Problems in the Deep

[Nitas]

Hi Guys

I wonder if you know about any cases of problems in the deep, but I don’t mean hypoxic problems like spearfishermans have after staying too long waiting for the fish. I mean problems of other kind – not hypoxic.

I know about two cases. The first one is wide known tragic accident of Cyril Isoardi after his sled dive to more than 100 m. The other one happened to a friend of mine (luckily not fatal). I remember that Eric Fattah mentioned once about Pipin and/or Audrey loosing consciousness when coming back from NLT dives. Unfortunately I don’t know any details about Cyril and Pipin/Audrey cases. I wonder if you do, or know of any other cases of that kind, and can describe them?

Below I describe the accident of my friend.

In those days he used to dive to about 50 m (in CWT and FI). After we had constructed a sled, on the second day of diving he decided to dive in NLT to 65m. To our surprise even though he had never dived deeper than 50m - he did it, and come up fresh and in a very good shape. This dive was so easy for him that 20 minutes later he decided to dive again, this time to 80m.

Now it was quite different. Suddenly (probably somewhere below 65m) he felt a strong chest squeeze. What is much more frightened he instantly felt himself very weak - as if he was close to faint. He stopped the sled with a brake at 70m and come back with a balloon. All the way to the surface he was very, very weak, and was really scared of loosing consciousness. Luckily he did not black out. After surfacing he was badly coughing blood (pink coloured), couldn’t take a full breath, wheezing during exhales. He was extremely exhausted for about 1-2 hours. Common symptoms of a strong lung squeeze.

What really scares me is that he was probably close to blackout at depth. What was the reason? Is it possible to avoid this situation in the future? If so, how? He definitely made one big mistake – he shouldn’t dive again 20 minutes after the dive 15m deeper than his previous PB. But is it all? Does it explain everything?

Any suggestions? Any other cases of that kind?

Tomek Nitka

[salibandy]

Well there's your problem right there. Your friend should not have pushed. Trying to get from 50 to 80 in a day? Not to mention a few hours?

[miguel-van]

I have to agree with salibandy here! Hopping from 50 to 80 m in a day is probably not the best way to having your body get used to the depth...
It is IMO even the best way to risk your life.

[salibandy]

I should be more clear.

Your body is probably not prepared for the pressure changes between 65 and 80 meters, and most probably, it hasn't been trained to withstand that kind of pressure.

How to avoid it in the future? Don't do such a thing again. Take it slow. Get used to being at depth.

[Nitas]

OK. that’s what I already know. My friend shouldn’t have push. That’s obvious for me and him.

But quite other thing is, if there is any record of accidents similar to this one ie. problems in the deep of the origin other than hypoxia? For example have you ever had to use a counter ballast system? If so, why?

[Dennis77]

This is exactly what happened to a guy at Sharm last November.

He is a very good freediver, and was one of the safety divers at the wc. So he dived for a couple of days almost in a row down to 40 or 45 m.
His personal best was something around 55 m, if I´m not totally wrong.

So, after all the days securing the wc he joined my group of the freediving course. He had enough time to relax after the competition, and the course wasn´t as half as exhausting as to assist while the competition. So he went down and realized he had reached -65 m. He was very surprised, because it felt so easily, he told me after that. But as he reached the surface, he felt very very tired. He was caughing blood also.
He went out of the water and was very tired for the following days. He used to sleep almost the whole time. After 3-4 days he felt as before. No more problems.


We were told, that this phenomenom isn´t new. It happens, if you push to much. You have to get used to the depth slowly.
What happened, that these guys were caughing blood; I know it, but my english isn´t good enough to explain it correctly.

[amihov]

This is very interesting . I haven't seen anybody talking about this before. Is it possible that all of the people are going down to fast and comming back to the surface even faster.

[Dennis77]

The guy in Sharm said, he went down as usually. But he said, he hasn´t got the feeling for the depth as normal. He was very surprised, as he looked to his computer and this showed 65.

[Nitas]

Thank you guys for your replies, but I am afraid that I did a mistake putting emphasis on my friend’s symptoms after surfacing. What I wanted to get was not the information about lung squeeze cases (like the Sharm el Sheik guy) but accidents with problems (blackouts, near blackouts) in the deep (other than from hypoxia or equipment failure). As far as I understand the Sharm guy was totally OK until he surfaced, so that is not what I am looking for.

I wonder if it is likely to loose consciousness down there, and if the answer is yes - how to avoid it? I think that my friend was close to it, and that is why I am looking for similar cases.

[trux]

Sure there are plenty of reasons for possible accidents. Besides the ones you named (hypoxic blackout, equipment failure, lung squeeze), you can also get into troubles because of nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity, decompression sickness, hypocapnic and hypercapnic blackouts, CO2 toxicity, other types of barotrauma than just lung squeeze, you can also experience a vasovagal attack, heart arrest, brain stroke, hypothermia, and possibly a number of other accidents with consequences that may be fatal in the depth. It all depends on many factors, and on your health, predispositions, current physical and psychical state, training level, and many other conditions.

Most of the above named cases are rare at recreational or competitive freediving, but they do happen time to time. You can limit or avoid them either by not diving at all, or by respecting common sense and progressing in your training very slowly, watching for your body reactions, not repeating maximal performances several times in a session, and by having several redundant and tested (!) safety measures in place - depending on the depth and your possibilities for example safety scuba and free divers, counter-ballast or D.R.U.M.S., inflatable vest, sonar, real-time remote camera, etc.

You can read both about diverse safety systems, and about some past accidents when you browse the forum or use the search function.

[efattah]

I can recall many deep water incidents:

- Cyril Isoardi, diving with Bernard Chabannes, dove 130m in no-limits and never resurfaced

- Pipin had on at least two occasions momentary blackouts on the ascent in NL, that were not hypoxia related

- Tanya Streeter had a narcosis incident on her 160m no-limits dive where she stopped doing anything on the bottom and forget to inflate the lift bag for about 20 seconds

- Rudi Castineyra suffered a blackout on the bottom during a constant weight dive to around 55m

- Loren Maas suffered a blackout on the bottom at 15m during a recreational freedive. He died. The incident was witnessed by his friend who was too nervous to hold his breath long enough to save him.

- I suffered a narcosis/paralysis incident at 53m on the ascent from an 88m CW dive in 2001. A more detailed story is available somewhere on this forum.

- Nitsch suffered a narcosis incident on an 89m dive in Ibiza in 2001. He thought he turned at 74m, but the dive computer showed otherwise.

- Stepanek suffered a narcosis incident on the bottom of a CW dive to 83m in 2001. He remained on the bottom for at least 30-40 seconds, he thought he saw a very large fish come right up to his face. His safety freediver Paul Kotik nearly blacked out waiting for him.

- In 2000 I suffered a bad muscle cramp on a 33m CW dive at the turn around. Luckily there was a line nearby so I could pull up. Kicking in the mono was impossible.

- Genoni had a crazy problem on a 145m no limits dive. The primary lift bag had wrapped around the descent line and would not inflate. The secondary tank valve failed. After wasting 60+ seconds on the bottom at 145m, he started swimming/pulling up and suffered insane narcosis and hallucinations. He blacked out at 10m, within range of the safety freedivers. It would be the last no-limits dive of his career.

- Mullins had a bad narcosis incident on his 111m dive (4'15") at Vertical Blue 2008. He was too cold and wanted to turn at 70m, but he forget what to do and kept sinking until 90m, when he decided to turn again but again forgot. Eventually he hit the plate which woke him up. On the ascent he forgot what he was doing around 50m and felt so tired he couldn't move. Eventually he started kicking slowly and suffered a samba at the surface.

- I suffered a strange cardiac arrythmia on a cold water no-suit FRC dive at the cafa nationals in 2007. The 6-8C cold water seemed to freeze my heart through my collapsed chest, the arrythmia became so bad I aborted at 48.8m. It passed soon after I turned upright.

- Mandy suffered simultaneous broken eardrums and lung squeeze on her 90m CW attempt in Cayman in 2008

- William Trubridge has suffered numerous narcosis induced hallucinations on 100m+ free immersion dives

[trux]

For the reference the fatal accidents with deep water blackouts of Audrey Mestre (technical problems and other mishaps), and Loïc Leferme should be mentioned too. From what I understood Loïc Leferme may have blacked out already during the descent on the sled. Neither sled lift bag, nor Loïc's safety vest were inflated, the counterweight system failed.

Then of course there were several serious DCS accidents (Benjamin Franz, Carlos Coste), but that did not happen in deep water, rather during/after the surfacing.

[cebaztian]

I have been away from forum discussions and freediving for some time. Probably this has given me more of an outside perspective. So when I read about a guy that uses lots of led and lets himself get pulled down on one breath to insane depths he has never been to, and then seems somewhat surprised that there where some negative effects. I try to smile, but I have lost most of my cynisism, so I just sigh, and marvel at all the polite helpful answers this jackass stunt gets, specially since he seems to be looking for a quick fix or some magic word that can explain and let him continue with more of the same. Reminds me of something called "the Darwin awards".
This forum is made up of some very strange people.

And I am one of them :-)

Tomek. The correct response to your question is: "your friend is an idiot". And I am actually saying this in a friendly way, since this is what I believe he needs to hear.
After having said this we can start discuss, what happened, why and how to prevent it.

Sebastian
Sweden

"Takes one to know one".

[amihov]

No pain no gain. If you don't take chances you will never progress. It is all about risk management . If someone thinks that risking his life and health is a small price to pay in achieving his goals ( depth ) then it is his on chois to do so .

[Nitas]

Sebastian,

You are very harsh. My friend did extremely idiotic thing, yet he is not an idiot. It taught him a lesson and he never did anything similar again. It happened a couple of years ago, he was much less experienced in those days. Hard to say why did he behave in that way (I wasn’t there). He must have been very exited because of the first sled diving in his career.

Eric,

Thank you for the list of deep water accidents. Some of them I have never heard about. I would add to it Alejandro Ravelo 20 seconds fighting with cameraman at 70-something m. depth during one of his WR attempt in 1997 (narcosis). I also remember something about Fred Buyle case, but not sure of the origin of it. All these accidents (not taking into consideration DCS problems) may be split into 3 categories:
- narcosis: Tanya, Eric, Herbert, Martin, Dave, Alejandro
- cramps / paralysis: Eric,
- heart related: Eric, maybe Cyril, maybe Loren Maas (that’s what I heard about Loren, but not sure if it is true)
and unexplained (maybe heart related): Cyril, Pipin, Rudi, Loren Maas

Narcosis seems to be most common problem, dangerous yet probaply nobody died because of it, at least so far. In case of fatal accidents heart problems seem to be likely.

Eric, do you know anything more about Rudi’s accident? How did he survive? Was he taken to the surface by safety scuba divers or did he wake up and made it by himself? What could be a possible reason of BO?

Tomek