouthpiece so I had to hold the reg in my mouth, all this while the current is blowing us back and up towards the surface. For a while we were hanging at about 5 feet but then the current picked up and pushed to suspension rope at more of an angle and we started breaking the surface so I tumbed the dive. I shut off the O2 and drifted back to the back of the boat and exited the water. When asked why I aborted the deco procedures I explained that I was tought (by tghe same instructor)when to abort a dive, and in these instances when the bottle was for training and not a requirement for safety, I found it was too dangerous to continue in this manor. "What if your dive plan called for deco gas?" I replied,"If I planned on making a dive where I have to rely on deco gas, the gas would be slung from my body and not some rope in hopes I find it." Curtis surfaces and looked a bit grim.
Whew I cut that one close(this from a man how usually cheers when he has less than 300psi!)
how close?
too close, I only have 150 psi left
How deep were you
I don't know a bit below 130.
The MOD was 111
yeah I know, but I was so narced I didnt know what was going on
2 hours, 50 minutes, and a sandwich later Im feeling much better and ready for the second dive at Little Farnsworth. Most people are sitting the second dive out. I end up splashing with Kieth and Curtis. MAJOR current! Splash and grab the drift line, pull yourself to the anchor line to decend. Vis is only about 10-15 feet, I finally hit the bottom at 116' and see next to nothing, sandy bottom with a starfish and a half. My two buddies take off in opposite directions never looking back and I feel messed up! I think it must be narcosis so I should come up. I don't want to panic so I stop and think,
I check my breathing,
slow and steady,
check my pulse,
again, slow and steady,
check my air,
plenty of air,
check my computer,
hmm somethings not quite right but I dont know what.
I decide to come up about 5 feet and run my self diagnosis again with the same results, repeat with another 5 feet, one more time five feet high and I finally feel ok, my computer is in gauge mode wich I still dont know how I did that... so I dont know my ndl though I estimate 20 minutes minimum.(I know I know, I
REALLY should have known better) Im down here, cant see anything and dont dare let go of the anchor line because of this current so I just hang out and wait for my two buddies to come back. After a few Kieth comes back and grabs ahold of the line, he give me the OK and we wait. We see Curtis floating by so we yell through our regs for his attention. Curtis kicks like mad trying to reach the line but cant quite beat the current. Kieth extends his leg for Curtis to grab ahold of and pulls his way to the line. We slowly asend. Im just pulling off my hood when Jim motions for me to look out the back of the boat. A deckhand in a kayak helping 2 divers swim back to the boat on a drift line.
wow they're far!
they're golden now, you should have seen them earlier!
3 divers had to be rescued on that dive out of the 6 of us! After I strip off my gear I go inside and grab a cookie. "Jim I want to talk to you about narcosis" (as I'm not quite conviced it was just narcosis that hit me) He looks at me funny and tells me to hold that thought. He calls one of our group over (who is a nurse)to look at my eyes. Her eyes get big "Ah ****!" My pupils are different size and and my right eye is not responding to light. I am immediately put on O2 and given neuro tests. I immediately think of a class I had with a doctor who is head of hyperbaric medicine. I then run through all of the symptoms " I do not feel tingling in my extremeties, I dont feel nausous, have no headache, don't itch, my neck isnt making noise or hurt, I can wiggle all toes and fingers, I seem to be fine. I then think about my dive. Total run time of 19 minutes down to 116 feet for maybe, MAYBE 2 minutes, average depth about 70 feet. I don't deserve a hit! I came up slow, what the hell!?!?! The coast guard is called blah blah blah EKG, more neuro tests, more questions like does the victim wear contacts, was he wearing them at the time of accident (what effin accident?), is he wearing a Scopolamine patch,... Im being transported! Now I'm on the CG boat and they readminister all the tests, EKG, Neuro, BP, put in an IV, fresh bottle of O2... Between all the questions I here a radio squak ... treat and file as diving accident ... goes for a ride in the chamber... I am then transported to a second coast guard boat with more EKG, neuro, IV, O2... finally arrive at "The Chamber". more EKG, neuro, O2... more questions more squaking radios ... doctor flying in from USC Medical Center in Air 5... I'm now in a large metal shed/barn with a large chamber painted a very pretty blue next to me...I'm not sure if it was "Wolfgang", or the other guy at the medical center that looked like George Clooney "we need to shut the door ok?"
Its your building do whatever you want...
I then hear air 5, "wow that must be a big helicopter"
it is!
Something smashes into the big steel door of the shed and I jump straight up off the gourny (not an easy feat!)
Thats why we closed the door!
In walk 3 armed Sheriffs in flight uniforms looking more comando than ready to protect and serve. Then inwalks the Doctor. More EKG, neuro, O2.... he then pulls out a little bottle of eye drops. Puts a few drops in my dialated right eye and waits a moment. Ok your fine go home. Your eye is dialated because of the patch that was behind your ear.
Turns out that scopolamine patches have the same drugs as what optomatrists use to dialate your eyes. After a kickass ride back to Avalon(let me tell you the cg boats can move!) I meet up with my friends, finally get out of my drysuit and come on home. After all this I have to pick up my mask, snorkle, and fins from a friends home, my weight belt was left on the boat. This will be returned to me next time I visit the lovely island of Catalina. The highlight of all this was my suvenier from the Catalina Hyperaric Chamber, a cool Tshirt!
