Last night at training I was safetying a guy who had a blackout during dynamic. I just want to tell the story and put some discussion points on the record for the benefit of all.
It was towards the end of the session and I was bumming around without my fin on as i'd just done a max (new PB so was a big night in more ways than one). We were all up one end of the 50m pool while one guy (who was a relative beginner but had been doing some impressive lengths) was at the other end. He'd been up there for about 10 minutes so none of us had been talking to him about what he was trying for. As he swum up to the 50m mark he turned, we were all in conversation and I noticed him turning so I followed swimming behind him. He was using bifins and going slowly so it wasn't hard to keep up.
In the second half of the 2nd lap (around 75m into the dive) he sped up quite a bit. I knew his PB was around the 100m mark so I was starting to swim hard to keep up just in case. Well he got to about 5m from the end of the pool and started letting some air out, I thought righto, time to get him. I was only 1m behind him, I swum down to pull him up but he'd got to the end of the pool and had turned and kicked off the wall, so I had to turn to grab him as well. By this stage he had let most of his air out and was convulsing underwater. I dragged him up and because he was heavy, and we weren't near the wall or the lane rope I struggled to keep him above water. I got his mask off and fanned my hand around his face while trying to tread water - my head was below his so I couldn't blow on his face. I had one arm underneath him and was trying to kick closer to the pool end but he was convulsing quite a bit which made it hard. He also had a lot of water in his mouth and was gurgling a lot. I tipped his head to one side and got rid of most of it but his throat was still closed so he was gurgling but not getting any air.
By this stage a young lifeguard had come over to see what was happening and when I gave the guy mouth to mouth to try and pop his larynx open she started bolting back to get her walkie talkie. After I gave him a breath he made a big shudder and groan and started to cough, though still had the wide eyed "no-one home" expression on his face. I got him over to the side of the pool still saying "breath mate, breath" then yelled out at the lifeguard "it's ok, it's ok, it's ok!!!" so she stopped and came back to watch. He gradually looked back at me a bit confused and I said "we lost you there for a bit mate" and he started telling me how he felt ok and just started drifting off. He had no recollection of the last half lap and was a bit dazed afterwards. We chatted about it for a bit and a couple of the other freedivers were there pretty quickly after that. All up i'd say he was out for a good 20-25 seconds.
It was only afterwards when I was reflecting on it I realised there were many things i'd done wrong. Overall I was happy that I managed to get him up and breathing ok, but a few of the finer points I could improve on and you realise how much you know in theory means squat unless you can do it for real, and that means you must practice it. Here's a few points:
1. Know the person you're buddying. I mean are they a beginner, do they have suicidal tendancies when it comes to pushing themselves, are they a bit gung ho, what is their PB, what have they done already on the night. All those sorts of things can give you an inclination as to whether they're likely to push themselves past their abilities.
2. Always wear fins when buddying. Always. The only time you wouldn't need to is when the pool is shallow enough you can stand comfortably. I wasn't wearing my mono because i'd finished for the night. This guy was bigger than me and after he'd lost his air he was very heavy. I'm a reasonably strong guy but strength only works when you've got something to leverage against. The pool is about 6 foot deep all the way along the bottom and I couldn't stand and hold him at the same time. With fins it would have been a hell of a lot easier and I could have got him to the lane rope a lot quicker and provided better support for him.
3. Take all your weights off when safetying. A lot of the time you'll do a dive, come up and your buddy will want you to safety them next. It's easy to forget to take your neckweight off or your other weights when doing this, and they're the last thing you want to be carrying when you're lifting 95kg's of deadweight off the bottom of the pool.
4. Act quickly. If you know someone is going past their PB and they're acting differently, you don't have to think about it for too long to know that they're in a bad way. I probably hesitated for a second or so when in reality I could have jumped in a bit quicker. Don't worry about pissing them off for wrecking their dynamic - this isn't static where you tap them for a response, you have keep your eye on them and go when you think they're in trouble.
5. When you bring them to the surface, they're head is in a bad position because if they've taken in water it's got nowhere to go but back down the throat when the larynx opens, if it hasn't already. Keep this in mind.
6. Don't freak the victim out when they come to. Don't yell, don't look freaked yourself, just repeat a mantra - you're fine, just keep breathing, don't worry, just breath, relax, lost you for a second but you're ok now.... that sort of thing. Keep in mind they've just lost the last 30 seconds of their life and they're in different positions, with people staring at them and holding on to them - it can be a big shock to them and shock is what you want to avoid.
7. Don't think buddying is just following someone because you have to and that's what freedivers do. Buddying is following someone to ensure they are safe and to be ready to act to do whatever is necessary to keep them safe. This means a buddy must know what to if a freediver blacks out or has LMC. I think people (myself included) can become blasé about safetying because 95 times out of 100 they buddy someone and that person finishes their dive with no problems and that's it. We need to train for those 5 times that something goes wrong.
8. If the light's are out, the show's over. Don't even let them contemplate getting back in the water and doing a little "technique training" or practice turns or whatever.
9. Practice mock black out situations. The last time I did a mock rescue was nearly a year ago. That's not nearly enough. There's a guy in our club that does the blackouts when divers do their AIDA 2* and he's damn good at it, scares the pants off the inductees. At the end of your session when you're talking/socialising or whatever, do some practice rescues. You may only do one real rescue in your life, but you want to get it right first time.
They're all the points i've thought of. They don't necessarily all relate to things that happened last night, they just popped into my head last night and this morning. There's probably dozens more you could add but my head's still a bit frazzled (took a couple of beers last night before I could slow down and talk at a normal pace again last night).
Keep diving and stay safe.
Cheers,
Ben
ps. At the end I thought i'd better go chat with the lifesaver to smooth things over. I went up and apologised for the little scare, then we chatted for a bit, and now we have a new recruit next week... how's that for positive communication??
It was towards the end of the session and I was bumming around without my fin on as i'd just done a max (new PB so was a big night in more ways than one). We were all up one end of the 50m pool while one guy (who was a relative beginner but had been doing some impressive lengths) was at the other end. He'd been up there for about 10 minutes so none of us had been talking to him about what he was trying for. As he swum up to the 50m mark he turned, we were all in conversation and I noticed him turning so I followed swimming behind him. He was using bifins and going slowly so it wasn't hard to keep up.
In the second half of the 2nd lap (around 75m into the dive) he sped up quite a bit. I knew his PB was around the 100m mark so I was starting to swim hard to keep up just in case. Well he got to about 5m from the end of the pool and started letting some air out, I thought righto, time to get him. I was only 1m behind him, I swum down to pull him up but he'd got to the end of the pool and had turned and kicked off the wall, so I had to turn to grab him as well. By this stage he had let most of his air out and was convulsing underwater. I dragged him up and because he was heavy, and we weren't near the wall or the lane rope I struggled to keep him above water. I got his mask off and fanned my hand around his face while trying to tread water - my head was below his so I couldn't blow on his face. I had one arm underneath him and was trying to kick closer to the pool end but he was convulsing quite a bit which made it hard. He also had a lot of water in his mouth and was gurgling a lot. I tipped his head to one side and got rid of most of it but his throat was still closed so he was gurgling but not getting any air.
By this stage a young lifeguard had come over to see what was happening and when I gave the guy mouth to mouth to try and pop his larynx open she started bolting back to get her walkie talkie. After I gave him a breath he made a big shudder and groan and started to cough, though still had the wide eyed "no-one home" expression on his face. I got him over to the side of the pool still saying "breath mate, breath" then yelled out at the lifeguard "it's ok, it's ok, it's ok!!!" so she stopped and came back to watch. He gradually looked back at me a bit confused and I said "we lost you there for a bit mate" and he started telling me how he felt ok and just started drifting off. He had no recollection of the last half lap and was a bit dazed afterwards. We chatted about it for a bit and a couple of the other freedivers were there pretty quickly after that. All up i'd say he was out for a good 20-25 seconds.
It was only afterwards when I was reflecting on it I realised there were many things i'd done wrong. Overall I was happy that I managed to get him up and breathing ok, but a few of the finer points I could improve on and you realise how much you know in theory means squat unless you can do it for real, and that means you must practice it. Here's a few points:
1. Know the person you're buddying. I mean are they a beginner, do they have suicidal tendancies when it comes to pushing themselves, are they a bit gung ho, what is their PB, what have they done already on the night. All those sorts of things can give you an inclination as to whether they're likely to push themselves past their abilities.
2. Always wear fins when buddying. Always. The only time you wouldn't need to is when the pool is shallow enough you can stand comfortably. I wasn't wearing my mono because i'd finished for the night. This guy was bigger than me and after he'd lost his air he was very heavy. I'm a reasonably strong guy but strength only works when you've got something to leverage against. The pool is about 6 foot deep all the way along the bottom and I couldn't stand and hold him at the same time. With fins it would have been a hell of a lot easier and I could have got him to the lane rope a lot quicker and provided better support for him.
3. Take all your weights off when safetying. A lot of the time you'll do a dive, come up and your buddy will want you to safety them next. It's easy to forget to take your neckweight off or your other weights when doing this, and they're the last thing you want to be carrying when you're lifting 95kg's of deadweight off the bottom of the pool.
4. Act quickly. If you know someone is going past their PB and they're acting differently, you don't have to think about it for too long to know that they're in a bad way. I probably hesitated for a second or so when in reality I could have jumped in a bit quicker. Don't worry about pissing them off for wrecking their dynamic - this isn't static where you tap them for a response, you have keep your eye on them and go when you think they're in trouble.
5. When you bring them to the surface, they're head is in a bad position because if they've taken in water it's got nowhere to go but back down the throat when the larynx opens, if it hasn't already. Keep this in mind.
6. Don't freak the victim out when they come to. Don't yell, don't look freaked yourself, just repeat a mantra - you're fine, just keep breathing, don't worry, just breath, relax, lost you for a second but you're ok now.... that sort of thing. Keep in mind they've just lost the last 30 seconds of their life and they're in different positions, with people staring at them and holding on to them - it can be a big shock to them and shock is what you want to avoid.
7. Don't think buddying is just following someone because you have to and that's what freedivers do. Buddying is following someone to ensure they are safe and to be ready to act to do whatever is necessary to keep them safe. This means a buddy must know what to if a freediver blacks out or has LMC. I think people (myself included) can become blasé about safetying because 95 times out of 100 they buddy someone and that person finishes their dive with no problems and that's it. We need to train for those 5 times that something goes wrong.
8. If the light's are out, the show's over. Don't even let them contemplate getting back in the water and doing a little "technique training" or practice turns or whatever.
9. Practice mock black out situations. The last time I did a mock rescue was nearly a year ago. That's not nearly enough. There's a guy in our club that does the blackouts when divers do their AIDA 2* and he's damn good at it, scares the pants off the inductees. At the end of your session when you're talking/socialising or whatever, do some practice rescues. You may only do one real rescue in your life, but you want to get it right first time.
They're all the points i've thought of. They don't necessarily all relate to things that happened last night, they just popped into my head last night and this morning. There's probably dozens more you could add but my head's still a bit frazzled (took a couple of beers last night before I could slow down and talk at a normal pace again last night).
Keep diving and stay safe.
Cheers,
Ben
ps. At the end I thought i'd better go chat with the lifesaver to smooth things over. I went up and apologised for the little scare, then we chatted for a bit, and now we have a new recruit next week... how's that for positive communication??
