So I flew down to St. Croix by myself for vacation. I'm staying with a buddy of my dad's at his place. He's a scubba diving instructor, so i decided to take a dive.

We first started our descent, and my ears started hurting really bad. I blew on my nose to equalize the pressure, but it didn't help too much. i kept going down trying to clear them, but my ears wouldn't clear. the pain got unbearable and i paniced. i shot to the surface. the instructor (my dad's friend) had to chase up and stop me from ascending so quickly. i was freaking out, short of breath, hyperventilating,

well, when we did get to the surface, i stared coughing up blood and i had a killer headache. went to the hospital where they checked me out, and they told me to take it easy for the next couple days. no perminent damage.

on the bright side i saw a huge seahorse!

 

Really hate to hear that did you have a sinus congestion problem before you left to go down to St. Croix and if not, what was the mix on the tanks. Please don't tell me you were running a hot mix

 

did you take a picture of that seahorse???

damn man, feel better...thats crazyness...i remember i went scuba diving in cancun when i was 17...me and my buddy got back from the clubs at about 5am, and we went scuba diving at 8am...drunk scuba diving is awesome

 

Cat I do a hell of a lot of dangerous things on a regular basis but I do my utmost to do them as safely as possible. I hope you never do that again, and I hope the individuals who outfitted you at that time. Somewhere down the road got what was coming to them, unless it was borrowed equipment, and if they knew your condition and allowed you to dive anyway. That is far beyond just negligence

 

i was 17 at the time...goes hand in hand with being stupid...would i ever do that again? definitely not, in fact, i RARELY drink at all anymore...i've also learned since then that scuba diving is a helluva lot more dangerous than i thought at that time

 

Glad to hear that cat and it is something that Ilove and take quite seriously because it is dangerous

 

Would never do it. fear of a shark eating me. I don't play in an Aligator pond, a pissed off bulls arena, a bears den and a sharks feeding ground.

 

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So I flew down

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so i decided to take a dive.

Fyi those don't go well together, I thought you weren't supposed to scubba dive before/after flying due to the pressure change... =(

 

I'm sure that he had been on the ground for at least Three to four hours before hitting the water. And that is not a hard fast rule. I have personally flown for an hour and hit the water without landing and came ashore


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It's flying after diving that is an issue - not diving after flying. Due to nitrogen buildup from breathing compressed air at depth.

I would question thequalifications of the "instructor" that let the original poster go down without constant control and monitoring. When I take a new student down, I am literally holding on to them and watching them like a hawk to make sure they correctly equalize, arebreathing OK, and are not going into a panic.In the event they try to rapidly ascend, I am right there preventing a too fast ascent.

If you cannot equalize, you need to go back up. Continuing down with increased pressure will invariably make it impossible to clear.

I'm a PADI Master Instructor and have certified several hundred people with no issues. The "let's go diving" with little or no training turns more people off from scuba than anything.

P.S. - when we see sharks, we try to chase them for pictures. I have petted a few as they glide by. Now, we don't play where there are Great Whites - they're too stupid to know divers don't taste good.