My dive incident

[aozger]

I am a new diver with 12 dives so far, 2 of them being in the ocean. This past weekend, I went for the 13th and looking back, I am feeling very lucky to be alive.

I was on a charter in West Palm Beach.The problems started even before I got on the boat. I had booked a spot on a 2 tank dive at 4pm the day before, but when I got there I was told that there was only a 3 tank dive going out. When I tried to tell them what I had booked, they told me I was either going out on the 3 tank dive, or not! Being new, I was not comfortable with this, but against my better judgment, I accepted, thinking that I would just do 2 of the dives as I had driven 2.5 hours there the night before and stayed at a hotel. I just did not want to waste it.

So we got on board and I told both the captain and the Divemaster that I was a new diver with only 2 ocean dives before. The divemaster told me to stay with him in that case. Then started the dive briefing. The first dive was going to be to 90ft. I started getting curious about the depth both as a new diver and also we were all on Nitrox and my two of my tanks 35%s and one 32%.

Being the newbie, I put my trust in the Divemaster, thinking he would keep things safe for me. It was time to dive. No real buddying up, no checks, it was all people jumping in, half with spearguns and the other half going sighseeing with the Divemaster. I proceeded to swim to the DM around the float. Then he said, ok, we are diving. I proceeded to empty my BCD and I was still on the surface. I was weighted wrong with my new 7mm. I had 16lbs it was great for my 3mm, but not this one! At this point everyone was gone and I was still struggling to go down. As I was still near the float, I knew I would not lose them, so I kept struggling and managed to go down by doing the most ridiculous signs of a newbie, using hands to propel with the fins and flipping upside down.

I was still next to the float and seeing the reel, so I put my arm around it as I was going down. After about 30-40ft, the suit compressed enough that it was easy to sink. My watch was showing 10 mins so far. I kept going down and saw this crowd at 90 ft. My watch had started warning me for the Nitrox. So I started thinking, maybe I will just go up a little bit and I did, a few minutes later, I again ended up going down, to 100ft. I was also at 1400psi at this point, so I said I will just raise up more and follow them there. I went up to 80, stayed for a little bit. Then, when I saw the 1200psi and still saw these people around 90+ feet, I just said, forget this I am going up.

This is where the main trouble started. I went up to 70, which was a little too fast for my watch, so I stopped swimming up, but I was still going up. Remember, not enough weight? I hit 60, 50 and I could not control it after that. I just kept going up. Of course no way to do a safety stop. As soon as I surfaced, I inflated the BCD ( I was all fully buoyant before that anyway! ) and signaled to boat for emergency. They came to get me. I told them I missed my stop. Got on, threw of my BCD and ran to the captain. He asked me if I could breathe ok and feeling fine. I said yes, but I went up too fast and missed my stop. ( Should have asked for O2!)

I told them I was not doing any more dives for the day. My Suunto was also in the freakout mode. He told me he could have someone take a look at it and maybe reset! I said no. I m done. By the way my whole dive time was 22 minutes and I as I said I know for sure I spent 10 mins trying to go down. We then proceeded to go get the other divers, most one by one as there was hardly anyone buddying up. In all 3 dives, we picked up the DM before some of the other divers that were supposed to be with him!

Anyway, I was on the boat for the next 5 hours, got seasick, too, but did not feel anything else. I drove back home, still in shock about what happened. I woke up the next morning with this tingly nummy feeling in all of my fingertips. Kind of like they fell asleep, but they are almost back to normal style. The webbing between my fingers was also a red like rash. Went to work, but kept thinking something might be wrong.

At 5pm, I went to the emergency room and then got ambulanced to another hospital around 11pm for the hyperbaric chamber. The doctors there did the usual checks on me and said better safe than sorry, you are going in. I was in for 4 hours, 45 minutes. The tingling was still there. When I came out, the doctor said since the symptoms came out so much later and there was no relief, I probably did not have DCS, but maybe a neck nerve pinching ( I do have herniated disks on my back and neck, so it may be right ).

I went home at 5am and went to bed. I woke up this morning, feeling a lot more like myself and the tingling is less. The redness is also gone. All of these could also be from the cold day on the boat as my skin is very dry now. I also thought it could be my dive gloves creating the rash. I guess I will never know.

I am very scared now. Even though if that was DCS, and a mild one at that, I do not know if I will be able to dive again. I keep thinking maybe shallow dives only, but then I have some area of my body hurting, or cracking that is just regular body operation and I keep getting paranoid even though it was been way more than 48 hours after the dive and almost 24 after the chamber.

I think people go on dive charters to both see interesting things and to put their trust in those people. Buddying up, checks, safety rules were the things that were constantly on the dive manuals. Is that also not the reason that we do not individually go diving and not just walk into the ocean ourselves?

I knew it was my mistake for overlooking the weight problem and not stopping when I could not go down. I just wish the DM would oversee my safety, especially after I told him I was new.

 

[Valwood1]

First, glad that you're okay.
Second, DCS can manifest itself well after the dive is over. One thought would be to have a real pro check you out -- i.e., a doctor who is conversant with DCS. Maybe it's just a pinched nerve, and maybe not.
Third, you raise sooo many issues here, and I'm sure that a lot of readers will jump in on the role of the DM, proper weighting, etc. The most important thing for you to remember, though, is that you are responsible for your own well-being. While we'd all like to think that the DM will take care of us, particularly when he/she has been told that we're new divers, the fact is that you really shouldn't count on that assistance.
Finally, I hope that you keep diving. But, it would be good to get a lot more experience before going to 90 feet, or doing any other dive that might present challenges (such as strong current) greater than your skill and comfort levels allow you to handle. There are some great shallow dives off of Florida -- a lot out of Key Largo, I know. You can have some wonderful times at depths with which you are comfortable, and accumulate some experience AND a good comfort level before venturing to deeper or more complex sites.

Good luck.

 

[billymac60]

You are responsible for your own safety, never depend on the dive master. I agree with Valwood1, go to the Keys and do a lot of shallow diving before you try West Palm or any other area with deeper depths. Practice, practice, practice.

I also believe you would probably benefit from hiring a dive master to dive with you on a few dives. If you pay for your own personal DM, you will get the personal attention that you need.

The DM on the boat is focused on many divers and thus cannot and should not be expected to provide any one diver with their un-divided attention. Hiring, and paying for a DM does not excuse your from being responsible for your own safety, but it will get you the one-on-one time that you probably need.

 

[Huck BB62]

Two dives, and you're diving on enriched air? Go speed racer!

Seriously, stay in the water with us, but: If you're not comfortable, call it a day. If you feel that a safe dive is your DM's responsibility and you're angry, well, I just think you're out of your comfort level. More time, more dives, more practice and a lot of talking.

It's like motorcycle riding. A lot of folks get the license and bike, and never practice or talk about the "what ifs" and get comfortable and repetitive in their responses to emergency breaking, collision avoidance, etc.

I'm not sure why people don't like talking about bad stuff gone wrong during diving but it's kinda funny, they don't. It's like an airplane full of people who don't want to talk about close calls or air incidents, maybe they think it's bad mojo?

I wouldn't dive deep for awhile.
I wouldn't dive enriched air for awhile until you get so comfortable that you can give that the extra attention.

There's SO much great diving at safer locations and depths where you're at! I envy you! You can jump in the car and go diving a hundred times a year. Hope you get more water time.

 

[RJP]

I just wish the DM would oversee my safety...

You need to get over that naive idea pretty quickly...

 

[Rick Murchison]

Glad you're ok...
You've certainly highlighted why proper weighting is so important.
As for the DM, I'm going to come down a little hard on you here - the DM said to stay with him, which you did not do; he was unable to "take care of you" because you were never there to take care of. Even if you'd gotten to him there's little he could have done to help you, given the dangerous situation you'd placed yourself in - you had committed yourself to an uncontrolled ascent by being seriously underweighted, and that just simply ain't his fault. You'd put the DM between a rock and a hard place without his knowledge or consent, so I wouldn't throw many stones his way.
You were, however, in a good position to abort the first dive immediately, fix your problem and make the next one (or two). That's what the DM thought you (or any diver) would do if you couldn't go down with the group.
Ok... enough lecturing. I'm sure you've already beat yourself up about that - it just needs re-saying so other newbies can learn from your experience that as a diver you are responsible for your own safety, and that includes basic diving skills like weighting, and basic sound decisions like aborting when things are not up to safety standards.
Now let's look at the profile, and address your concerns about future diving.
First, I agree that as the symptoms didn't resolve at all in the chamber, it's unlikely you took a DCS hit.
Your profile was short of ideal, but it wasn't that awful, either. Bear in mind that for decades divers were making 100' dives on air with 20 minute bottom times and direct ascents to the surface at 60 fpm - in compliance with the Navy tables - without getting bent. As you were on Nitrox and mostly between 80-90 FSW, your EAD was considerably shallower, and as you spent nearly half your total dive time just getting down in the first place, your bottom time was shorter too.
Even your ascent profile wasn't likely that far off what we used to do "in the good old days."
Bottom line, while I think your idea to stay shallow for awhile is a great idea for a number of reasons, I don't really think DCS susceptability is one of 'em.
Don't let this incident discourage you - take the lessons & get back up on that horse
--
Take that 7 mil to a swimming pool and see how much weight it takes to sink it. Add that to whatever it takes to sink you in just a bathing suit.
For salt water, add 2.5 pounds for every hundred pounds you and your total diving system (tank, BC, regulator, wetsuit) weigh - usually 6 - 8 pounds - over what your pool weighting is.
Rick

 

[Gombessa]

Yikes, what an experience. I'm sorry to hear about your ordeals, and glad to hear that you seem to have come out of it okay and with a healthy dose of introspection!

There are a lot of things to address here, but I'll focus on a couple:

I had booked a spot on a 2 tank dive at 4pm the day before, but when I got there I was told that there was only a 3 tank dive going out.

What was it about the 3-tank dive that concerned you? Did they tell you it was more advanced, or going out to a different spot than you had originally planned on? The latter is cause for concern, but if the diving was within my limits (and a 90ft dive wouldn't have been, given your stated experience), I would have been stoked to have another dive.

The first dive was going to be to 90ft. I started getting curious about the depth both as a new diver and also we were all on Nitrox and my two of my tanks 35%s and one 32%.

This one is huge. The depth is below your comfortable range. And are you nitrox certified? If not, I strongly emphasize here that I would NEVER, EVER breathe a tank with mix I'm not trained for. You mentioned that you dropped to 100ft. Was this on one of the 35% tanks? That's over 4ATA, which means a ppO2 of greater than 1.4, and I bet you were working pretty hard (finning, breathing heavily because of stress, being new, etc.). Not a good combination, and if you're unfamiliar with the concepts of partial pressure, MOD, ox tox, analyzing your gas etc., those are all excellent reasons why you should never have strapped those tanks on!

Being the newbie, I put my trust in the Divemaster, thinking he would keep things safe for me.

I think everyone goes through this phase when they're new. Most people figure out sooner or later that DMs often are the worse people to depend on, since their job is primarily to serve as tour guide, and because of this they're often very poor buddies while they're working.

I think people go on dive charters to both see interesting things and to put their trust in those people. Buddying up, checks, safety rules were the things that were constantly on the dive manuals. Is that also not the reason that we do not individually go diving and not just walk into the ocean ourselves?

I was also surprised how, in my OW class there was a heavy emphasis on buddy checks, buddy skills, staying together, etc., but the minute I got my card and stepped onto a boat, it seemed like all of that went out the window, including (and especially) by the same instructors and DMs who taught the class. It bothered me so much that I naturally gravitated to a system of diving that strongly emphasized these very skills. In short, there are lots of kinds of folk, some are assiduously careful about checks and buddies, others are completely carefree, and many are somewhere in the middle. You need to make an active effort to ascertain before the dive exactly what you want out of your buddies and make sure your goals and practices are mutually compatible.

I knew it was my mistake for overlooking the weight problem and not stopping when I could not go down. I just wish the DM would oversee my safety, especially after I told him I was new.

I also wish this was the case, but in reality what you experienced with the DM is not uncommon at all. His attention is simply split between too many people and priorities. The positive spin on this is that it's a great incentive to break out of the "trust the DM" mold that many new divers take, and to be assertive with the diving practices that affect your own enjoyment and safety - training, equipment checks, buddy checks, buddy communication, agreed-upon dive planning and goals, contingencies for problems and separation, and knowing when you should simply call the dive rather than trust that a DM or boat captain will be looking out for your individual needs.

Hopefully you bounce back from this episode and get back into the water!

 

[aozger]

Thanks a lot for the responses. To clarify, I am Nitrox and AOW certified. I had also been to 80 ft. before for my AOW class. I think I expected too much from the DM as my previous DM on my first ocean dive was totally different, along with the boat captain. In fact, they were so thorough both with the check and underwater that I kept thinking I was in my first pool dive class.

I also did not know we were going to 90ft as their website advertised the dives to be 60-80ft dives.

Gombessa:

I did not want to push myself for the 3 dives being so inexperienced. I had always done 2 tank dives in one day and decided to stick to my comfort zone. Also as you said, being past 1.4 was a huge reason for my confusion, too. I still have a hard time believing these people were deeper than me.

 

[StreetDoctor]

Glad you're alive. You might want to find a better instructor.

 

[imwright1985]

Dont be afraid of diving palm beach like some people say, call the charters and see if you can do 60 ft dives to get the hang of our currents then tackel it website schedules change at times. Also its usually better to be slightly overweight since you can compensate with your bc. It just takes time and patience then you can have the fun we do off palm beach