My first Samba - questions

[SHdiver]

So i just experienced my first samba, and i'm pretty freaked out. luckily it was in my backyard while doing static walks so i'm fine, but still i have some questions.

first, i have only started free diving in the last few months, and i have been taking it pretty slow. i have not gone deeper than 30 feet, and i rarely have been under for over a minute...

i'm in pretty good shape - it was only 5 years ago that i was playing college lacrosse, and i still work out a fair amount. i started doing O2 and CO2 tables about 2-3 weeks ago, and have been pretty successful. my pb is 4:00. today was the first day i tried to do static walking training. i did a 5 minute breath up, sitting in a chair - nice, big, slow breaths, followed by 2 deep breaths, a forced exhale, and then a big breath and hold.

on my first walk, i had a samba... or at least i assume i did... i was walking, nice and slow, and then i was face down in the grass, and i remember still shaking as i came too... i looked at my stop watch, and it was only at 50 seconds, so i must have gone down within the first 40 or so seconds of the walk.

my question is WTF?!? how do i samba 40 seconds into my first walk? am i doing something wrong here, or was this just a freak thing? should i be terrified to get back in the water? blackfish season in NY starts on sunday!!!

also, if it helps i'm in pretty decent shape. it was only 5 years ago that i was playing college lacrosse, and i still work out a fair amount.

any help, advice, suggestions are much appreciated...

 

[SHdiver]

also, wheaties for breakfast and a meatloaf on rye sandwhich for lunch about 3 hours before this happened...

breakfast of champions my @ss!!!

 

[DiverTodd]

Hmmm...my guess would be your forced exhalation just before your peak inhalation. Depending on just how forced it was, you may have blown off too much CO2, and had no warning signs (contractions) that you were about to go out. I'd examine your breathing, too...make sure that you're not exhaling more than you're inhaling! Although, it could've gone the other way, too; if you're inhaling too much while also exhaling too much, it's possible that you could've blacked out from hyperoxia, too.

Todd

 

[SHdiver]

thanks for the response todd. very strange.

althouhg i did just realize that i just started taking Nabumetone, which is a prescription anti inflamatory drug for a partially slipped disk in my back... i'm sure that that did not help anything.

anyone have any other ideas?

anyone have a good article/description/post about the proper way to do a breath up? maybe i'm doing something wrong without realizing...

 

[cantshoot]

wow thats interesting, what was your breathe up schedule. Did you have any symptoms before hand? Were you exhausted before the breath hold? Sometimes if you did max breath hold and used up all your reserves you become more susceptible to BO.

I wouldn’t be scared to go into the water if you are feeling well and off medication. Just dive with a buddy that is watching you and vise versa.

The first time I had a samba in the water I just remember breaking the surface and then waking up in the arms of a beautiful women.

 

[ADR]

I would call both of those a blackout rather than a samba!

 

[wes]

I think the key to your Black Out was that you breathed up sitting down in a chair and then immediately stood up and started walking. I don't know how it is usually done though I have always assumed that you started standing when doing walking apneas. You know sometimes how you get dizzy if you get up real fast? Well that affect is the same affect if you do a big breathe up. If you do a big breathe up and also get up rapidly from a chair then you will get extra dizzy from the combination of both (and in your case BO). I will let others explain all the phisiology to you. Cheers Wes

 

[immerlustig]

shdiver,

i did a 5 minute breath up, sitting in a chair - nice, big, slow breaths, followed by 2 deep breaths, a forced exhale, and then a big breath and hold.

sounds to me that you might have been hyperventilating. there a various conditions that can have an influence on your susceptibility to bo (blood pressure, temperature, metaboilc rate, etc) other than your breathing, where you easily can drop your co2 to unfriendly levels very quickly. lightheadedness or dizzyness at the beginning of your breath-hold are signs that you definitely breathed-up too much. if you don't get these symptoms it's more difficult to tell. personally, during preparation, i breathe 2-3 times a minute at the most.

how do i samba 40 seconds into my first walk?

a very full breath (packing makes things worse) causes pressure on the heart and carotid arteries and blood pressure drops. this leads to an undersupply of o2 and you can bo in the very beginning of a breath-hold. during dry practise that happened to me often and usually within the first 30 seconds of the breath-hold. contributing to this is being hot (vasodilated), having low bp and energy levels from not having eaten in a while and dropping co2 too much.

cantshoot:

I wouldn’t be scared to go into the water if you are feeling well and off medication. Just dive with a buddy that is watching you and vise versa.
The first time I had a samba in the water I just remember breaking the surface and then waking up in the arms of a beautiful women.

a bo/samba in water is a potentially life threatening situation. i'd be very worried if i'd bo without having an explanation. it's definitely a clever thing to learn a thing or two which will make diving safer and predictable. counting on luck or your buddy is a bit irresponsible. a buddy can't always compensate for a divers carelessnes.

roland

 

[LachlanWA]

It's a really bizarre feeling waking up from a blackout, I had my first about a month ago. What I learnt then was to never pack while standing up on a hard surface. I woke up when my face hit the pool deck. It hit three more times as I tried to stand again and failed. I'm told I looked quite funny (the bastards were laughing when I came to).
When doing apnea walks, I tend to wait for about 10-15 seconds before standing up, if I feel light headed or my vision starts to go, then I exhale and try again. As Immerlustig says, standing quickly can cause a drop in blood pressure, which is already lowered because of the lungs compresing the heart.

 

[jome]

My guesses:
-Poor hydration?
-Clear hyperventilation (5 minutes breathup for a walk?)
-Standing up while taking huge breath (both drop bloop pressure)

All or some of these together would all increase the risk of BO through similar mechanisms...

Try next time:
-Shorter breathup with less deep breathing
-Make sure you are hyrdated (if it's yellow, let it mellow...)
-Avoid the big exhale, do the last inhale slooooowly
-Don't stand up and walk right away. Wait a second to see if you start feeling dizzy.

 

[SHdiver]

thanks for all the input. the feedback has been great, and i'm sure will help me as well as other keep safe.

i have not been able to take a free diving course as of yet, and i have not read any of the books yet, so I am clearly inexperienced. all of the information i have gathered has been from this and other message boards, and after reading responses to my original question i think it is clear that i had misinterpreted some of what i had been reading.

after reading the one post saying "2-3" breaths per minute while preparing for apnea i am confident that i hyperventilated.

in order to help prevent this problem could someone offer a good description/definition of a "breathe up"?

from my previous reading i had taken it to mean 5 minutes of deep slow breathing - slow being around 15 breaths a minute - clearly way more than 2-3!

thanks again

 

[DiverTodd]

Waiting a bit before standing to start an apnea walk is always a very good idea. Sometimes I would get the fuzzy, woozy feeling right after taking my peak inhalation, but it passes in about 10 seconds. There was a great article posted not long ago about static apnea safety, and it covered apnea walks. The first two walks were a one minute breathe-up, followed by a 30 second hold before starting the walk, and the second two walks were a two minute breathe-up, followed by a one minute hold before standing and walking. I was using this program for a while, and it works well!

Todd

 

[naiad]

a very full breath (packing makes things worse) causes pressure on the heart and carotid arteries and blood pressure drops. this leads to an undersupply of o2 and you can bo in the very beginning of a breath-hold. during dry practise that happened to me often and usually within the first 30 seconds of the breath-hold. contributing to this is being hot (vasodilated), having low bp and energy levels from not having eaten in a while and dropping co2 too much.

I've done that, it was a very hot day. Now I understand how being hot can cause that.

It's a really bizarre feeling waking up from a blackout, I had my first about a month ago. What I learnt then was to never pack while standing up on a hard surface. I woke up when my face hit the pool deck. It hit three more times as I tried to stand again and failed. I'm told I looked quite funny (the bastards were laughing when I came to).

I thought buddies were there to help, not to laugh?

Lucia

 

[DiverTodd]

When one of my fellow classmates had a samba during my PFI Intermediate course this month, nobody laughed. Well, not until we all knew he was alright. It was initially met with "OOOOH, AHHH...."

Todd

 

[LachlanWA]

I thought buddies were there to help, not to laugh?

I had one helping and three laughing. The odd thing is I lose my hearing when I come to, so I could hear these voices and I couldn't work out where they were coming from, so I looked fairly bewildered.

 

[cantshoot]

Originally Posted by DiverTodd
When one of my fellow classmates had a samba during my PFI Intermediate course this month, nobody laughed. Well, not until we all knew he was alright. It was initially met with "OOOOH, AHHH...."

haha, I know how that guy feels, that happened to me too, everbody laughed at me when we got back to shore. One of the guy's was even say that he was going to make fun of me in the article he was doing on PFI.

If your packing and you begin to feel light headed or the vision starts to go you can try and pump your fist, it help to up the blood pressure, or atleast that is what I was taught.

Roland,

 

[ROBERT REYES]

Re-read immerlustig post, it is very clear and to the point.
I also think your blood pressure drop should be verified.
If you dive alone and duplicate the same conditions, you
will not survive, this is not a joke.
If you use a buddy, make really sure you tell him before hand what happened to you and how, so he knows whats going on.
You had a black out, not a samba, and you dont remember it,
it is just the way it happens, I had been there, so go slow and
dont try to over do, go in small increments.
I personally feel that we all have diferent resistances to black outs, and
It does not matter in what shape you are.
Be safe, our comunity will thank you for it.
In your particular case, learn fast, and dont push your limits, you found them already.

 

[Fondueset]

I agree with Wes and Immerstelung. Awhile ago it was fashionable among high school kids to hyperventilate, hold and have your buddies push on your chest - inducing a black-out, sometimes preceded by samba. Just standing up suddenly with really full lungs can do the trick all by itself. Personally I haven't been breathing up at all for apnea walks. In fact I generally just do them on half a breath.

I think the key to your Black Out was that you breathed up sitting down in a chair and then immediately stood up and started walking. I don't know how it is usually done though I have always assumed that you started standing when doing walking apneas. You know sometimes how you get dizzy if you get up real fast? Well that affect is the same affect if you do a big breathe up. If you do a big breathe up and also get up rapidly from a chair then you will get extra dizzy from the combination of both (and in your case BO). I will let others explain all the phisiology to you. Cheers Wes