My lesson learned

[rongoodman]

Among the side effects I saw for Lisinipril when I looked it up were severe hypotension and elevated creatinine. OTOH, it should have no effect on your HR, since it's an ACE inhibitor, not a beta blocker--are you taking other meds too? If I was Sherwood's legal team, I wouldn't be too worried--given what you've admitted to here, they can probably find 127 expert witnesses to testify that you brought this CF on yourself. The brief chamber rides make it sound like any DCS was minor, if present at all. Glad to hear you made it back, but please get some training, and listen to what they tell you!

 

[Superlyte27]

I was not narced, at least I clearly remember think of that as a possibility when I was at depth. Of course I suppose almost anyone is narced to a certain extent on a deep dive.

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Dude, 220' on air, you were narced out of your skull. Come to terms with that fact or get out of diving to save your life.




*edit*
I just read the rest of your last post, where you said that if you were REALLY at 220' you would have gone through gas much faster. I don't know how quickly you ascended, but if you did the standard 60' per minute, you would have only needed 38 cubic feet of gas even through your deco stops. You started your ascent with 72cu' of gas in your LP 121 (don't think there's any such thing as an LP125, but I could be wrong). If you started your ascent immediately, you had enough gas to surface safely. Of course I planned this dive using a .60SAC, and you could have been much higher, but I'm not convinced you have any clue how deep you were.

 

[vincent54]

Concerning the Sherwood manual, The very first entry says "always plan your dive"

I won't tell you how to dive, my training level is OW1. But for your future safety, take the advice of some of the scuba board members who train or who are advanced, technical divers. Learn from their experience.

I am even thinking of advancing my own dive career, seems the fun wrecks in Truk are beyond my training right now. Safe diving.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

Only one thought: Linsinopril is for HYPERTENSION and not for HYPOTENSION. I have been on iy before. Please explain how Lisinopril got your BP up.

 

[racerfern]

I don't think I ever said Lisinopril raised my BP, it lowered my BP which was elevated prior to taking the medication. If I typed the opposite somewhere I apologize, it is a typo. The really strange thing is that my BP did drop as low as it did. Something that had never happened previously and it's not that I attribute it strictly to DCS but at least for my particular situation it seems like the DCS brought it on.

As I previously said, I did plan the dive and did a simulation. My SAC is usually .6-.7.

Finally, as I said previously I'm not interested in suing simply because I had an accident that was my fault. It's the rep's statement that bothers me.

AFA the tank size, it is clearly stamped into the steel "OCEAN MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS 125 CU FT" although in this case 4cf has no effect on the final outcome.

I expected to get flamed but not because others don't read what's been posted or because someone else didn't read and dissect it correctly. Oh well, you gotta love the internet.

I learned a lot from consciously going back and thinking the dive through along with all the drama that unfolded. I agree with a poster that I didn't have a severe case but I certainly had enough symptoms to warrant the visit to the chamber. I've made mistakes I won't make again, thanks for all the comments.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I think you should have an smb on a reel or string or something, so you can easily hang and do deco and this might have helped you with determination of your depth. I like to have a watch so i have a clue as to what's happening when a computer dies. i have had batteries die and air integrated computers, just stop working. If my computer completely stops working, i don't plan on being dead. The Op should have some plan B.

Also a planned solo dive to 150 and no redundancy? Even a small pony would have given you a decent amount of time to hang at 15 feet? Was the plan to simply hope and pray you have no issues with the scuba unit? I would be much more worried about the consequences of a hose blowing or an O-ring extruding, then a compter that goes wacko.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

I don't think I ever said Lisinopril raised my BP, it lowered my BP which was elevated prior to taking the medication. If I typed the opposite somewhere I apologize, it is a typo.

Hey not beating up on you but I got it from #3: "There's no doubt that the diving incident brought some other circumstances to the forefront. However it appears the primary cause for kidney failure was extremely low blood pressure aggravated by the extreme diving conditions.

I was originally prescribed 10mg of Lisinopril which after a month or so was bumped to 20mg. This got my blood pressure to about 120/80 and seemed to work well."

I think that I get what you were trying to say.

 

[Ben_ca]

So do you still think that going to 150 on air was a good plan?

 

[TSandM]

I think one of the big lessons here is that one should carefully consider the parameters of the planned dive, and what critical functions you might need to back up. I would say that, on any dive where the possibility exists that you might incur a deco obligation, that knowing one's depth and time is a critical function. Many technical divers carry redundant gauges; I don't, but I carry buddies . . . if I were ever to contemplate a dive such as the one you did, I WOULD take a backup gauge. I would also take a redundant gas supply, as I regard enough gas to complete the dive as a critical function.

I think this dive was poorly planned and ill advised, and I think you were lucky that you weren't bent worse than you were.

With respect to the subsequent renal failure and hypotension, your analysis is almost certainly correct in part -- being on Flomax and Lisinopril is going to complicate any situation where your blood pressure is likely to be low. But, to my knowledge, there is not usually anything about DCS that produces hypotension -- and renal failure usually produces the opposite. With a baseline creatinine of 1.2, you have some degree of renal dysfunction at baseline; although that may be the upper limit of normal, it is rarely seen in normal patients. Whatever the etiology of the hypotension, it certainly aggravated the renal problem, and it is a very nice outcome that your creatinine normalized. Did you get any IV fluids during your original hospital visit for the DCS?

I think, if I were you, I'd be extremely careful about entering into any situation that would put my renal function at risk again. Staying well hydrated at all times AND avoiding risky diving would both be good plans.

 

[Griffo]

Dude seriously. Solo dive, 150ft, air, no redundancy in gauges or gas. And not in a good physical state at the beginning of the dive.

I think Sherwood is the least to blame in this equation. I dont suddenly crash my car when my GPS erroneously decides i'm doing 240km'h through a tunnel, nor should a properly trained diver have issues if his depth guage freaks out.

Did you even plan the dive and do some air consumption calcs based on depth and time? Have a strategy for failures? Tell me what your minimum or rock bottom gas was on that dive?

You buddy didn't turn up and you did the dive dehydrated - what happened to "never be afraid to thumb a dive before it starts" ?

I'm still not happy with the end result of the Sherwood Wisdom Diving Computer failure. It completely baffles me as to how many failures of important dive equipment there are and how they are tolerated by the diving community. Sure, the focus falls back on the diver and his responsibility to know how to handle situations and emergencies but there are just too many computer failures that seem to be the common denominator for many diving accidents.

It doesn't seem like you have learnt your lesson at all.