[cdavis]

"Interesting" is Davis family code for OH S___!!! This is way too crazy for words.

My heartfelt thanks to Performance Freediving for teaching me how to dive safe and convincing me that I really needed to actually do it. At this point I am truly convinced.

The experiance humbled us both, I was spotting Ted, but not really doing my job. He stays down so long I lost track of seconds and had no idea he had been down longer than normal. I met him at 30 feet and looked at his eyes, but wasn't really thinking about what I was seeing. He looked pretty good, just a little wide-eyed, and didn't exhale as he got to the surface, which should have set off alarm bells. Anyway, he slumped over as he cleared the surface. I thought he was having a relatively minor samba and supported him, waiting for it to pass, but he was out, full laryngospasm (sp), trying to breath but can't, face slowly turning blue. I'm not holding him right and need some help from Frank (he is in the boat and we are right next to it) to get his mask off. At this point, Frank says Ted looked like the creature from the black lagoon, eyes open but slits, face contorted, mouth pulled back in a wierd tight grin, jerking around, face blue/gray. As soon as the mask came off and I blew on his cheeks, he came around. Frank said it was like turning a switch and his face went back to normal "Oh, Ted's back." This all seemed like 3 hours, but really took something like 30 seconds, way too long.

I learned three things, (1) stay alert and think about what I am looking at, (2) everybody on the boat needs to practice rescue procedures, every trip and (3) It really can happen to us.

What I haven't done is figure out the best way to apply the PF safety procedures to spearfishing and scouting. When line diving, its a very easy system to use. Spearing creates all kinds of complications. Anybody who has adapted their system to spearing, I would like to hear from.

Connor