11 replies to this topic

[gcbryan]

I thought I'd add another one of the I made a stupid decision and lived to tell about it posts to this thread!

Luckily, I only have a couple of borderline stupid decisions and one simply hairy situation among my diving experiences and the other two I've contributed here already.

This happened quite a few years ago. I had some experience at the time, maybe 200 dives or so, but I had a liberal computer and had never gone into deco (by choice of course). I knew what the screen should look like when it was in deco mode but I'd never caused it to go into deco mode.

I was on a boat dive along a wall with a more or less unlimited bottom. There was a ton of life growing on the wall even as you got deeper and deeper. I had a very experienced buddy with me as well who I was not worried about at all.

I had a large HP 119 as well as a 30 cu ft bailout with me as did my friend (or at least I thought so). We got down to around 130 fsw (this was our second dive of the day) and it took no time to get there. I realized that my computer had never been in deco mode and I hadn't been much below 130 fsw so I thought this is the perfect place and perfect buddy to get a little deeper with and check out how my computer functions in deco mode as well.

OK, this may not be the soundest logic but at least there was some logic to it. I also realized that if I was going to do this it would have been better to do it on the first dive but the first dive site wasn't as good as this one.

The bottom line is that when I noticed that I was only 1 minute away from deco I quit looking at that info and focused simply on depth (narcosis and inexperience). When we got to 160 fsw I decided OK deep enough and we started to go back up the wall. At this point I did look at the "numbers" and it said 15 minutes and I though what a piece of crap computer...I know I don't have 15 minutes before I hit the NDL but I continued to go up anyway since I knew it was the right thing to do.

By the time I got to 100 fsw and was thinking more clearly the "number" was 30 minutes but at this point I realized that it wasn't NDL info but a deco obligation!

It seemed excessive but I knew that when you have a liberal computer they are generally going to be the opposite if you do get into deco especially on the second dive.

Oh well, if you do the dive you have to do the time so we went on up eventually to 20 fsw and just stared at crabs fighting with each other but 30 minutes is a long time.

When it finally counted down 3,2,1 I was on a high to be shortly followed by a pounding low when the ceiling changed from 20fsw to 10fsw and it now showed that I had another 30 minutes to do at 10 fsw! These numbers aren't exact by the way.

I hadn't realized that the ceiling for all this time was showing 20 fsw so of course the next ceiling wouldn't be the surface but rather 10 fsw and it too would be a long (should be even longer) stop.

At this point, what can you do! After a few minutes my buddy was showing me that his air was going a little low. Great my "experienced' dive buddy hadn't managed his air. I offered to share but he said no...not yet...at a certain point he had no choice of course and I gave him my reg. I had now realized that he didn't in fact bring his bailout bottle on this dive and he wasn't diving his HP 119 but rather a LP 95 or 104 or something like that.

OK, I'll use my bailout and he can have my reg. When we had about 15 more minutes to go he signaled to go up. I still had enough air to finish my obligation but we had spent 45 minutes already on deco and I figured we would probably be OK and I wasn't going to leave my buddy at this point. We did the dive together and if one of us got bent (or both) we would be there to help each other. I also realized how stupid this whole thing was. Not farm animal stupid since I did think it out somewhat and we did more or less pull it off but stupid nevertheless.

When we got to the surface he told me he wasn't totally out of air but that his computer cleared him. Mine didn't but I wasn't going to go back under at this point and we had both done the same two dives anyway.

The boat picked us up. I drank a ton of water and avoided any hard exercise and just hoped that we had done enough deco.

We had and there was no problem but this does show how narcosis can cause you to lose focus and track of time, affect your decison making process and just how making plans on the fly aren't nearly as good as on the boat when I would have noticed the size of his tank and that he had no bailout bottle.

Not that having a bailout bottle should be taken into account as far as a gas plan but in this case I didn't need mine as part of my gas plan but it did make up for other bad decisions.

This story and one I posted a few years ago regarding diving with a new untrimmed neck seal are the only really poor decisions I can think of that I've made in diving. Hopefully, they were the last but I would never count on that!

If anyone else has any please share, I think these stories are always helpful to keep us on our toes.

Edited by gcbryan, 10 September 2009 - 05:10 AM.

[WreckWench]

WOW!!! This is a great experience to share!

You have my utmost respect...

1. You admitted that even experienced divers do not know what their computer looks like when it goes into deco nor sometimes how to read it. (Newer divers have this problem all the time and figure everyone else gets it except for them.)

2. You showed that computers do vary and sometimes drastically since you both did the same profile but one computer was far more conservative or liberal depending on the perspective then the other one.

3. You did the right things after the dive to take extra precautions...and I wonder if you had felt strange or had some joint pain would you have dismissed it or been extra cautious and heed it?

4. You have a great respect for your fellow divers to share one of your learning experiences with others in the hopes that it may help someone else reading it.

I too have some similar experiences I will share when I have a few more minutes to post! Great post!

[shadragon]

If anyone else has any please share, I think these stories are always helpful to keep us on our toes.

I always have considerable respect for those divers willing to share their 'less than perfect dives' shall we say. Great learning experience for everyone. Many of these tales (unfortunately) go untold and many tragedies could be avoided. Thanks for sharing.

[peterbj7]

The main issue here wasn't the decisions made under the effect of narcosis, but those made up front while still on the surface. I think you were actually quite lucky this didn't become a serious drama.

I have seen countless people using computers that they don't understand. The first bad sign is when they want help to set say a nitrox mix. When on a solo dive once I came across a buddy pair who didn't seem to have much idea what they were doing, confirmed by the fact that they were both wearing computers which showed they were well into deco but they didn't seem to realise the significance of this. Luckily they had adequate air and I "helped" them to the surface. I like to think they were more aware on their next dive!

[gcbryan]

Well, 600 dives later, to say (as I did) that I was experienced is a relative term of course. I was experienced in that I had done a lot of dives in challenging conditions in a short period of time but I still had been diving for less than a year (not counting getting certified years earlier but not continuing with it).

If I had a pain would I have written it off...not at all on that dive. I was paranoid at that point. Any other day, yeah, I probably would have written off any odd feeling.

Not now, hundreds of dives later and never a "weird" feeling I know what I should feel like after a dive (which is great) so would address any different feeling.

I used to be tired after a dive until I figured out how to shape the profile.

I didn't really make any decisions on the surface Peter. Maybe I'd better read my own post to see what you're referring to.

This entire "plan" was developed after 100 fsw on a wall dive. I knew how the computer worked, my brain just didn't work as well after 130 fsw with new displays, new depths, and on the fly planning.

Peter, I can't even begin to imagine the problems that you've seen in a resort location! Both of us were thinking divers in that we dove in challenging conditions weekly, were able to remain calm and deal with the situation. We did know what we were getting into and it wasn't luck that we didn't stay down there longer.

We just pushed the envelope a bit without the clear head of being on the surface and we had to deal with the consequences. It's an interesting story to me because I'm generally not the poster child for narcosis. I acknowledge it's presence but I don't have many stories where it's had much of a noticeable effect on my diving or on my decision making abilities. However, when it does I have absolutely no problem admitting it.

I try to deal in facts rather than try to make things fit a belief system. So you'll never hear me talking about being "narced" out of my mind at 100 fsw and I've been fairly deep momentarily on walls without feeling the effects greatly but I know the impairment is there even if it causes me no problem on a particular dive.

I try to remember dives like this one which is a classic example of how narcosis does affect one. If I did this same dive the next day, I would be just as impaired from a narcosis point of view...same depth...same level of ppn2 but this particular scenario wouldn't have happened because I would have learned from the initial experience.

And yet, if a new scenario were to come up the impairment would crop up again potentially. I know to some the lesson to learn is to not dive deeper on air but for wall diving I'm not going to go the tech route for the short max depth time spent and experience does help limit any new challenges. If one can just remember to ascend a few feet when feeling impaired that's a great lesson as well.

If you're drunk you can't improve things...if you are impaired by nitrogen you can do something about it immediately.

Edited by gcbryan, 10 September 2009 - 03:42 PM.

[Wakemaker]

...If you're drunk you can't improve things...if you are impaired by nitrogen you can do something about it immediately.

I wouldn't count on it; I've heard stories about what getting narced-out can do to a diver's judgment.

Does DAN have any way for us to account for "near misses" like this? There's a SinglesDivers topic about divers experiencing hypoxia. It seems that hypoxia and SCUBA divers gets less attention than it should.

I know someone who experienced the same kind of scenario Bryan and Peter are referring to regarding dive computers in these situations, and narcosis was never considered to be the REAL reason for the trouble.

So, Bryan, did you and your buddy confess your sins to the boat captain when you finally got back aboard? Did the boat have any oxygen for first aid? Had you become bent on the boat, how long do you suspect it might have taken to get you to the nearest chamber?


I sincerely appreciate this frankness and hope other divers share-same experiences on your topic. People with so many dives observe or experience close calls, and often take action to prevent their exacerbation. Which prevents an incident. Unless a diver actually has a full-blown "incident" then it gets overlooked and not logged by DAN, or any other agency.


That little tag line you used; "Oh well, if you do the dive you have to do the time..."
Can you post it on
Safety Mnemonics to Dive By
Phrases you've seen or heard that might be helpful for divers.
http://www.singledivers.com/surfaceinterval/index.php?showtopic=18686

Edited by Wakemaker, 10 September 2009 - 05:33 PM.

[gcbryan]

The boat had oxygen but I didn't use it or really confess anything to the boat captain but I'd been on the boat a lot and did sit up top in the fresh air near him and did mention that we pushed our depth a bit and I was talking it easy.

All boat diving is near shore and therefore compression chambers in the western Washington area.

Hypoxia isn't an issue if you're on air.

[Wakemaker]

...All boat diving is near shore and therefore compression chambers in the western Washington area...

A friend of mine charted ALL the medical facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The chart illustrates not just the location, it details each facility's capacities.

It can take a big boat hours to get back to the Seattle waterways from someplaces in Washington's vast area, especially against a strong tidal current. Even a fast boat might take too long for a victim of a diving incident.

I'm seriously considering that I've been kinda spoiled as a paying customer type diver. Your boat captain may have known exactly how to get a couple of patients off the boat and into a fast low-flying aircraft in a hurry. For a boat traveling at 10 knots, it may take from 2pm to 10pm to get to a main port-o-call. For a fast dive boat, it could still take 5 hours or more on the rough surface waters.

Is this list current? http://www.scuba-doc.com/divwa.htm

Edited by Wakemaker, 10 September 2009 - 08:28 PM.

[gcbryan]

...All boat diving is near shore and therefore compression chambers in the western Washington area...

A friend of mine charted ALL the medical facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The chart illustrates not just the location, it details each facility's capacities.

It can take a big boat hours to get back to the Seattle waterways from someplaces in Washington's vast area, especially against a strong tidal current. Even a fast boat might take too long for a victim of a diving incident.

I'm seriously considering that I've been kinda spoiled as a paying customer type diver.

Your boat captain may have known exactly how to get a couple of patients off the boat and into a fast low-flying aircraft in a hurry. For a boat traveling at 10 knots, it may take from 2pm to 10pm to get to a main port-o-call. For a fast dive boat, it could still take 5 hours or more on the rough surface waters.

Is this list current? http://www.scuba-doc.com/divwa.htm

As far as I know that list is current. I don't know what your point is other than the list though.

I'm sure the boat captain does know what to do. There are medical evacuation helicopters, there are Coast Guard vessels available, etc.

I don't know where you are referring to in Washington waters that it would take those kinds of times to get to shore. Our diving isn't on or rather off the outer coast. It's for the most part in inland waters. We are in sight of land at most all times.

It can't take us much longer to get back than it took us to get out there in the first place. By the way, the boat isn't going to go back to Seattle. Most chartered dives aren't out of Seattle. Once you get back to shore, however you get there, an ambulance or helicopter can deal with the rest.

Edited by gcbryan, 10 September 2009 - 09:31 PM.

[WreckWench]

I used to be tired after a dive until I figured out how to shape the profile.

Oh please do explain!

[WreckWench]

If one can just remember to ascend a few feet when feeling impaired that's a great lesson as well.

If you're drunk you can't improve things...if you are impaired by nitrogen you can do something about it immediately.

Part of the trick is realizing that you are feeling impaired. For many the impairment comes on gradually or they only realize it gradually... LOL!

I have regularly dove to 100-130 off NC for many years. We descend fairly rapidily which if you are not used to that can trigger narcosis since your body is not adapting to the new depths slowly. I have seen divers new to NC diving start acting goofy dancing around in the water, the stereotypical offering your reg to the fishes/any diver swimming by and 'walking' on the water/wreck. Those are easy to spot and I would think easy to recognize even in yourself. The ones that are NOT easy to spot and/or recognize in yourself is the reverse when the narcosis takes on the form of DREAD and FEAR. I sadly fall into this category. Fortunately when I experience these conditions lightly I start to rise up realizing that staying deep is uncomfortable. However when it first would happen to me and it was severe I was almost incapacitated by the dread/fear that I could not rise up off the wreck to either rectify the situation or even complete the dive properly. In my worst instance I was 'frozen in fear' that I was going to 'die' and had I not been frozen near the anchor line attracting attention for my strange behavior from my buddy...I shudder to think what would of happened. They had to help me find the line and go up.

Narcosis is very serious and DOES affect you no matter who you are and how long you've been diving. You do learn to work thru it just as people learn to function while drinking. It takes time and experience for most and so we don't notice it. However it can take many different forms which is why I never realized I was narc'd until that one extreme incident where we realized that my narcosis was taking on another form.

Basically anytime you feel 'different' than you normally do either good or bad and you are diving deep then you are getting narc'd. I know some you love that feeling...obviously they are the 'happy' narc'd types. I hate it but then mine is the unhappy kind.

One diver recently told me he loved to go deep quickly because it was so 'liberting'. I told him he just really loved the feeling of narcosis and he disagreed. And so I asked him why he did not feel liberated in 20 feet of water or 40 feet. He thought about it and then conceded that maybe he was feeling the effects of narcosis and would re-evaluate that.

That my friends is a breakthru.

If one diver learns something from another diver's experiences...it is worth it for the time spent sharing it.


p.s. gcbryan for a great topic!

[gcbryan]

I've only had the "happy narc" once other than the mild relaxation I feel at 100 fsw or so which of course as you mention is a mild form of the happy narc as well.

I don't get a "dark narc" so much so that it incapacitates me but it is of the paranoid/narrowing focus variety. Actually, I think the happier version is more dangerous...when you are deep it's better to be focused than too carefree!

Regarding my "shape the profile" comment and feeling better after a dive I'm sure it's nothing that hasn't been discussed before.

It's just trying to make your dive profile more like a check mark...get to the max depth right away so that the rest of your dive if it's a multi-level ascent is in effect one long deco stop. In any event even with a square profile I would still spend some time slowing the ascent down and then spend some more time at 30fsw-20-10 and then on to the surface.

Especially if there's something to look at I usually spend 15 minutes at the end of a dive getting from 30 fsw to the surface. If you do that you don't feel tired at the end of the dive unless you're tired just from carrying the tanks around or something.

It seems to just give your body time to get rid of more bubbles and actually form less bubbles in the first place. It's not all that scientific but it's more like when you have an allergy you are tired because your body is working hard to fight something. In this case it's working hard to deal with the bubbles. Don't let the bubbles get so big in the first place, and stay underwater longer and shallow enough to take care of them and it's easier on your body after you get out.

Most divers after while figure it out one way or another...spend some extra time shallow at the end of any dive will almost always make you feel better.

Some peoples attitude is I'm doing a NDL dive and the table says I can go straight (or quickly) to the surface. Since decompression isn't a black and white issue you can do this but try it and you will probably feel tired before too long!

Edited by gcbryan, 11 September 2009 - 07:55 PM.