View Full Version : Another Public Thank you.
scubagranny
01-04-09, 15:35
I want you all on Conger to know that I had a massive panic attack when diving last Sunday, at St Cats1. I was diving with Karon, who very quickly saw I was in trouble, and reacted swiftly and extremely professionally, as did Donnie and Roger. Karon had to inflate my BCD and tow me back, I couldn't breath properly and gave her no help at all.
Donny swam out to help, and Roger was on the shore,(at least I think he was, maybe he too had to swim out for me,Roger, if I've got that I wrong I so apologise) to hold me and to calm me down so I could start breathing properly again.
Without them, I might not be here today. We are members of Allanderdivers, and I am very lucky to belong to a club that trains its divers to such a very high standard. Club members will know the people who rescued me. A huge thank you.
Scubagranny
Glad to hear you're ok. Hope you feel better and get back into the water soon.
GG and I were diving at Conger on Saturday and there were 5 divers from Allander there - we sat and had lunch on the beach and watched them carry out rescue training in the water for about half an hour. It's a good thing to do and definitely something every diver should practice.
Glad you're ok. Take it easy. Baby steps, etc.
:)
Glad you're fine and your buddies were on the ball! Don't let it put you off,same thing happened to me when I was new to diving, almost put me off and it set me back to step one, but I just built my diving up day by day from there :)
wetbehindtheears
02-04-09, 10:10
Good to hear that you are now okay. The guys and girls from Allander Divers will be getting themselves a reputation; it was a group from there that came to my assistance following my incident in February. I'm back diving now but just taking it relatively easy, slowly rebuilding my confidence. As other folks have said, take it easy and please don't let this experience put you off an amazing pastime. Best wishes.:)
TWIN TANKS
02-04-09, 18:19
Glad Ur Ok:)
Glad you are well and it all ended okay.
If you don't mind, could I ask what caused the panic attack? I only wondered to see if it was just one of those things and it just hit you then - or was there some other cause, that we could all try and avoid, that set it off - like kit failure before the dive, rushing with set up or such like.
scubagranny
03-04-09, 10:43
Thanks everyone for good wishes. Peter, I'm not terribly sure what caused panic attack. Equipment was fine, slow set up, wee chat with Karon for dive plan, positioning etc.There was a big swell and a strong current, but I was okay with that. I think what happened was I just couldn't get down, I quite often have that problem, but this time I think I started to overbreath and get annoyed with myself, and I admit I start to struggle to push myself down, do you know what I mean? It's hard to put into words. And then I felt that I couldn't get a breath at all, nothing to do with equipment, just me. Exhaustion soon took over!! So I need to built up my fitness level, definitely.
Pretty certain weighting is okay. It won't put me off, but it did rock my boots!!
SG
Okay, thanks.
I don't have much advice on that front, but if this is any help.......
I know when I was first diving in a drysuit in the UK I used 13kg of weight. I now use 8kg of weight. I have had little kit reconfigurations here and there, but these didn't themselves allow me to drop weight, the weight drops occurred over a couple of periods where I simply felt that I no longer needed the weight and could try to drop a couple of kg's and did a weight test and it was fine.
No real reason, other than more time spent diving. It's probably that you just get a bit better at the main points.
Make sure the BC/Wing is completely empty, make sure your suit is completely empty too. Going down feet first making sure your suit valve is up at the highest point and exhale completely from your lungs. I guess you know all of this and are doing it, but it does appear to get better with time.
My daughter has had exactly this too - but it was more apparent to me watching after diing for a few years rather than when it happened to me - when she dives she has too much weight under water, but everytime we tried to drop a kilo she could not submerge by herself. She has now dropped a few kilos, but I think she'll still drop another couple before she is finished (if that ever happens! I may have dropped 5kg's, but still carry more weight than others I dive with!).
Remember that carrying the extra weight is not without penalty, including lugging it all around at the surface and swimming with it when you are diving.
PS the numbers are somewhat irrelevant as the weight you need is down to so many factors!
If any of you guys are struggling with weighting I can run a PADI Peak Performance course and get your weighting and trim perfect just PM for details.:)