Dumb Diving Days

[frankie]

Might have to click on picture. Got two friends involved in diving for shellfish. They started trouble with guys in the boats that shell fished. That ended that!

 

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[Red_desert]

Great story Kevin, loved it laughing all the way through...

 

[SADS 669]

A great story about not being able to check personally if a project is on track

Truk or Truck that is the question.....?

Japanese submarine I 169 at 200 ft depth.....



Having recently spent the dive trip of a lifetime at Truk Lagoon I thought it interesting to share with you that I am not the only one to have to put up with Dumb Diving days. While I was there I decided like all hard core divers do, to buy myself a couple of T' shirts from the SS Thorfinn liveaboard I was diving from.

Now, everyone who is an experienced diver knows Truk (or Chuuk how it's now spelled by the locals) is definitely not spelled with a small 'c' in it anywhere. However, if you are a T'shirt printer in the Philippines where the order was placed and someone sends you an order for 500 shirts with the location spelled wrong it certainly behooves you to correct them, oops.

So we have therefore established the T' shirt printer thinks the owner of the operation is an idiot, because he can't even get a simple thing right like how to spell Truck. Don't worry I'll make sure he doesn't look like a Jackass with Truk not Truck on his shirts. I'll print all of them with the correct spelling. This is even though the proof reading and authorization was agreed with the correct spelling.

Imagine the Captain \ Owners demeanor when these shirts roll up with "Dive Truck Lagoon" plastered all over them. Also please help me out a little and imagine the bad language this ex Tug Boat Captain used when he opened the box, I bet he even made up some new swear words too.

When you go to Truck Lagoon, and you should for your dive vacation help him out like I did and buy a couple of these shirts. He can then organize some new ones that are spelled correctly, (we hope). I feel like a police search diver every time I wear it looking for dumped pick ups in a lake or something.

The front of the shirt also says in very big letters (right below "Dive Truck Lagoon") "Diving Excellence built from Experience". When I read this I thought "No ****, Shylock" sorry.......... Sherlock.

Great operation none the less, it just goes to show even the best have "Dumb Diving Days" too...........ha ha.

 

[Boatlode]

A great story about not being able to check personally if a project is on track

Truk or Truck that is the question.....?

Japanese submarine I 169 at 200 ft depth.....

View attachment 1381167

I love that pic, Kev. I made it the screen background on my desk pc.

 

[Salvor6]

Kevin this happened last weekend. What do you think caused their death?

MADEIRA BEACH -- A 37-year-old woman died Sunday after authorities say she and her husband had a diving accident.

• Husband and wife both became unconcious after diving
  
• A good Samaritan radioed for help
• The couple was taken to the hospital, the wife since has died

The incident happened at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Gulf of Mexico, five miles west of Madeira Beach.
According to deputies, Roger Olson, 57, and his wife were on their fishing boat when they were approached by a man in distress.
William Gamba, 37, told Olson that his wife, Blaise Gamba, 37, had a medical emergency on his boat and that she was unconscious.
"I realized he yelled that his wife was unconscious and not breathing so I pulled up and got on the boat,” Olson said. “He started giving her chest compressions and I just drove the boat in."
Olson boarded William Gamba’s boat and called for help using a VHF radio, investigators said. Olson drove the boat inland toward John’s Pass as William Gamba performed CPR on his wife. Olson called for help on the boat’s radio while 37-year-old William Gamba tried to resuscitate his wife.
"He was quite frantic, but he kept a level head,” Olson said. “He kept doing chest compressions and probably the smartest thing he could have done was have his wits about him and pull up and get someone else to drive the boat so he could continue doing that."
When they got about half a mile west of John’s Pass marine deputies and paramedics were able to help. Soon after, William also had a medical emergency and lost consciousnes.
Deputies believe the injuries were related to a diving accident. Diving equipment was located on board the boat and both William and Blaise were wearing wet suits.
The couple was transported to Palms of Pasadena Hospital with life-threatening injuries. Blaise passed away at 10:25 Sunday morning, but her husband has been upgraded to stable condition.
Investigators say they believe the couple’s injuries are related to diving. Both were wearing wetsuits and diving equipment was found on their boat.

 

[boogeyman]

Yeh I know Capt E but most of my friends already know I'm not the sharpest tool in the cave

This gives me hope! I no longer feel all alone! Now I know there are others out there that do these things too! Makes my day!!

 

[SADS 669]

Pete, difficult to make a sensible attempt at a reason, could be old air in tanks and all the oxygen used up during the off season or not used for a long time ( always use a fresh fill) , CO poisoning would do it too......i.e. A bad fill.

Sad, regardless of the reason

 

[Salvor6]

That's the first thing I thought, bad air fill.

 

[SADS 669]

...

 

[Boatlode]

Why not DCS?

 

[Jason in Enid]

Why not DCS?

Yeah, that's a tough call. There's really not enough information to know. I kind of lean away from a bad CO tank fill. Most likely they would both have the same fill, and if it was enough to kill her, he wouldn't be in any condition to be conducting CPR. CO poisoning leaves you dizzy, vomiting, gasping for air before you go unconscious. The fact that she wasn't breathing makes me think it's DCS. Dove too deep, something went wrong, panicking ascent resulting in "the chokes" and rapid loss of life. Of course theres no mention bloody froth from the mouth, so it's just a guess.

 

[Salvor6]

Jason they were in 30 foot deep water

 

[agflit]

Hmmmm....hard to tell with such sketchy info....

But...possible scenario?.... She had a "medical" event at depth, rapid ascent, embolized on top of whatever was going on...he..may have had a medical event as a result of the physical and mental stresses and exertion involved...just a possible hypothesis.

Ag

 

[Boatlode]

Jason they were in 30 foot deep water

Ah, ok. You didn't tell us that, Pete.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Jason they were in 30 foot deep water

Yeah, that rules out DCS but still leaves open the possibility of a lung-overexpansion injury. Although at this point I would be leaning a lot more towards bad air.

 

[Boatlode]

I'd rather die of CO poisoning than DCS. DCS is the worst.

 

[Darren in NC]

This started as a light-hearted thread. Now we're reading morbid deaths while diving. Back to the fun stuff!

 

[Jason in Enid]

This started as a light-hearted thread. Now we're reading morbid deaths while diving. Back to the fun stuff!

Better?

 

[agflit]

 

[SADS 669]

This will get us back on track........



There I was 10 feet in the air, upside down, halfway through my front somersault over a 7 foot high vaulting horse after bouncing on the springboard as hard as I possibly could. I looked down to my landing area which was a 20 foot long foam crash mat and lying there exactly where I was going to land was the performer before me Steve Rigby.

Now I am a pretty big bloke and regardless of what is actually wrong with the 'old boy' on the mat, if I land on him there is going to be absolutely no improvement in his condition. Even though I do have a first aid certificate it would be a mistake for him to look up and think of me as a flying Doctor. I did the best I could opening my legs as I landed placing them either side of his head and bounced as far forward as possible before starting my forward roll.

It was discovered that Steve ( a really nice guy) had broken his neck really high up on the spine and subsequently has to endure his life in a wheelchair. You may have read about him when he and his wife took on the Catholic Church because the local priest refused to marry them in the local church, they won the fight after involving the Pope.

Anyway, I hope the groundwork has been set for the coming story. I lost touch with Steve over the years and tried to find him on the net periodically whenever I thought of him ( which was often) with no luck. Then I managed to get back in touch and visited him while in the UK on a family trip. During conversation he said how disappointed he was that his 50th birthday plan of going to the tropics was scuppered when his carer got pregnant and couldn't go, unbelievably no one else wanted to. (send me a message if you fancy a trip, and I'll send you his address ha ha.)

I was managing a private island at the time so I invited him to come and offered to be his carer if needed, but he found one. He was not sure whether he could manage "this or that" in terms of getting to me and I had to constantly tell him to just go for it, what's the worst could happen, he has an accident and ends up in a wheelchair, again?. So he arrived on the island looking forward to a lazy time sitting in his wheelchair reading, eating, drinking red wine and imitating a lazy person.

Now, if you think for one second I am going to let the guy I nearly killed by landing on his head sit around the island turning food into farts, think again. When I asked if he went to his local pool to swim at home he said no, so in true fashion I tipped him out of his chair into the sea, put a " noodle" float behind his back and one behind his neck and he took his first unaided exercise for 30 years. It was a very powerful sight seeing Steve doing the back stroke around the bay.

At this point I had a bit of a brainwave, so I shot off and got a mask and snorkel, flipped him over and dragged him to the dock where all the little tropical fish were. To say he loved it would be without doubt the largest understatement ever uttered. I then decided if he can snorkel, he can dive, "how am I going to get back in the boat?" says he. I replied that I didn't really care because 'scuba diving' was the plan not 'climbing in boats'. Seriously, we worked out a way to carefully get him back in the boat but if that had not been possible I would have found a site near a beach, and we would be back to him taking exercise.

So, off we went to a very shallow site with the most coral and fish I could find. I put an extra long hose on my gear ( 7 feet) and carefully steered Steve around the reef. Once again he thought this was something he would never be able to do. We slowly built up the depth over a few dives, culminating in a 30 ft dive on Jeep Reef which is a world class shallow dive.

So a lesson learnt for anyone out there who thinks their life is over after an accident or a challenge based on injury or circumstance, firstly it's not over and secondly if you think it is refer to the "firstly" bit above. Steve subsequently wrote a book called "Tears in the Sand" based on his time in the tropics, the title is based on his experience of me dumping him on a sand bar in the middle of the ocean and leaving him there to his thoughts for an hour or so.