Lesson learned, my first blackout - coughing up blood

[mudskipper]

Hi There!
Just a little info about me. I swim regularly over the past 2 years. Few months ago I watched some beautiful freediving videos and wondered how good my static apnea was. I did 3:15 soon. Then with the help of pruning went up to 4:15. One month ago unexpectedly, I did 5:00 and was so happy.

Yesterday morning I went for a swim in our community apartment pool which has a salt water. The weather was so good I thought it may be a time to repeat my best (I didn't try hard after the last month and wanted to boost my confidence). I did one 3 mn hold and prepared for the main one. I don't exactly remember how many seconds were past 4 when I last looked at my watch. I closed my eyes again and blacked out before 5. I was lucky a friend was around(came a few minutes before) he pulled me out and the first thing I remember I was sitting by the pool and his voice getting louder. Surprisingly for me, these first seconds felt good It was like coming out of nowhere with a dream like sensation in my mind. I stopped my stopwatch and it showed 08:02. He said I had a seizure and got my consciousness back after 30 seconds. So I was probably in the water for somewhere 7min. After that I started coughing some blood and it was what scared me. I didn't remember reading about it and wondered what was going on. I didn't feel any bad pain though. I was moved to the hospital and went blood and xray tests. Coughing stopped soon(unless I would take a deep breath). My doctor said he didn't have such case yet but probably blood was because of salt water and my body equalizing some concentrations but I don't know if its a good reason. I feel good today(although there is still some water in my lung and have to check in hospital few days later) and realize what an incredibly stupid I was when I did 5min ALONE at 10pm. I thought I was in control of the last moment. It was so unexpected now and it makes me very sad it happened before 5. (But also happy to be alive)
I will never ever do more than 3 min without telling someone to watch me.
It was still a beautiful experience for me.

So.. What about the blood, it should not be common for a static apnea right? Is it really related to salt water?

 

[cdavis]

Glad you are still with us! You are very very lucky.

Don't know about the blood, that's not usual with an uncomplicated BO, but yours appears to have been very long and involved aspirating some water.


Something you might like to read, similar reactions to yours:

http://forums.deeperblue.com/thread...te-account-of-our-most-dangerous-enemy.50858/

You will here this a lot:

Take a course.

 

[Apneaddict]

You shouldn't be around to post this.

999/1000 times you'd be dead.

You're beyond lucky. Hope you've learned to NEVER dive without a buddy / safety, even for non-max attempts... even 1/2 PB attempts.

Buy a lottery ticket.
Wow.

 

[Bussard]

You survived a BO only because a friend happened to show up at the right moment but it was still the coughing up blood that scared you?

 

[Ichthys]

Glad you're all right. Good to be warned by a story like that. I've done some swimming/diving alone because I couldn't get anyone to go with, but I don't intent to ever do apnea-related activities without a buddy. Based on what I've read, and my little experience so far, level of relaxation and muscular activity make max breath-hold time so variable that it doesn't even pay to think of it in terms of max time, except to determine practice charts, or as a commentary on your level of relaxation or muscle use.

 

[MozSpearer]

Wow man. That is crazy.. Ur very lucky to have survived to tell the tale! I've also had a near BO experience in Jan but I had my buddy closeby. At least i didn't BO, started having tunnel vision though(sure sign that you are very close to BO). I had done some 12m dives before to warm up. Then i dived down to 22m. CAme up fine. Did a 2:30min breathe up(no hyperventilating) then dove again, got distracted by an octopus on the way down(big mistake) then as soon as i got at the bottom i was wanting air. I shot up(not good either) got tunnel vision last 5m. I also learnt lesson. Glad u learnt urs. Safe diving...