A common problem in freediving is 'suit squeeze', where the hood of a stretchy wetsuit 'seals' around the outer ear, trapping air in the outer ear.
If you have suit squeeze, you are at first delighted to find that you don't have to equalize the ears as much as usual. However, as you descend deeper, the suit gets 'sucked' deeper into the out ear until it cannot get sucked any more. Then, the pressure on the outer ear drops below ambient. It continues to drop, until blood vessels in the outer ear explode to equalize the pressure in the outer ear. At that moment, the blood does equalize the pressure in the outer ear, causing a rapid increase in the pressure in the outer ear, and the rapid increase in pressure in the outer ear pushes the eardrum inward, causing ear pain, and this rapid pressure increase can blow your eardrum if you don't equalize fast and hard.
I had this happen to me two times. You have to dive deep for a full blood vessel rupture to occur in the out ear (while you have suit squeeze). It happened once on a 67m dive and again on a 75m dive a year later. Each time, the sudden bursting of blood vessels in my outer ear caused an instantaneous huge pain on my ear drum, but both times I was lucky, and my eardrum didn't break. I had to stop the descent, however.
Upon surfacing, I felt fine, but after taking my hood off, blood was pouring out of my outer ear, and once this led to a bad outer ear infection.
Normally, divers punch holes in their hood near their ears to allow the pressure to equalize. I also use short straws leading to my face, especially when I have two suits on (5mm and 3mm), in which case suit squeeze is terrible.
Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
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