broken eardrums during records

[Fondueset]

Thanks! I'm about to switch from my plush-lined 3mil suit to my open cell 5mil. My guess is the plush-lined suit is much less conducive to providing this experience. I have only just had this ear trouble since I started wearing my hood however - but I also recall a day of worse than usual mask leakage - and quite alot of water found it's way up my nose during decent. I remember thinking I need to watch it because freshwater provides a better habitat for ear infections...

 

[Alun]

realistically, you have to spend more money on safety as the depths and risks increase. furthermore, it's plain common sense to impose tighter safety regulations to help mitigate increasing risks. it's the same with so many things in everyday life. you can't expect to keep on upping the risks and expect to get away with using the same safety regulations.

an example to illustrate my point.... another risky sport - skiing. i'm sure many years ago crash helmets were not required, but as skiers got faster helmets were made compulsory (for downhill at least?). no doubt, some skiers grumbled about it when the rule was introduced. perhaps some even claimed it was unfair in some way. but ultimately the tigther regulation had to be imposed in order to improve safety and save lives.

there must be countless other examples...

if safety standards don't improve to meet the increasing risks then it essentially means that safety standards are falling in *real terms*. this is an important concept to appreciate. if this disparity continues then you'll soon have serious problems...

obviously one major risk for deep freedivers is barotrauma. two factors (DCS and lung squeeze) are directly related to depth. there are very few things you can do to mitigate those risks. however, one thing you can do is *discourage* freedivers from diving to depths that they cannot surface from uninjured. one way to do this is by DQ-ing freedivers who surface with x, y, z injuries.

yes, there will no doubt be DQ cases that are deemed to be unfair. but in the grand scheme of things how important is a couple of sulking freedivers compared to a high profile death in freediving? is it really a good idea to sacrifice a big improvement in safety just for the sake of a little extra fairness? think about it.

is this making more sense? i'm just trying to explain the logic as clearly as possible because i think some may not have fully appreciated the reasoning behind the idea.

(please, no more sarcasm. it's not funny or constructive.)

anyway, no more ranting from me you'll be pleased to hear, as i'm going to Dahab tomorrow.

 

[laminar]

Here's an idea:

Currently, we have random drug tests and drug tests for the top competitors in a competition and for world record ratification. I forget what the new AIDA rules are on that.... Given that the WADA list is designed to discourage us athletes from harming ourselves with various substances (and cheating) why not apply a similar thing to injuries at major freediving events, assuming we can afford it?

How about random "injury checks" at the Worlds. A significant event such as a world cup or world championships would warrant the expense of a doctor, since one is usually employed anyway to supervise the competition. The doctor could randomly perform say 10-15 check-ups on athletes within an hour of their dives. If an athlete is obviously injured, spitting blood, vertigo and pain from a broken ear drum, then the doctor would look at them as well and establish whether they are injured. Having this in place at high levels would perhaps encourage national and regional associations to self-police: "If we're going to Worlds, we had better dive within these parameters." There would likely be a trickle down effect.

Now, of course, some divers who suffer squeeze or ear popping will try to hide it. As someone said previously, if they CAN hide it, then it wasn't that bad and they know clearly in their own minds that it is discouraged, so they won't say nonchalantly to their fellow teammates or freediving friends back home, "Oh yeah, I pulled off 87m at Worlds but had a squeeze that I hid from the judges." So the disincentive will have an effect. Breaking an ear drum seems a lot less common that lung squeeze. So far in freediving our crash helmet (as in the skiing example) is the rules against blackout. But I think that lungs are at least as important as the brain for our sport. Lung squeeze incidents are coming out of the woodwork and yet there is no mention of it in any AIDA safety guidelines anywhere.

The tricky one is DCS. Perhaps divers deeper than a certain depth must do a manditory O2 deco immediately after their dive? You don't want to give an athlete any incentive to hide DCS from doctors, even the mildest symptoms, since it can affect people in so many different ways.

Heck, even if athletes were NOT disqualified or penalized for barotrauma or DCS, just having to sit down with a doctor and have an injury confirmed, maybe reported officially as well, might be a well-needed deterrent.

What do y'all think?

Pete

 

[samdive]

I think the randomn injury check idea is a good one - but also that most people here are missing the point I (and altsaint and one or two others were trying to make)

ear drum perfs and ruptures are not something you do deliberately, they are not something it is that simple to prevent - at least not for everyone - and I don't believe that every time it happens, it means the diver has made a mistake. On a bad day it can happen to me, and other people I know, without the dive being a hard push for any reason. It heals in a couple of days, about the time it takes some peoples legs to recover from a deep dive - so I really do not see why someone should be disqualified for it - or quite what they should be told to do (other than everything they are told already to do and probably are already doing with regards to equalising) to avoid it.... for some of us it is simply not the case that if we dive sensibly our ears will always stay intact - maybe Alun would have us all give up diving.. but I don't think that's fair! If a doctor says I can dive despite some damage to my eardrums, why should AIDA set rules that would ban me?

 

[Alun]

Sam, i'm getting a little tired of you deliberately twisting my words and meaning. please stop that.

 

[Golfinho]

Giorgos Haggi Statti also dove deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!! but he couldn't bloody hear a damn thing.....

 

[Erik]

i'm going to Dahab tomorrow.

Bastard!

Have a good trip Alun,
Peace,
Erik Y.

 

[Polorutz]

There is an even simpler way to judge whether or not the diver is okay, and it is my favourite.

In my view, there would be an event called the 'practical' depth category. My definition of a practical dive is a dive that can be done at least once a day. Either for pleasure, for exploration, or even for a commercial/salvage purpose.

So, you need to do the dive four times on four straight days. If you are unable to dive because of 'bad' weather, then your dive is not a practical dive, because either your logistics or your location are not practical. If you get bent, or break eardrums, or get severe squeeze, then continuing to do the same dive over and over with 24h in between would probably be fatal, thus DQing anyone dumb enough to try to go down again after suffering an injury.

To succeed in this event, you would need to make sure that you are not accumulating nitrogen between successive days, either by doing FRC or some sort of O2 deco.

I have an even more favourite category, which is called 'constant weight endurance.' It requires doing FIVE dives to the same depth with 15 minute recoveries. In this event, no scuba style deco is allowed. It is up to you to eliminate DCS risk by either taking less air in your lungs, or doing the dive extremely fast to reduce nitrogen absorption. To my knowledge the record is currently held by Sebastian Murat with five reps of 60m with 3 minute recoveries (FRC). That would case extreme DCS for an inhale+packing diver, by the way... Sebastian didn't even feel any post dive fatigue (i.e. not even non-clinical DCS).

To make it even more interesting, you could have different endurance categories. For example, the standard endurance category could require that you start each dive on 20 minute marks, i.e. if the dive takes 3 minutes that leaves 17 minutes until the next dive. Then the aggressive category requires starting your dives on 10 minute marks, and the ironman category requires starting each dive on 7 minute marks.

Such a style of endurance constant weight might also make a great spectator sport.

The DCS is strong on this one master.

 

[Erik]

The tricky one is DCS. Perhaps divers deeper than a certain depth must do a manditory O2 deco immediately after their dive? You don't want to give an athlete any incentive to hide DCS from doctors, even the mildest symptoms, since it can affect people in so many different ways.

Pete

A couple of points for the sake of argument: what happens if the diver WOULD have been bent if he did not do his deco? Who's to know? The diver surfaces, looks ok, then vomits before heading down with his O2 and full-face mask.....was he bent, seasick, has the flu? Being bent is a real grey area: cold water scubadivers on multi day trips usually get tired and start skipping dives after a few days, sleeping and showing flu-like symptoms, but we wouldn't say they were bent....maybe we should? Micro bubble formation sets off the immune system that believes it's being invaded by micro-organisms, making us tired but not really bent, but I would argue (being a reformed ex-compressed gas breather) that that IS bent and is detrimental.

If such a rule existed, then divers will start diving even deeper, knowing that they have a better buffer against DCS, and inevitably getting bent anyway :duh
Peace,
Erik Y.

 

[tylerz]

- but also that most people here are missing the point I (and altsaint and one or two others were trying to make)

Sam,

You say nobody gets your point, we say you don't get ours, so how does this end? I can only try this once again, slightly different approach, directly to you.

ear drum perfs and ruptures are not something you do deliberately,

You don't... fine, I don't think anybody here has expressed disbelief of that or that they do understand this. Can you demonstrate otherwise? I don't think anybody has expressed disbelief that others, if not all people to date, fall under this as well. Can you demonstrate otherwise? So, if we agree there, then I think you have to move your argument forward to address what others are pointing out, and that is as more people push their limits, there will be some (poor souls) who see it as a valid price to pay and will not stop a dive short just because they DO sense a potential failure of their equalizing. Is that so far fetched to you that you have not addressed it? By continually saying that people don't intentionally do so, you are not addressing whether people will do so, or whether it is ok to not take EXTRA steps to avoid doing so.

they are not something it is that simple to prevent - at least not for everyone -

Should safety be simple? Should competitive advantages be simple? What is the relevance of whether it is simple or not? Many people find equalizing difficult but don't burst their eardrums. There ARE steps you can take and techniques to try that can potentially help your case with sensitive eardrums, as I mentioned in a previous email. Did you even read the technique? Did you try it? Many people reach their maximum depth based on their ability to equalize. Most of those who don't know how to do a single mouthfill remain at rather shallow depth, but those who master the single mouthfill progress rapidly and dramatically. So, don't you see that one can just stop and say they kept pushing it and bursting their eardrums, sensitive or not, or they can learn a new technique which absolutely removes the concern. You keep repeating that we need to consider your sensitive ears... well, some have... but we are not seeing any sign that you have considered the argument in response to that.

and I don't believe that every time it happens, it means the diver has made a mistake.

You are correct to say 'believe' because you don't know. Until you take steps to completely reduce the possibility, you are subjecting yourself to completely different odds than a person who has taken steps. As long as you ignore that the focus should be on steps to take to overcome the problem as opposed to focusing on why the problem easily occurs, you aren't really presenting anything to consider other than the obvious, as far as I can comprehend.

On a bad day it can happen to me, and other people I know, without the dive being a hard push for any reason.

Nobody is arguing this. I think everybody understands and agrees with you. Who are you repeating this for?

It heals in a couple of days, about the time it takes some peoples legs to recover from a deep dive

Your legs recover, your ear scars (non-recovery). It does not heal in the sense of returning to normal functioning. It steadily gets worse.

so I really do not see why someone should be disqualified for it - or quite what they should be told to do

You claim nobody gets your point and seem to assume it is because they have not experienced it. Yet because you have not experienced vertigo when your ears burst, you seem to not be considering that it is well documented that people undergo vertigo which during a deep dive can be fatal. Why don't you think that danger is a distinct and important feature of burst eardrums?

If a doctor says I can dive despite some damage to my eardrums, why should AIDA set rules that would ban me?

I don't know what the doctors are like in the UK, but here if I want to go skiing amongst trees the doctor does not tell me not to, because I may smash into one and kill myself (that is if I ask whether I should or not, which I don't). The doctor can't tell you you are not allowed to do anything in Canada. If he does tell you to limit something it is under the assumption of your interest. So, if he knows you are a stunt man and often partake in breaking your bones, he won't tell you not to jump off a building. But if you are an office worker, have children, and just want a comfortable lifestyle, maintaining your health as best you can, then he will suggest you don't jump off a building. So, can you see the relation to your argument? The doctor by telling you you can dive only does so because he understands that you don't mind breaking your eardrum. If you tell him you never wish to do this again, then he will certainly tell you not to dive.

However, this has nothing to do with the danger of bursting an eardrum at depth, which he will probably know little of if he doesn't know much about freediving.

I wonder if some of you realize that so far all my arguments are not biased for or against employing perforated eardrums as a disqualification. In another thread you will see that I think the status of our sport is ambiguous in its intentions, therefore I don't have a bias of what is proper for the sport. I have a preference however.

Cheers,

Tyler

 

[laminar]

I get the feeling that with the question of trying to figure out rules to ensure or promote safe diving, new problems start sprouting out. Like trying to use you fingers to stop up a leaky damn - pretty soon you run out of hands. :duh

Erik - good point about the O2 deco been seen as a safety net for people to push themselves even further...

Let's consider a scenario that may not be that far off:

Constant weight with fins:
-top 5 divers are achieving 115m-125m, top 10 are all over 100m.
-most of these divers have experienced non-clinical DCS
-a handful have been bent in a way that requires hyperbaric treatment and an emergency evacuation
-newer competitors have broken eardrums at depths over 80m trying to catch up with the deepest guys resulting in life-threatening incidents
-newer competitors have suffered severe lung/trachea squeeze resulting in respiratory distress and long term injury
-these facts are all common knowledge to competition organizers and athletes

Now as a competition organizer, hopefully one who desires to have insurance in case of a serious medical emergency or disaster, knowing full well that the top 10-15 freedivers are risking moderate to severe and possibly life-threatening injury, what do you do?

Barotrauma of lungs and ears aside, at a certain point, it seems inevitable that the top divers will risk getting DCS on their competition dives given the depth and time and exertion underwater. Whether it's 100m or 120m, it'll start happening at some depth.

When the depths involved become intrinsically life-threatening in their own right (not just because on athlete is not up for the dive on that particular day and blacks out), I imagine competition organizers will be less and less willing to put their necks on the line and be liable for competitor safety.

Possibly these top divers will encounter these problems in training and develop their own methods of avoiding DCS, which they will bring to the competition, whether diving on exhale or performing a deco stop or breathing O2. Some won't.

Again, if we have rules to discourage blacking out and the potential for brain damage, why not have a rule or competition format or procedure to discourage getting bent? I see no difference in the proposition for both.

This is a philosophical issue about being responsible for yourself. But in the sport world, it is a practical issue. Take sport climbing. Imagine if the competitions were held free solo (no ropes). With a 5.13d route, you can expect many competitors to fall off In this case, they die or get badly broken. To win you risk death. That's not sport. That's a gladiator match.

We can count on the fact that given a competitive arena, there will be those who will want to be the deepest. And there will be those who will follow in their footsteps.

We can all learn better equalizing technique, we can learn to dive without getting squeezed, we can exhale and dive with that limitation/advantage (depending how you look at it), but for those who stick to the popular method of diving on a full inhale with packing, there is going to be a DCS barrier that will, in my view, have a bad effect on the sport when our friends arrive at the surface in bad, bad shape.

Does anyone see things differently?


Pete

 

[AltSaint]

You have a fair point Pete, can we really bury our heads in the sand and think that blackout is the only medical condition we should safeguard through competition rules?

For what it's worth, I should qualify my previous posting about my ear perforation incident.

I looked into a modification to the hood which was partially successful. I used it once more with caution, found that it still wasn't solving the problem 100%, and since then have switched to another suit that has never given me hood squeeze.

That is what I did. I am not suggesting that anyone else should do the same, or that this is the right thing to do.

I do believe that we should all be able to post about experiences we have had, without over-analytical, argumentitive individuals to start adding meaning and opinions that weren't intended.

It appears you don't currently have an understanding of how to avoid hood squeeze, which emphasizes my point of complacency. You say your ears easily burst yet you don't even look into a known situation that may well cause it again.

For someone to publicly state that I did or didn't take a particular action, and with no knowledge of the actions I did actually take, is highly questionable.

I'm resisting getting drawn into an argument, though, as that's the desired outcome from pointless trolls, who simply dilute anything sensible they have to say by trying to be inflammatory.

 

[cebaztian]

Lets not forget the reason for discussing this.

Dives are getting deeper - methods are adjusting. Do we want broken eardrums, filled sinuses, extra mouthfill balloons, bloodspitting and DCS to be a part of an achievement. In the future this might be the case (increasingly). You might need your coach to bring an oxygen bottle up to the line in order for you to recover and maybe go down for a deco.

Do we want this as part of a normal competition or should it be held within WR-attempts or in the NLT discipline. There is already a strong wish I feel to have WR attempts and ordinary competitions to be under the same rules.

Sebastian

PS Never broken an eardrum

 

[Herbert]

Of course, books tell scuba divers that broken eardrums are dangerous, but those books don’t talk about wet equalization either. Disorientation might be a problem for inexperienced scuba divers, but any freediver who has tried the “wet thing” knows what happens. And scuba divers don’t have a line (and safety line) for orientation.

 

[tylerz]

I do believe that we should all be able to post about experiences we have had, without over-analytical, argumentitive individuals to start adding meaning and opinions that weren't intended.

Hey AltSaint,
I appologize as I have obviously offended you, but this is a 'discussion forum' and the topic was about safety and solutions, something that is important, albeit opinionated by nature. What defines "over-analytical, argumentitive" in such a discussion? Is my asking that, me partaking in it? I beg you, try to reread my posts without the negative connotation of argument and instead the discussion/logical connotation and the tone and meaning might strike you much differently.

For someone to publicly state that I did or didn't take a particular action, and with no knowledge of the actions I did actually take, is highly questionable.

It was questionable that is why I started the statement with 'it appears', because there was demonstration that solutions were not being considered/presented. Is that an infraction in a discussion?

I'm resisting getting drawn into an argument, though, as that's the desired outcome from pointless trolls, who simply dilute anything sensible they have to say by trying to be inflammatory.

Inflammatory? Please quote an inflamatory statement? I am sure you feel what I wrote was pointless, but be assured that not everybody does. Those who read it for the meaning as opposed to the feeling generally find something beyond a person attempting to be a 'pointless troll'. Is suggesting new techniques to avoid serious problems pointless and forcefull?

You quoted one statement of mine and respond with obvious resentment, yet a large part of my response you did not address which emphasized how much you misunderstood me the first time. Why is name calling more important than clarification? Why is my focusing on misunderstanding and solutions less important than one suggestion that you say is incorrect in your case?

Once again, sorry to offend, but maybe check if your response has the value that is warranted to what you responded. If you post publicly I think people assume they can respond to you. My style happens to be very analytical and attempting to be precise in an overall attempt to present value and share new perspectives. It amazes me how misunderstood people can take it. Maybe I will learn because I do try.

 

[Fondueset]

Guess I'll stick my hand in this blender for a sec.

I'm just getting over the second ear infection of my life - first was when I was sixteen! And I've been feeling pretty tweaked about not being able to go in the water. I think when something interferes with what you love to do it easily becomes an emotional issue. Might be worth taking into account and letting a few things slide. Analysis and emotion....

 

[AltSaint]

Tyler

There has been some misunderstanding on both sides here. I don't really want this topic for you and I to have a public disagreement on, as I don't think that fundamentally we are disagreeing about the underlying issues, just each other's understanding of what we have posted.

It was not appropriate for me to use the term 'pointless troll', as you have contributed useful information to this discussion ( and others ), so I apologise for that. Typed and sent in the heat of the moment.

I do not want to analyse further any misunderstanding you and I have had; I'd rather we leave the bandwidth clear for postings that are relevant to the topic.

I think I understand more where you are coming from, and I don't expect you to understand my over-reaction, although I'm sure some others will.

 

[samdive]

and I am also getting a bit tired of this huge discussion.. but for the record... I don't exactly like breaking my eardrums and of course I looked into ways of solving it - and I seemed to have done that - I burst my ears about 4 times in 2003, I haven't done it all in the last two years.

All I wanted to say is that it is not something you do deliberately, or because you are diving "wrong" - sometimes it just happens and there is not much you can do to prevent it - and it would be wrong in my view to disqualify someone for that. If someone really was deliberately damaging their ears over and over again to achieve depths - then they would be automatically disqualified as eventually they would start failing medicals on hearing.

Not sure what the rules are in Canada but we anyone diving commercially (teaching for money or working in diving) in the UK has to have a pretty heavy going medical every year. This takes several hours to do, costs us more than £100 and includes some very intricate hearing tests, pressure tests on the eardrum and a good old look at them - I always get my annual freedive medical signed off at the same time and I know for sure the guys that do my medicals at the Diving Diseases Research Centre in Plymouth would not sign it if they thought it was making me deaf. (and yes they do know a LOT about freediving) www.ddrc.org

 

[efattah]

Sam,

If I may be so bold; if you broke your eardrums 4 times in 2003, and you weren't doing anything wrong, and you are currently not doing anything differently, then you would have broken your eardrums about the same number of times in 2004 and 2005. The fact that you haven't means you are likely doing something differently, which means that perhaps some of your 'breaks' in 2003 could have been avoided.

 

[Monkey Matt]

Boy, you are bold rofl