Night dive that did not go well..

[ndavy]

I was on that night dive. It was a wild series of events. The man who had to go to the hospital with chest pains wound up not being anything serious, I don't know exactly what it was but it wasn't DCS or a lung over expansion injury.
The other two who were on oxygen were precautionary because they made a rapid ascent. I am fairly certain that one of the two that made a rapid ascent forgot his weightbelt (there is about a 15% chance that I could be wrong about him forgetting his weightbelt, since he never confessed to forgetting it but when I asked him he didn't remember putting it on or taking it off, and I asked him about it about 2 minutes after we got back on the boat) because he was very seasick before entering the water. The seas were fairly choppy I had a little motion sickness but not too bad. He must have pulled himself down line and then when he was swimming around the wreck and came up to around 50 feet he couldn't stop his ascent. His buddy also was rather inexperienced and she just followed him up for some reason.
When the diver complaining of chest pain came up the boat captain did attempt to radio the authorities but was getting no response from anyone except the other dive boat on the site until it was relayed by someone who fortunately happened to be monitoring the channel.
One group of divers even had to be left on hanging onto the bouy until the other dive boat on site could pick them up since they were still while we needed to run the man with chest pains in to meet the ambulance. Fortunately everything turned out alright and no one was seriously injured although I know a couple of the divers on the boat reevaulated their desire to dive after having three people on oxygen on the same boat.

 

[Tom Winters]

That sure sounded like the Night Dive From Hell.

 

[Randy43068]

Thats why one of the things to consider is all the different possibilities, especially when not directly involved. Even those directly involved may not know all the circumstances which occured to create the situation... hmm sometimes even the victim doesn't know either!

How do you expect anyone here to take you seriously? You’re the guy who lives life on the edge, risking everything by eating a burger while driving. Your excuse? “I’m hungry, you say!” I hope you are re-evaluating your life after doing such a dangerous thing!


On topic, glad things worked out in the end. The dive sounds like it was a total cluster F*-@

 

[Scubakevdm]

Collin ate a burger underwater? You rule man!

 

[Randy43068]

Collin ate a burger underwater? You rule man!

he did. I saw it in the news with my own eyes! He did!

:1poke:

 

[ndavy]

I found out a little more about the dive tonight.
The guy who had to go to the hospital ran out of air, very he wasn't quickly, and was coming up breathing off of an instructors octopus. The dive was only to around 70 feet for like 25 minutes including a shortened saftey stop. He said that they ascended faster than he was comfortable with from the saftey stop to the surface.
Anyway although he was released from the hospital without having to go in a chamber apparently recently he has been losing some feeling in his extremities and has to get an MRI. Whatever the injury is I sure don't have it figured out, and apparently neither do the doctors.

 

[jagfish]

Here is the thread on that incident...

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=118799

 

[Kevfin]

Have you read this thread?

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=118799

Has a lot more info...

 

[Kevfin]

Ooops, Jagfish beat me to it

 

[lhpdiver]

For openers let me say that I am in no way second guessing / questioning any of the professionals involved in that incident. Having said that - if it were my wife in a similar situation on the same wreck (Sea Emperor) I would have brought her in the Boca Inlet and not taken the ride to Hillsboro. The wreck is off Boca. As part of my DM training I visited with the Rescue folks at Boca, Deerfield and Pompano. (We dive off our own boat alot and I wanted to know procedures). The guy in charge at Boca (a scuba inst) said ideally Ocean Rescue would send a boat out to meet the dive boat, short of that they would have a rescue vehicle meet the boat at the Inlet (where the resort shuttle docks). Then the procedure was to have a helicopter waiting at the resort's golf course (near Camino and Federal) to whisk the patient away to a chamber. He also stressed that in the first sentence of your distress call that you mention "scuba diving incident". That sets rescue off properly. One last thing I found interesting, say you are from Miami diving off Boca and you pick up your cell phone and call 911. You are going to get the rescue people for the area your phone calls home (Miami), not where you place the call. You need to mention up front "scuba diving incident in the waters off Boca Raton ...". I think everyone I spoke with said their first choice would be to call 911 and second choice would be to use VHF. I believe the 911 operator would contact the USCG.