Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Diver panic attack video

During testing for the advanced level swim qualification in the Marine Corps, you have to rescue a person who is basically trying to drown you. The testing instructor is acting like a drowning, panicked person. The test is hard to pass and wears you the hell out. Getting your head pushed under constantly sucks. I passed it (WSQ 1) but it was a challenge. Out of 8 of us, 3 of us made it. Other two were new Ch-46 crew chiefs. That tells you how long ago that was.

seen them get panic attacks on Bering Sea Gold.....closest I'll ever get to diving

Did lots of free diving as a kid and had several incidences where I pushed it and things were getting dark as I broke the surface. For sure an endeavor where panic has no place.

My dive instructor was a Marine diver. Fun guy, no nonsense. He thought that some of the accessories people bought were a bit foolish, a dive knife being one he had little use for in most cases. Learning to buddy breathe, he joked that if you ever gave your regulator to a panicked diver, you'd find out what a dive knife was really for. Good joke.

Fast forward a couple of weeks: We're doing an open water dive at Sand Harbor in Lake Tahoe. He had me paired with a 15 year old kid. We did our ditch and don, and got to the the buddy breathing exercise. He popped his regulator out alright, and accepted mine just fine. But then his eyes were big as dollars. I gestured that it was my turn to breathe, and he firmly shook his head, NO!

Dang, no dive knife! Laughin'.

So I grabbed his regulator and popped in my mouth. Now we were both breathing, so I grabbed him and popped the CO2 inflator on his buoyancy vest, and up we went. On the surface, he was more agreeable to giving me back my regulator.

I don't dive, and never dove, and never will.

I am HELL ON WHEELS with a mask and snorkel and the clams and rock lobster fear me in Mexico.....

But I am always ~25 ft or less deep.

I'd love to scuba just to stay under at that depth for longer periods of time, but I have no desire to go deeper than I can surface without BENDS.

Good on all you though!

That's interesting, because I always felt better with my asthma after breathing in a couple tanks of compressed air. Different strokes for different folks.

Lol.

Laughing.

When you got back on land, You should have broke in your dive knife by putting it through his vest a couple times once he took it off. Lol.

Thought that looked like Hawaii in the background.

Girl in my class freaked. Same kinda deal. Started to panic, ripped off her mask, spat the reg and did a schit job of trying to swim for the surface.
Instructor grabbed her and buoyed her up right quick.

Something similar to happen to me on a wreck dive, in 85 feet, not as bad as you but bad enough that it changed my whole outlook on life and diving :-) and experience I do not ever want to repeat.

There was a regular hear years back who perished diving a wreck off of the Carolinas, I dunno how or why but I doubt it was panic.

As far as that newbie, I can understand how breathing off a mouthpiece far underwater might take some getting used to. Never have dived myself.

Not everyone is cut out for scuba diving. She is a danger to herself and any potential dive partner. My wife couldn't cut it either.

Montana has mountains. Mo better. If God woulda wanted us to be like fish....

Point of interest, my Irish grandpa left Ireland as a teenager to go work on the Panama Canal, ended up working as a salvage diver in the Caribbean. Had to have been in the early 1920's or before. That was back in the lead weights and pot helmet days. Suffered a severe attack of the bends, which eventually contributed to his untimely demise twenty years later. I never met him of course.

Danger is not getting the bends it is an air embolism (pnuemothorax) Air under pressure in her lungs will expand and blow the lining out of lungs. you have 8 quarts of air in your lungs at surface at 15 psi., at 33 feet you have still have 8 quarts of air but it has been compressed (30 PSI)and is actually 16 quarts of surface air by volume. That air expands as you go up. Only takes 3 lb pressure change to do that. We had a student get a small embolism buddy breathing in a pool swimming laps and went up the incline holding his breath when I went thru the special forces scuba course. Small hole and crepitation in shoulders that evening. Put out of the course and no diving for one year. That is also why you never dive with a cold. Mucus plugs will expand close one section of the lungs and blow out on the way up. Lost two friends like that.

May people say "I just will not go deep" when in actuality the last 15 feet coming up are the most dangerous.

I have had a valve malfunction on a deep dive with a student and he panicked at 100 ft and would not buddy breath after 2 times. I had to do a "blow and go" from 100 feet and it was not a fun experience. Immediately grabbed another tank and went to 10 feet to decompress for 15 minutes and diving was over for that day.

we lost more guys diving to include SF dive medics than ever jumping. The sea is very unforgiving.

night dive 2am in the morning, looking for a reported drowned kid in a mountain lake, pitch black. i was tangled in heavy weeds and came on a fish with big eyes at about six inches from my face. i screamed, thus dropping my regulator. i had my secondary in front of me, so problem solved. had to pull a dive knife to cut my way out of the weeds to the surface.

another time some idiot drove a d 6 cat into a lake. we were under the ripper blades on the back trying to attach a cable to pull it out. about sic inch visability. that is when i started to wonder why i was doing this for free for the county.

So what can you do for local diving?
How deep can you get in some of the crystal clear lakes before you run out of light for visibility.

I'm assuming you can suit-up to ward off the cold temps, is that a poor assumption?

The area in Tally Lake where we catch the monster Lakers is about 40ft deep, it's up closer to the boat ramp, the far end is way too deep to dive at 450 feet of depth.
I'd love to get down there and see what there is to see at that 40 ft level.
Tally Lake has warmer water by late summer but tends to be darker colored due to high levels of Tannins, is any of it doable?