Re: Death While Freediving BLOWS!
Originally posted by sturgeon
Erik,
It's ok to talk about death but I hope that neither you nor anybody else on this Forum thinks dying during freediving would be a glorious death. It's not, especially to all the friends and family members left behind! Don't fool yourself that dying during freediving would in any way be cool.
Scott Turgeon
Scott has nailed it. I too thought about this thread for a while and it brought up an uncomfortable amount of memories of friends lost and of close calls. It also made me reflect on the bit of bravado that I think is creeping around here in the form of the juvenile or ignorant, if you will, assertions that dying doing something you love is an OK way to go.
Here's a little shout out- It ain't.
Drowning is probably one of the worst ways top go, with death by fire a real bitch too. The descriptions of those brought back from near death by drowning, have all been pretty unanimous in their terror and helplessness. I mean, think back on the time(s) when you were hauling ass back to the surface or kinda-sorta stuck in that crack and oops!, "Oh man, get me the hell outta here!"; sound familiar? Now imagine that realization and REALLY being unable to get out of it. There are descriptions of the water entering your lungs as feeling like they were being seared, crushed, exploded and frozen. Then it gets worse. You're still pretty aware of what's going on at this point. You know you're screwed. From here you start to check out to varying degrees but then the stars start to fire off in your brain and it's been said that each burst was akin to having a nail driven into your skull. Nice.
Your heart doesn't actually stop for a while, but now your brain is essentially a pack of firecrackers going off- the synapses aren't firing in order; think of it as the arc of a big short circuit. Ever been zapped by a faulty outlet or appliance? Yeah, except now it's going on between your ears. I'll leave the spasms and final twitches to your imaginations...
As Scott and Anderson have, I've had to say goodbye to some freinds, dug in some markers and tossed some wreaths into the surf. One in particular comes to mind as Dan was a fair enough diver but he was a helluva guy. He died in Palau in the late 70's, most likely from DWB, as he was describing in a call to his wife, a major babe and a beautiful person inside too, that he was hitting triple digit depths easily as the water was so nice and clear-he could touch the wrecks from the surface. I was very close to Dan and not only because he was always scoping out my girlfriend at the time, but that his abilities were matched by his humbleness. He busted his ass to come up with the ducats to go to Truk and Palau and had his wife out for a week too. The guy was just loving life.
Strange though in that he always had the flippant way of saying that he was OK with dying while diving as "I love it so..." and "Hey, if my number's up, it's up". Those words did nothing to lessen the grief and saddness of his wife as she sat with me and received a flag presented to her as his poor substitute- his body being sealed in the casket per Customs service protocol. Her murmurs of, "But I just saw him...", will be with me forever. Sure he died doing something he loved and yeah, maybe his number was up. But that's small consolation to those that have been lessened by his loss. I have a plaque that is given by my old dive club in his honor, and it's the only one that resides on my wall alongside the kid' pictures.
Think about that when you're at some fete' and going on about being able to hit 20m for 3 minutes all day. Your loss might make a sentence here if you choose, but in the final analysis, your space will be filled by another desiring to learn how to do it deeper and longer.
How you choose to dive now, today or tomorrow or the next trip, indeed the rest of your life, will reflect more on you than how you died.
sven