Diver Down (and Panicking!)

At last! The three and a half year drought finally came to an end on Saturday... I got to go diving! Years ago, diving was one of my all-time favorite things to do. Every chance I got, I'd be in the water somewhere. I took as many diving certification classes as my schedule would allow, working my way up to Rescue Diver. I purchased my own gear, and constantly looked for the next opportunity to explore new territory underwater.

Unfortunately, diving is one of those activities that you just can't go do by yourself! You have to have a "dive buddy", and that is where one of my main problems came from: All my dive buddies moved away. And so I was stuck, staring longingly down at the water, but unable to go in. Diving darkness reigned until Saturday, when the light finally returned. One of my buddies moved back to town, and as soon as we found a free weekend, we loaded up our gear and headed out to the coast!

Saturday's destination: The Florence Oregon North Jetty. I have been diving at the jetty many times, and I must say, I have yet to have a real positive diving experience there. Something ALWAYS seems to go wrong. The current was too strong.. we didn't hit the water at high tide, not enough weights to sink, zero visibility... there always seems to be some reason that makes for lousy diving.

But on Saturday, we were determined.. this was going to be a great day of diving! It had to be.. I had waited so long to get back in the water!! There was just one problem this time... Me. Usually I can attempt to point a finger at my buddy, but Saturday.. I was the problem child.

Issue number one began as we arrived and started to get changed into our gear. Without incriminating myself, suffice it to say that it had not occurred to me that in the last 3 years, I have gained.. eh.. a bit of weight. A wet suit is pretty targeted in size to a specific weight, and I certainly am not where I was 8 years ago when I purchased it! So... getting suited up was a struggle... took all 3 of us to get me in the darn thing actually. But eventually I was suited up and ready.

After a short pre-dive briefing, we headed down into the water. That glorious feeling of the world suddenly turning 3-D. The ability to go not just right and left, but up and down in weightlessness is indescribable. We slowly descended to the bottom and noticed something amazing in the Jetty.. visibility! We could actually see what was around us! For those that have not got diving in the cold water of the Oregon coast, this is an amazing thing! Just seeing that clear visibility was wondrous! Too bad that that's when I suddenly panicked.

In all the years of diving I have done, I have had buddies in the past go into panic mode, but it is something that has never happened to me. I was kneeling there on the bottom, enjoying my environment, when suddenly the realization came screeching in... "I can't really breathe". My mind suddenly started reeling in a thousand directions "Oh don't be a wuss! You have waited THREE AND A HALF YEARS TO BE HERE! You can't just bail out. Just tough it out, it will get better". But it didn't get better. It grew more intense. It felt like suddenly having an asthma attack and knowing there was no inhaler anywhere close. I couldn't take a deep breath without major effort on my body and lungs. The more I realized how difficult it was to breathe, the more my body went into panic mode, my brain spinning, trying to figure out where the next breath would come from. Finally, I made the smart decision. I grabbed my buddy by the arm and made the "There's a problem, I'm heading to the surface" sign. Once I saw him nod, in understanding, I bolted off the bottom. I couldn't get to the surface quickly enough.

Once there, and with my BCD filled with air to hold me there, it took a good few minutes to get my breathing back under control so I could speak again. According to my buddies, my face was insanely red and my eyes bulging, (think Schwartzenneger trying to breathe on Mars in Total Recall). In analyzing what had happened, we realized several things: first, my wet suit... just too tight. I was cramming my body into a space just too small to hold it (new incentive to lose weight!) and my lungs just didn't have the necessary space to expand correctly. Second, as I seem to have gained all my weight in my neck, my hood was too tight, causing my airway in my neck to be compromised. Third, a faulty regulator. Switching to my second stage regulator helped a lot! Take all these issues and combine them with the mental knowledge of being deeply underwater and your body just physically reacts in a very negative way.

With a few alterations, and the literal chopping up of my hood with my dive knife, we decided to try again. This time, things felt much better. We were able to go down, enjoy the visibility, explore "crab hole" and have an enjoyable dive. But, the whole panic attack thing really freaked me out. A few times, I could feel it begin again, and it took a lot of mental effort to push the panic away. I could tell the difference this time. I knew that it was mostly mental, just my brain fearful that the same thing could happen again. But I knew that if I let that fear take over, my body would physically react in the same way again, so I had to be determined to not let this happen and only react to the "real" issues.

And so I learned that diving, like so many other things in life, is one of those things that I could do effortlessly when I was younger, but the older I get, requires a lot more work. Just like running.. when I was younger I could just go run a 5k without training or thinking about it, and now it takes 6 months of training and effort. My once simple diving hobby is following suit. It will take work, exercise and effort to be able to do it successfully again. I'll need to lose weight, get into better shape, re-read my scuba books, and work on rebuilding my nerve. Even now, three days later as I type this, I can still vividly remeber how scary of a feeling that was, to struggle so hard to do something as simple as breathing. It was a terrifying feeling! But like they say, nothing worthwhile comes easy, and so will be my return to diving. But, I will return to the water again, more prepared, and ready to conquer.

Now.. where's my inhaler?