Deep sea Divers, what are your horror stories?
Free dove to about 160 ft in Deans Blue hole
in the Bahamas.
It’s where a lot of the free diving world
records are set - super neat place, google
a picture.
Anyway I’d never really been past 100ft
freediving, but this was the perfect place
to do it.
No current, there’s ropes to keep you straight
and allow a slight pull back up.
Scary part is that you become pretty strongly
negatively buoyant after like 60ft, so you’re
basically hauling ass down while doing nothing
and using very little air.
So I’m dazed out a bit feeling good and
counting the lines that mark depth and all
of a sudden feel pressure like my trachea
is going to collapse and wake up and realize
I’ve counted to the line that’s around
160 ft or so.
Very scary moment because I wasn’t sure
if my body could take the depth or if I had
gone too far and wouldn’t have enough air
to get back up, which is a much slower and
more air intensive process.
Well, here is my story.
I was diving in a local pond with a group
of much more advanced divers (cave divers)
than I (just an advanced certification at
the time).
I am leading the dive, as to get used to pressures
and responsibilities of heading the procession,
they are mentoring me.
It is a Texas puddle, visibility 10 feet max,
not too deep, maybe 25 feet.
The known horrible visibility makes it impossible
to navigate by compass, we follow a line (string)
put by other divers.
These lines go from one sunken item to another.
So, I know I am about to hit a small sunken
boat, don't remember which one, there are
a few similar in a row in a same state of
decay.
So, I am first in the group, I get to the
boat and see someone's black army boot sticking
out from the inner quarters.
Curious thing is, it looks somewhat new, not
like items you find on the bottom.
Hard to see, too much muck in the water.
So, I touch the boot, thinking it is by itself
but it won't lift, like it is attached to
something heavy.
I put my hand further in and feel the leg
continuing out, pants, the calf, and I see
the second leg now.
Fuck with a big letter F, right?
I turn around and show a sign for the emergency
assent to the group behind me.
Everyone has a sour face, no one wants to
surface but it is a rule that if one says
"up", others in a group must abort, no questions.
They wanted me to explain with signs why,
but what is a diver's sign for a cadaver?
I feel like I rush toward the surface, even
though trying to stay calm and take time.
So, we are on the lake's surface, I have this
adrenaline rush, can't breath enough.
So, I tell them there is a body down there.
I see rolling eyes from everyone, once they
see I am serious.
A fun bunch, right?
So, I describe in detail what I saw.
We go down, I don't lead anymore, we make
a group search pattern for the line.
But once we locate it, we don't know if we
should go forward or backwards, as there are
a number of boats on the line and who knows
in which the body is in and how far we drifted
while talking it out on the surface.
Well, we find all boats before finding the
original one, of cause.
So, our customary leader goes into the cabin
of the boat and we wait.
I'd say he was rather courageous at this point,
went right in.
Then he emerges from the cloud of muck and
tells us all to surface.
So, gluing information together from what
we learned later on.
Turns out the police or some other agency
had a body recovery training in the same lake
the same day.
When they went for lunch, they stuffed their
fully dressed anatomically correct rubber
doll in one of the sunken boats for a few
hours for safekeeping.
Well, I died a little that day.
Saved someone from drowning while SCUBA Diving...
person had an epileptic seizure at 85 feet
of water in a pitch black cavern that I was
diving also.
I was hovering above just watching the flashlights
move about when I noticed one flashlight not
moving, I swam down and was met with the other
diver with no regulator in their mouth, eyes
open and just on their knees.
The divers buddy was next to them and in complete
shock to what was going on and was not assisting
whatsoever.
15 years of diving and instructor training
came over me like it was second nature.
I thought her regulator just came out so I
popped mine out and offered it to her, that
when I noticed she had done mentally checked
out.
I popped my #2 regulator in my mouth and attempted
to put my #1 regulator in her mouth but her
teeth were completely clenched...
I then press the purged button to get air
into her mouth and noticed her cheeks moving
so I know air was getting in there.
That was good enough for me, I then grabbed
her under her arm and get the regulator flowing
in her mouth and swan to the opening of the
cavern and then up over 60 feet to get her
to the surface.
One on the surface did everything I was trained
to do, inflate bc, dumped her weights, got
her on her back and started towing to land.
As I'm towing her in she is regurgitating
all the water she swallowed and inhaled, it
seemed like gallons of water.
Got her to land where other divers assisted
me in getting all her gear off.
She was breathing fine and alive but in shock
for a while and slowly came around like nothing
happened.
We were very lucky that we were only 10 minutes
into the dive or for sure we would have both
been bent and spending time in a hyperbaric
chamber.
The crazy thing is she didn’t tell anyone
she had epilepsy and when we later reviewed
her consent form she checked off “no”
to epilepsy.
I put myself at risk shooting up to the surface
like that but if I came across that situation
again I would not hesitate to save someone’s
life.
I got the bends once.
I was careful.
Followed my charts and my computer.
Had appropriate depths and surface time.
But I didn’t drink enough water so I was
all out of wack.
Felt fine until I got home, mild headache.
Then I woke up and it was just pain in my
left arm.
Elbows.
fingers.
Couldn’t even bend them without bad pain.
My headache was intense and I was so dizzy.
Called my older more experienced dive buddy
and I got rushed to the hospital.
Docs got me hooked up and fluids, checked
my dive logs while the decompression chamber
was set up.
And then got me in there with a nurse.
8 hours in a tube about the length of a car
but as wide as maybe a double bed?
I was on oxygen and hooked up to an IV and
it was so loud, with all the air rushing in.
As soon as I got to “depth” the pain vanished.
It was crazy.
I’m fine now obviously.
But I wasn’t allowed to dive for a month
which sucked but hey.
The dives were pretty great
Not my story but my parents.
They like to scuba dive when traveling and
have gone several times over the years.
Once they visited Mexico and went diving there
before I was born.
I'm not sure where they were exactly, but
my mom was slightly lower down than my dad
and looking at the ocean floor.
He was looking up and around.
My mom had on a gold necklace that was floating
in the water around her, it was a sunny day
and a fairly shallow dive so it was sparkling.
From my mom's pov, she was going along having
a grand ol time looking at the sea critters
below, when suddenly my dad grabbed her and
started frantically shaking her arm to get
her attention.
She looked up and a barracuda was directly
in front of her, closer than was comfortable
and staring intently, scary teeth on full
display.
It was focused on the shiny necklace and was
just hovering there, transfixed.
She slowly moved up her hand to cover the
necklace and they slowly and calmly moved
away from it and it took off without bothering
them anymore, but still pretty unsettling
and taught my mom to be a little more aware
of her surroundings when diving
I dive a lot, several times a week.
My area has a lot of theoretically dangerous
things - sharks and barracudas, morays and
stingrays, blue ringed octopuses, cone snails,
box jellies, siphonophores of all kinds, sea
snakes, stone fishes and scorpion fishes,
venomous catfish, crown of thorns starfish
and various sea urchins that can hurt you
in several different ways, Titan triggerfish,
and so on and so on.
But only one thing has ever got me.
Twice.
Are you ready?
Clownfish.
Like Nemo.
They are territorial and brave and will get
in your face if you're near their anemones.
I usually respect their space, but I was distracted
watching something else a couple of times,
and turns out they will actually bite if you
don't leave their space fast enough.
For real though, I don't have particular horror
stories, but the scariest moments are probably
when I get caught in strong currents and have
to crawl on the bottom to fight it, going
hand over hand like I'm climbing a horizontal
wall.
Despite what a lot of people tend to think
(especially looking at the daunting list of
dangerous animals in my area) sea critters
aren't your problem.
You leave them alone and it's fine.
Sea conditions like waves or currents, and
above all human error, are the real killers.
Throwaway account, as this story is well known
among my circles and it would be easy to identify
me.
I grew up in Oz.
When I was 15, I took the family boat out
and dove the reef myself to clear my head
(mistake number 1).
I was down at a depth of about 28 metres(90
feet)when I was only rated for 60 feet (mistake
number 2).
Whilst diving, I spotted a 3.5m Mako shark
coming right at me.
For those who are unaware, Makos are basically
the cheetahs of the ocean, and they only have
2 speeds: Curious (harmless) and Lunch (very
much harmful).
This guy was in lunch mode.
So I hovered, as I had been trained to do,
as there would be no way for me to outmaneouvre
it or escape it.
Nowadays, we dive with Shark Shields, which
emit electronic pulses that freak the sharks
out and keep them away, but back then, what
we used was essentially a chainmail sleeve.
The idea being that sharks hate the taste
of metal, so if you give it your arm, it'll
bite down, decide you're gross, and move along.
So I wait, and it comes, and I do a perfect
move to give the beastie my arm.
Just before the cronch, however, it occurred
to me that I had left my sleeve on my bed
(mistake number 3).
I had my kelp knife drawn, and stabbed it
right as it bit me.
It swam off, and I was alive, however, now
I had a series of problems:
I had HUGE open gashing wounds on my arm from
the bite in open water, and was trailing blood
everywhere
Once the shock wore off, you realise that
you're in SALT water and salt and open wounds
don't feel good
In a panic, I dropped my weight belt and shot
up to the surface without any sort of waiting
period (hello bends - mistake number 4)
Because I hadn't been paying attention to
the currents, I was approximately a quarter
mile downstream of my boat, which means I
had to swim up to it (mistake number 5)
When I got to the boat, I really started to
wish I had done as my da had said and had
the comms fixed (mistake 6) or that I had
upgraded the first aid kit like I had been
threatening to do (mistake 7).
So I end up racing back to shore with nothing
more than a toruniquet to staunch the bleeding.
Long story short, my series of unfortunate
self-inflicted events earned me 172 stitches,
boatloads of physical therapy because the
shark had actually bitten down on my tricep
and detached it, and easily identifiable scars
on one of my arms for the rest of my life.
Oh, and I lost my deceased grandfather's favourite
kelp knife that he had left me.
I wear heavy prescription lenses and can’t
wear contact lenses.
Halfway through a week long liveaboard dive
trip, someone dropped a tank on my prescription
mask and shattered it.
I usually had a second set with me, but could
not find them and only brought one, because
hey, nothing had ever happened before.
I am functionally blind without corrective
lenses; I can see colors and that’s about
it, starting about five inches from my face.
I was devastated, but decided to go diving
anyway, with my husband as my seeing-eye diver.
I could see my gauges, so I felt reasonably
safe.
It was among the most amazing three days of
diving I’ve ever had.
I saw the colors, shapes, and movement.
Without being focused on the details, I actually
took many of the best underwater photos I’d
ever taken.
I wasn’t worried about focusing on a particular
coral or fish; I was looking at the larger
color patterns.
So it didn’t turn out to be the disaster
I’d thought it was.
When I was getting my open water diving license
we had to practice emergency procedures for
if we found ourselves to be out of air.
Now I was having buoyancy issues during the
dive, and so had wasted quite a lot of my
air by dumping it from my buoyancy vest...
When we got to the bottom (around 10 metres
or so), the instructor signalled to my buddy
and I that I was to simulate being out of
air.
So there’s a few hand signals you’re supposed
to do, like slicing your throat with you’re
finger etc.
So after grabbing the instructor’s shoulder
and having their alternate air supply in my
mouth, we do the necessary hand signals and
do the simulated slow and controlled emergency
ascent, stopping halfway to avoid the bends
(although at the depth we were, I’m pretty
sure that step wasn’t necessary).
All is well, and we go back down.
It’s now my buddy’s turn to simulate an
emergency ascent.
However, as they’re getting set up to do
the drill, I noticed it getting harder and
harder to breathe...
I looked at my gauge, and it was completely
empty.
I was relatively relaxed at this point, since
I knew exactly the procedure to follow, having
just practiced it.
So I’m slicing my finger across my throat
at the instructor to indicate I’m out of
air, but she wags her finger to say no, slices
her own throat and then points to my buddy...
It’s not my turn to do the drill, it’s
my buddy’s turn.
At this stage I’m getting no air at all.
I start more frantically slicing my throat,
which is met with more quizzical expressions
and wags of the finger...
So I grab my gauge and wave it at the instructor,
and simultaneously begin to grab their alternate
air supply.
The instructor then removes her own air supply
she’s breathing from and shoves it in my
mouth (deviating from the procedure - this
is when I start to panic a bit).
The instructor then (accidentally, it turns
out) knocks my googles off my face, and I’m
greeted with icy cold water to the face and
zero visibility.
I’m really panicking at this point.
This is a major deviation from the procedure...
I figure something must be drastically wrong
for my instructor to knock my googles off.
I grab on to the instructor’s shoulder and
forgo the remaining hand signals, basically
forgetting everything we had literally just
practiced, and start kicking hard for the
surface.
At the surface it was very choppy, so I got
a few mouth fulls of water trying to manually
inflate my vest.
I’ve got about a twenty metre swim to the
jetty, so head off while the instructor goes
back down for my buddy.
My buddy meanwhile is completely freaking
out at the bottom of the ocean.
She ends up losing one of her fins.
After getting back on the jetty, both my buddy
and I sat out of the rest of the day’s activities.
The instructor went back to collect my googles
and the fin.
I hate to think how I would of reacted if
I had ran out of air thirty seconds later,
me alone down their whilst my buddy and instructor
were ascending...
I did end up completing the course, but only
went diving once after that.
I experienced an anxiety attack on my final
dive, and decided maybe SCUBA is not for me.
