Uncontrolled breathing and mask squeeze at JB.

[jcook]

I am posting this in the hope someone will learn from my mistake and maybe have some insight on what happened to me.

I was at JB on Saturday on my first dive of the day, nothing big. My plan was to head to the first T, mull around a bit and have an enjoyable swim back. I was in SM with HP 119's (same as LP 95's) with 1 AL80 as a buddy bottle. I am completely comfortable in this configuration FWIW. So after tying into the gold line and dropping my O2, I continued on to what was formally the chimney. When I first started descending the chimney my vision got blurry and breathing rate skyrocketed. On the way down the chimney, near the bottom I was totally unable to equalize my mask, the squeeze was so great it burst the capillaries under my eyes. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't blow out through my nose. I then ripped off my mask, which took some effort, put it back on and cleared it. I noticed that my vision was still blurry, and now I felt unable to get a full breath from my reg (Atomic T2x's). So I switched regs hoping I had a problem with the actual reg, but neither one would give me a full breath. I grabbed the nearest rock to try and calm my breathing which was getting worse and I was beginning to feel like I was going to black out. No matter how much I focused on my breathing, nothing worked I felt like my body was just telling me to give up. This is all happening with ~3500 psi in each tank and only 400 ft from the entrance. The only thing keeping me alive was my burning desire to live. I gave up trying to control my breathing since I was starting to black out slowly and started to head out. While going back up the chimney, my breathing got worse along with my vision. So when I finally made it to the end of the gold line, like an idiot I grabbed my O2 bottle and started to retrieve my spool. Which I ended up doing, horribly I might add. When I finally got to the surface (~25 min) I spit the reg out and ripped off my mask. I have never had a better breath in all my life.

I am still unsure what caused this to happen to me, since after about 45 minutes floating on the surface I decided to go and see if maybe I got bad gas. Which would be basically impossible since I fill my own tanks and I had just tested the air at the shop I work at. So I had an uneventful second dive mulling about in the cavern area and after about 30 minutes of that, I decided to go back down the chimney to see if depth had anything to do with my problem. Nothing happened, I checked out the 2 jumps before the first breakdown for about 15 minutes and got bored. So I turned the dive and did my normal 5 minutes of O2 deco. Totally uneventful second dive.

The only reason I am here to tell this story is my desire to live. My body was telling me to give up and just die, but my brain was screaming to focus and stay alive. I will be damned if a cave was going to kill me after deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. So my take away from this experience is to turn the dive at the very instant of feeling weird and forget the bottles and spools, being alive is more important.

[Jax]

Wow! That is incredible . . .

So, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't make your self exhale through your nose? Did I get that right?

Anxiety attack? Were you coughing or congested at all?

Glad you had the courage to fight back! ((hugs))

[jcook]

Yep, no matter what I couldn't exhale through my nose the mask was on so tight. It wasn't easy to get the mask off either.

Not an anxiety attack and definitely no congestion.

[sandy]

Man, that is scary. Have you thought about calling DAN?

[Dominic]

That is insane!!! Thanks for the report. Glad you made it out Ok.

[jxh2297]

Have you ever had asthma in your life? Seems really weird if you have never had breathing problems before. Glad your OK and fought it

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk

[jcook]

I didn't think to call DAN. I was thinking maybe an ox-tox issue (34% O2) or an inner-ear squeeze inducing some sort of weird stuff.

Ya I developed asthma a few years ago, but it is only exercise-induced asthma. I am quite fit and they only time my asthma acts up is when I am really stressing my body, which I wasn't during the dive. I have tried before to get my asthma to act up in JB, I may breathe a little heavy for a minute or so, but nothing like what happened.

My first though was retained CO2 build-up, but there is no way it could've happened that early in a dive with no stressors. Even if it was, breathing in and out slowly and completely for the few minutes like I did would've flushed it out anyways.

[LCF]

Well, the two things that occur to me are CO2 and IPE. I don't think IPE would have resolved that quickly. Going down the "chimey" has given me CO2 intoxication in the past, and I aborted the dive. A subsequent dive just a few minutes later did not have the symptoms.

[Webmaster]

Was your drysuit inflated?

[mdax]

are you taking any medication?