Deep reservations

Those of you who read the february issue of the Dive Magazine might already know this, as I got to tell “what happened to me” in there. To all the others, here you are:

Pushing your maximum depth may seem adventurous. But I found out it isn’t big and it certainly isn’t clever

People new to diving often ask about your deepest dive.
I’ve started using this as an opportunity to explain not how amazing the dive was, but what I learned from it, and why I’d never do it again, why you should never exceed the depth limits of your diving qualification or the depth you feel comfortable with.

It was a cloudy July afternoon and five of us decided to go diving. Jim and Lisa had done the same diving course as me, but while Jim and I had received our certification, Lisa still had to demonstrate one skill to complete the course. Luke had been diving for about a year and Tony was our instructor.
We decided to try a new dive site near our home in Germany. We arrived and put on our gear. We decided to dive in one big group: Tony buddied with Jim and Lisa; me and my close friend Luke followed them. From among the newbies, I was picked not to dive with Tony, because I had the most experience – it was my 75th dive.

Our first dive took us just below 50m. My training qualified me to dive to 20m, and the next course I was about to start would involve diving as deep as 40m, with an instructor. But Lisa hadn’t even finished her first course. I must admit that I don’t remember much from the dive. As I’m generally fascinated by how our minds work slower underwater, I always try to calculate easy things, like ‘6×7’ when I dive. I did that then, and I didn’t feel I was any slower than usual.
Back on shore, Tony asked if we wanted to go for another dive. Lisa didn’t feel well and hadn’t enjoyed the first dive. Looking back, I have to say she was clever. And strong. It’s hard to say ‘I’m out’ if all your friends want you to join them. We decided to stick to our positions, so Jim and Tony were ahead, Luke and me behind. At about 40m I stopped looking at my computer. I felt everybody began to dive faster, and I didn’t want to lose them. I had no clue
where we were or how exactly I would get back out. I calmly came to the conclusion that I had to follow my friends. I didn’t want to be accused of wrecking their dive, but I was also afraid they wouldn’t listen to me.
Suddenly, I realised Jim was dangerously low on air. He only had 50 bar left in his 12-litre tank and we’d been trained to end the dive with 50 bar, not to use it up. So Tony gave Jim his alternate air source.
Today, I can’t clearly remember whether we started to ascend right away or went a few metres deeper, but I did see Luke still descending when Jim and Tony started going up. As he was just looking at his computer, it was pretty obvious to me what he was trying to do: hit a depth record.
By then, I was frozen (only Tony, was in a drysuit) and glad we were going back. I had started to dislike the dive as I felt I had no control over it and realised I was putting myself and others at risk. None of the computers showed deco stops, but we did an extended safety stop anyway.

Jim, Tony and Luke had loved the dive.
At least, that’s what they told everybody. It happened only a little more than a year ago, but now it all feels so awkward, wrong and thoughtless. I didn’t know anything at the time, but I’m changing that by getting more training and qualifications. Plus, I always pay attention to where I’m diving and who I dive with. I look at maps of a new dive site before I go there, because I want to be able to find my own way around. More importantly, I talk to my buddies about what exactly we’re going to do: how deep are we going? How long for? Which direction are we going? That way I can make an informed choice to do the dive or not and resist pressure from friends to push my limits.

Barotrauma

Barotrauma is physical damage to body tissues caused by a difference in pressure between a gas space inside, or in contact with the body, and the surrounding fluid.

In early fall (it was my dive number one hundret and something) I went diving with a couple of friends in a lake nearby.
The lake is one of my favourite lakes, not underwater, but it looks so nice on the top – I always was attracted by it’s look.

Anyways, this time, we were going to dive there – like many times before.Altogether we were 4 ppl. Me, an instructor and 2 buddies of mine that did the same course earlier.

We had two very nice dives – there are two wracks on the bottom of the lake which we visited, which was very nice to. Visability was OK, it was just a fun diving-day.
After the two days (and a short break) we decided to do another, third dive.
I asked my buddies if we could do a buddy change. After diving with a girl-buddy for 2 dives, I wanted to do the third dive with my boy-buddy.
Of course, this was fine with everybody. We decided that my instructor + girl buddy were to dive in front, whereas my boy-buddy and me should just follow them.

As we started our dive, I felt pressure in my right ear. But as I never ever had any serious problems with my ears or my ear clearing I just went on, slowed down, though. (Mistake #1, what about going back up?)
A few meters deeper I decided I couldn’t go any further as my ear was really aching now.
Now I guess my buddy made a mistake, too. He wasn’t close to me. In fact, he was about a meter deeper than I was, too far away to reach out to him.

As I wanted to go back up, I felt like I had to reach out to my buddy to tell him (mistake #2, what about waiting for my buddy to check on me?) – but as I couldn’t reach him from where I was, I clenched my teeth and went down to him (Mistake #3, what about using my torch, or even changing my position and using my fin to make him aware of me would have been enough…)
The very moment I reached out to him and showed him the signal for my problem: boooooom!

I just used my one hand to hold onto him, and my other hand to circle in front of my eyes – which was supposed to mean “I’m dizzy” – then I hold onto him.
Right at that moment I was very glad we had both done this weird diving course: how many times had we practised how to safe your buddy: how to get a buddy back up to the surface without him/her helping. ‘Cause that’s exactly what my buddy did.

Back up to the surface I felt like everything was OK, I wasn’t dizzy anymore, I could hear, everything was fine. But luckily my buddy took the lead and made me get out of the water. Soon I started shaking. Usually, my boy-buddy isn’t the care-taking person, but back at that moment, he really took good care of me. I know, with a different buddy this might not have happened, but to sum it up: it was me, who made 3 big mistakes and I am just happy how he dealt with the whole situation.

When our 2 buddies got back from there dive, we didn’t tell them the whole truth for neither of us realised the whole situation.
On the way back in the car I felt like it was getting harder for me to understand what people said, I had a very hard time listening. Besides, a weird-colored fluid was coming out of my ear. It was a reddish ocher.

my tympanic membrane (green) had 2 big claft

The next day I went to see an ear-doctor who told me my eardrum was injured. There were two big cleft.
The cold water that got through that cleft into my tympanic (the red area in the picture) which was not only the cause for my dizzyness and total leck of orientation, but also caused an acute ear.

Of course, my hearing wasn’t that good anymore, and I had to go through hundrets of listening-tests.

At that time of water-abstinence I started to really get into diving theory and learnt very much about my body and myself.

The hard thing was, that even though everybody knew about me not beeing able to even go swimming (i had to keep my ear totally dry) – i got some messages almost every weekend asking wheiter I wanted to go diving.

When my hearing-ability was back to normal, (and that took about 3 months) – the doctor finally gave me the OK to get my ears wet again. Means: I was allowed to shower, or to go swimming. But no diving at all, no headers, just plain swimming, head above the water.
This was like heaven to me. I’ve been missing water sooooo much! And yet it was aweful. I just wanted to put my head underwater….

But that took another month. Around christmas, the doctor gave me the OK to do 3 very safe dives, meaning: in the local swimming pool, at 3 meters depth, with a buddy, under total control, with very slow de- and ascending. I was the happiest girl ever! The 3 dives were all fine, I could try my fins, work on my buoyancy, i enjoyed it very much.

The next time I went to see my doctors I thought he would say I’d be allowed to dive again. But of course not. I was allowed to do 2 5m dives – same circumstances. The only problem was that it is very hard to find some 5m pools in my area. But ok, I got to manage that.

Finally, I was allowed to dive open water again! Limited at 10meters though, but YEAAAH YIPPIEEE YEAAH YEAH!
We went in a lake nearby and did a very nice, long but slow dive. When we checked our computers afterwards, our descending rate was 4 mps at most.
Another open water dive at 10m and I was allowed to go “normal” again.

After all, it took me about 4 months to get into water again…

I am very happy I am able to dive again and even though I’d never say “i’d take this again”, I am very thankful for this lesson.
I’m still very careful at de- and ascending, I am super-careful with my ears and I always check on my buddies 3 times or more once they seem to have some problems with their ear clearing.