Freediving Death...

[ihab]

Originally Posted by GCJ

This is my first posting to the Deeper Blue forum. Like our new friend above I'm new to freediving but have been a recreational snorkeler for many years. To be honest I had never heard of shallow water blackout (SWB) until I started reading Deeper Blue.

From what I understand, it seems that intermediate to advanced freedivers are in the greatest danger. Beginners typically lack the means, methods, adaptations, and most crucially the "confidence" to achieve any depth.

For years I used scuba fins, no weight belt, did zero apnea training, and had only a crude proficiency with equalization - I believe all this kept me safe. I've now acquired long-blade fins, a weight belt, low volume mask, and am doing apnea training every day. Ironically I'm now in much more danger.

In my first training session (on my couch) it was very painful to hold my breath for one minute; I can now hold for three minutes. In terms of progress this is exciting for me, but I'm beginning to think this might just be foolish. Your body sends you these signals for good reason.

I'll defer to the experts on the true effects of apnea training - whether it is actual systemic adaptation, or just learning to cope with discomfort. A larger moral question arises of why would you perform any exercise that dulls your body's most primary survival instinct? Should we encourage or celebrate ever-increasing apnea times?

I wish my first posting would have been less controversial but welcome any corrections or contrary views.

By the way I've enrolled in one of PFI's courses in the new year and won't be doing any freediving or snorkeling until then.

-Gary James

I'm very limited when it comes to experience and maybe I should not be writting this....but I totaly agree with you....the more experience..the more confidence hence more depth & deaths.....I don't see the point of diving to exceed limits...occasional diving ( 1 to 2 m) for seconds comes natural....push it and you open doors to probelms.

I've noticed it's always the experienced guys that are at risk....the stories of death are usually of those very experinced...so what's the point of trying to hold your breath for 2 to 3 minutes....then to die trying...for what exactly.

Just dive at your will without pushing any limits and rememebr we are not fish

[Fondueset]

This conversation has taken an odd turn. Let me just make a few points.
Snorkelers do drown.
You can get SWB in 8 meters or less.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to freediving.

I understand the argument that the more you learn to push your limits and will yourself beyond the urge to breathe the greater the danger - there is obvious truth to that. Particularly if you are operating from a highly driven perspective or otherwise lack judgement. But the implication that remaining ignorant is protective is clearly erroneous. The greater one's knowlege and ability, the greater the responsibility for sure - that's when intelligence, moderation and self control come into play. If you do not want to learn these things that is your choice.

On the subject of adaptation. I normally dive in a location about 5 minutes from my house. To get to even 12 meters of depth I have to swim out about 400 meters in a bay that is heavily trafficked with recreational boaters. (in the winter I pretty much own the bay - but it's a freakin long cold swim!) So, for me, 10 meters feels deep. Last summer in BC we dove rock walls that went down over 30 meters or so. Using one of Eric's F1's I noticed all my dives would bottom out at about 10 meters. I made no attempt to push past this but by the end of 4 days I was diving 15 meters and it felt just the same. Without any intention to push, I also observed and began to emulate the surface methodology these more experienced divers employed. This has definitely made diving even more enjoyable.

[Paul Kotik]

Originally Posted by ihab

Paul:

Please explain how you can drown while snorkling....That would be quite interesting

This isn't a serious question. I'll leave it to the souls of the unnumerable people who have drowned snorkelling, taking baths and eating soup to answer it for you, when you make their acquaintance. I'm done here. Good luck.

[cdavis]

To add to Fondueset's comments,

There is an obvious tendency for more experianced divers to run into more trouble, but it's not nearly a hard rule. Several DBers have reported BOs and sambas very very early in their training. I would not have thought it possible, but, at minimum, there appears to be a wide range of susceptability to problems that is impossible to predict. So, be careful.

On adaptation vs discomfort tolerence, its both. Training helps you ignore symptoms that would otherwise drive you to the surface. Practice brings physiological adaptation. For example, diaphram stretchs can considerably increase the depth to which you can comfortably clear. I can't prove it is related, but it is definately coincidental that my hemaglobin, rbc count and hermatacrit have all gone up near the top of the normal range during the time I have practiced apnea several times a week.

Connor

[foxfish]

Originally Posted by GCJ

This is my first posting to the Deeper Blue forum. Like our new friend above I'm new to freediving but have been a recreational snorkeler for many years. To be honest I had never heard of shallow water blackout (SWB) until I started reading Deeper Blue.
I wish my first posting would have been less controversial but welcome any corrections or contrary views.
-Gary James

Well Gary I think for your first post it was a very good one. You will soon discover that on DB it is not unusual to have conflicting views! The beauty of an open forum is anyone can voice thier opinions & once the thread has run its course we all benefit from some excellent reading.
I have been freediving for 35 years, I am not a deep diver but must of spent a few months under water by now! I new nothing about SWB when I began spearfishing all those years ago & to be honest like yourself was surprised how much info DB has on the subject. Maybe I have been lucky but I have never suffered a SWB? Its those dam windsurfers that worry me! I have a 3' long float with a flag & still they whizz passed at 30 knots only feet away sometimes.

[Fondueset]

Here it's illegal to come within 200 feet of a diver's flag. Not that it doesn't get ignored but we seem to have pretty good enforcement. I have very few close encounters - Kayakers being the worst.

[trux]

Yes, I agree - boats are probably much worse threat than anything else. I wonder sometimes if using the float does not make it actually worse. Some idiots seem to be attracted by it. My friend got pulled and towed away by a small sailboat whose pilot went to look at the float, turned around it and caught the diver's float line with the keel fin. A darn moment he did not even notice that he tows a diver behind him.

I do still mostly dive with the float, but sometimes I wonder if I'd not be safer without it. This summer, there was even a group of swimmers who attempted to steal my float. Not noticing that I am attached to it below, they grabbed it and started to swim away.

I had the same experience with the close passing boats, so in the last time, I always keep the float right above me by tightening up the line, and surface directly under/at the float (climbing the line like in FIM). Not that it helps when there is an idiot running over it, but I hope the chance is lower, especially if I construct a little bit more rigid one. Something like I collaged below (I believe someone already suggested it here on DB):

mine_float.jpg

[naiad]

Originally Posted by GCJ

I'll defer to the experts on the true effects of apnea training - whether it is actual systemic adaptation, or just learning to cope with discomfort. A larger moral question arises of why would you perform any exercise that dulls your body's most primary survival instinct? Should we encourage or celebrate ever-increasing apnea times?

I wish my first posting would have been less controversial but welcome any corrections or contrary views.

Nothing like a good debate.

There is a definite physical adaptation - I can now do a lot more than I could when I started, and it isn't just coping with discomfort, though there is some of that too.

It is a bit scary though - I have made the decision that I do want to push the limits, but I fully understand why someone might not want to.

Lucia

[Fondueset]

I've come to the conclusion that the relationship between pushing, and an actual increase in ability is a bit more complex than one might first imagine


(Aye, Trux; Nothing like a brace of claymoors to align the nautical riff-raff)

[Mullins]

I think that withholding information and expertise is an excellent way to kill new spearos and freedivers.

I do pretty much the same spearfishing depths/times that I did before I started apnea training. However my max dynamic swim is now 300% of what it was, which I would have to assume has given me a larger safety-margin.

[laminar]

The other thing to discuss is how "freediving" is cast as a competitive or spearo activity, with either a tag or a fish as the goal. Both activities require their own safety protocols. By definition a competitive freediver is closer to their limit while diving on a line, and yes, they should have several safety systems to watch over them. Spearoes probably need to work on establishing internal decision making protocols for when to let the fish get away and live to spear another day.

All this stuff scares away people who want to enjoy the ocean underwater. We need to discuss and think about the realities of diving in situations other that competition. AIDA has done a lot for improving safety, but I believe that it and other instructors have a harder time making recommendations for people who want to try freediving at their own beach, in whatever conditions they find themselves in.

To me, freediving is certainly not about going up and down a descent line with a counter weight system in place. I believe it is possible to develop a sensible safety protocol for recreational freediving in which the primary responsibility for your own safety lies on the freediver's own shoulders--and yes, this can and should be taught so that each new recreational freediver isn't starting from scratch. This has to evolve more, otherwise freediving will remain an extreme sport, and not something you can do on a vacation on the spur of the moment.

The proof of this is that I've seen freediving instructors of freediving not following their own strict safety protocols. Why? Because they are impractical in most cases for enjoying a recreational dive. But for various reasons, no one wants to sit and think about what is practical and reasonable.

Paragliding is a dangerous sport and yet people still go up in the air by themselves and drift long distances. Yet, the sport as a recreational and competitive activity thrives. I would argue that it is more dangerous that freediving - the difference is that safety has been well thought out from a recreational AND competitive point of view.

Pete

[laminar]

On another topic:

I think it is an interesting point that I hear that many gung-ho spearoes who take the PFI course and are encouraged to push their limits in a controlled environment and experience a blackout are humbled by the experience and gain some kind of restraint from then on. I think that that's a good thing.

However, what about the rest of the aquaphilic public who want to experience "safe" freediving and never want to experience a blackout? I think they deserve a well thought out description of how not to blackout in their everyday non-competitive freediving activities.

I think those of us who have trained for competitions in sport freediving become too cavalier when it comes to blackouts and sambas.

I personally have never blacked out in the ocean or in dynamic. I have had a few blackouts and sambas in static during training but never in competition. I wasn't traumatized by them, but neither were they particularly uplifting. But the attitude in the sport freediving world is that they are no big deal because of the safety/buddy system. However, I think this perspective makes it very hard for recreational freedivers to learn how to develop their own personal safety margins/protocols.

I realize now that the concept of a blackout scares most people half to death. If you turn blue in front a parent of loved one after a long static it can be enough to make them cry.

It is difficult to impress upon newcomers to the sport that they need to be very careful - but when we tell them about the safety protocols used by competitors and then they discover that counter-weights, "one-up, one-down" buddy protocols have limited use for their own freediving situation, what are they to do? Furthermore, I believe instructors make a lot of assumptions about teaching safety protocols because they assume some adherence to sport safety protocols. This is misleading and dangerous.

I have pushed my limits and have had a very enjoyable 6 years of recreational freediving. Perhaps it's my character and approach to freediving that has kept me safe so far, but I also think that it is possible to fashion rules for diving without a line or even by yourself, so that freediving is no more dangerous than any other complex sport. In my mind, to say that it's not possible is just sticking your head in the sand hoping that the problem of people that die solo freediving or with friends will just go away spontaneously.

I dive with a buddy, with indirect supervision (ie. we keep track of where we are and dive times), but we both know that if something goes wrong, there's not much we can do, and as such, we alter our diving habits to correspond to the level of risk. This is not to say that an accident can't happen, but we've both spent lots and lots of time figuring out what is safe and what is iffy and always talk about it. To me this is far safer and far more enjoyable. And in situation when I dive alone, I scale these protocols back even more. But ultimately, I've had the benefit of competitive experience and time to formulate these boundaries for myself. Newcomers do not always have that opportunity and so I think it's good for us to discuss it openly.

As always, my point of view.

Pete

[efattah]

This topic reminds me a lot of teenagers and sex. In the old days, the protocol/curriculum was to tell teens just 'never have sex.' However, they would anyway, and get pregnant or catch diseases etc... So, in most places the curriculum changed to 'don't have sex, but if you do, this is what you should do...'

It is sort of like telling everyone that 'you must dive in a strict buddy one up one down system on a line or in big visibility...'

You don't tell them how to dive alone safely, or how to dive in a less controlled environment safely. You figure you are controlling your liability by just telling them to dive with strict safety standards. But the safety standards are far too impractical, so they will be ignored, and without the proper knowledge people end up killing themselves.

It is a common myth that there is no way to dive alone safely. The truth is that a few divers around the world have progressed gradually and systematically, and have learned (oh LORD) to push their limit almost to the MAX, without any buddy or supervision.... and these people have done so hundreds of times and are still alive. You could call them the luckiest people alive, but after a certain amount of repetitions it becomes clear that it is less about luck and more about some sort of systematic method they developed.

Now, I don't advocate pushing 99% of your max without supervision, but if there are people who do that year after year after year, and never suffer any accidents, then it MUST be possible for people to dive with little supervision, to perhaps 70-80% of max, and be very safe.

Instead of shunning or avoiding this topic, this topic alone should a primary focus of freedivers -- almost all freedivers end up as instructors of some sort, even if it is just giving tips to friends -- and if most of the freediving population had good knowledge of safety protocols for unsupervised diving, then fewer accidents would happen.

[Fondueset]

'Never Have Sex Alone'

[Jon]

So what protocol would use use Eric?

I bet I have close to a 1000 solo scuba dives under my belt and never had an issue, but every scuba diver I've know who's died either started out or ended up solo when it happened. Since I had kids I severely limit the amount of solo diving that I do, even though I never had an issue with it, just to make sure that I am there for my kids.

Now, if you have a way to freedive solo in a much safer manner I would like to hear it because I can't get a regular buddy to dive with for the life of me! It would be so much easier to just jump in a lake anytime I wanted to by myself, but after seeing, and helping out with, a few blackouts it really makes you think twice.

If your some young, single, guy with no dependents I believe you have the right to go and try and kill yourself anyway you want so long as you don't take anyone with you. If that means deep air diving, solo freediving, solo rebreather diving, Base jumping, or lion taming then have at it.

I have been anxiously awaiting the development of the freediver's safety vest ever since I first heard about such a device 5 years ago. I consider myself a very safe diver with a prefect safety record but it's getting to the point that no buddy means no diving and I'm not ready to give up on diving after all the years I've invested in it.

I would really appreciate it if you could give me more details on how you can make it safer to freedive solo- feel free to contact me off the list if you don't want to divulge too much out of safety/liability sake.

Thanks,

Jon