freedc
Contributor
A month ago I dove some cenotes in Mexico and shared a shuttle van with some people who were going on ocean dives from the same operator. Most of them did not come back. Turns out one of their party was injured on the dive and was evacuated to a hospital. I never learned what happened to the victim and haven't seen anything reported here on SB. (It was late April, in the Riviera Maya area, I won't mention the dive operator).
I learned from one of the shuttle passengers/ocean divers who did return that a diver on his trip lost consciousness and surfaced alone, bright blue and foaming at the mouth. Most of the dive party was still below surface but one or two had surfaced early and were waiting on the boat doing pickups. They spent half an hour resuscitating the victim and evacuated him, but that's all I've heard. One of the divers/clients who rode with me on the van (both ways) was an experienced diver and had been part of the rescue team. Everything I heard was from his account on the ride back to my hotel.
My account is secondhand and doesn't have many details about the causes or conditions surrounding the incident, but I'm posting here because I simply could not get it out of my head and have had nobody to talk to about it. I never told my wife because I think she'd freak out and not let me dive again (seriously). My dives were just me and the DM.
What I'm wondering: is this common? Should I in fact be worried? I know diving is dangerous -- hell, I was diving in caverns that week -- but do resort-area dive operators hush up about accidents? I would have thought everyone would be talking about it but when I went back for another day of cenote diving I asked my guide about it and he said almost nothing. It was just the two of us that day also. We were talking exclusively in Spanish so I sometimes lose nuance, but he just said "yeah, a guy swallowed some water." And when I asked how he was, my guide said he didn't know. I thought, What??? A client of yours loses consciousness for at least half an hour and you don't know how it ended? Do the cave DMs and ocean DMs not talk to each other?
Also, I didn't know if there is some taboo against talking bout incidents in the shop. For my second dive day I was in the shop almost alone -- I'm guessing the owners were dealing with the incident? -- to get gear and ended up getting dropped off at my hotel instead of going back to the shop at the end of the day. It seemed spooky. I wanted to ask "What the hell happened the other day?" but i chickened out, got my gear, and left for my dive.
I spent the rest of my vacation staring off into space worrying about this dude I barely talked to and never knew, thinking about whether I'm taking too much risk by having a hobby like this. My wife was shocked when she offered to let me take another dive and I declined and said I really want to spend time with you and the kids. (It was so true!) I'm going to keep diving, but the incident was scary for me and I now I finally am writing about it come here to get some perspective. I'm almost afraid to read many of the other posts in this forum.
Sorry it this isn't right for this forum but it helped to type that out.
I learned from one of the shuttle passengers/ocean divers who did return that a diver on his trip lost consciousness and surfaced alone, bright blue and foaming at the mouth. Most of the dive party was still below surface but one or two had surfaced early and were waiting on the boat doing pickups. They spent half an hour resuscitating the victim and evacuated him, but that's all I've heard. One of the divers/clients who rode with me on the van (both ways) was an experienced diver and had been part of the rescue team. Everything I heard was from his account on the ride back to my hotel.
My account is secondhand and doesn't have many details about the causes or conditions surrounding the incident, but I'm posting here because I simply could not get it out of my head and have had nobody to talk to about it. I never told my wife because I think she'd freak out and not let me dive again (seriously). My dives were just me and the DM.
What I'm wondering: is this common? Should I in fact be worried? I know diving is dangerous -- hell, I was diving in caverns that week -- but do resort-area dive operators hush up about accidents? I would have thought everyone would be talking about it but when I went back for another day of cenote diving I asked my guide about it and he said almost nothing. It was just the two of us that day also. We were talking exclusively in Spanish so I sometimes lose nuance, but he just said "yeah, a guy swallowed some water." And when I asked how he was, my guide said he didn't know. I thought, What??? A client of yours loses consciousness for at least half an hour and you don't know how it ended? Do the cave DMs and ocean DMs not talk to each other?
Also, I didn't know if there is some taboo against talking bout incidents in the shop. For my second dive day I was in the shop almost alone -- I'm guessing the owners were dealing with the incident? -- to get gear and ended up getting dropped off at my hotel instead of going back to the shop at the end of the day. It seemed spooky. I wanted to ask "What the hell happened the other day?" but i chickened out, got my gear, and left for my dive.
I spent the rest of my vacation staring off into space worrying about this dude I barely talked to and never knew, thinking about whether I'm taking too much risk by having a hobby like this. My wife was shocked when she offered to let me take another dive and I declined and said I really want to spend time with you and the kids. (It was so true!) I'm going to keep diving, but the incident was scary for me and I now I finally am writing about it come here to get some perspective. I'm almost afraid to read many of the other posts in this forum.
Sorry it this isn't right for this forum but it helped to type that out.