Bad dive at Ginnie

[Kelly Jessop]

I just finished apprentice class two weeks prior and was planning on doing a solo dive at Ginnie......My brain is yelling at me "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE NOW".....By now my vision and perception is reduced to just a very narrow field of view (Tunnel vision), all I see is the gold line .....,My heart starts beating faster, my breathing gets heavy and exerting

Just a thought,and not intended to reprove or rebuke. We know that cave diving is more mental than physical,the skills are learned by the average diver fairly well,but the mental aspect takes some time to develop. A cave diver in training (hence apprentice rating) which would infer minimal experience doing a solo dive,which can stress even an Abe Davis diver. From what I am reading,and more learned people can help here,but it seems an anxiety attack occurred,which can occur for no real reason (ask people who will think they are having a heart attack because out of the blue they develop shortness of breath and chest pain,to find out it was an anxiety attack),but precipitating factors may have been CO2 build up from exertion,and experience level. I say kudos to this individual for sharing their experience and thankful that the panic stage wasn't reached. I really do hope others will digest and learn from this.

[WROCK]

That took gut's to share, thank you.

[Andreas]

Where the "countless CO2 hits" diagnosis by self, ER or Md's office? Are you a subject to easy CO2 build up or a chronic CO2 retainer?

"Diagnosis" was done by the only person who experienced these countless CO2 hits, and that would be me.
Chronic.

[TONY CHANEY]

"Diagnosis" was done by the only person who experienced these countless CO2 hits, and that would be me.
Chronic.

Just as I thought. Thanks.

[nkavallar]

So today I tackled that same dive again with an experienced full cave diver. We met up at Ginnie at 8AM and went over the plan of the first dive. The plan was to enter the ear and make our way along the goldline until we either reach the maple leaf of hit 3rds, which ever comes first.

My buddy took the lead and placed the primary into the ear. Once in the gallery we went up and started to pull and glide. Right from the beginning I paid very close attention to my breathing rate - Long deep breath and long deep exhales. This breathing rate worked great and we proceeded at a relaxed pace. Once we reached Hill 400 everything still was going great, my buddy picked out the perfect spots for pull and gliding and off we went without much effort. I previously stated that on my bad dive last Saturday I made it to the 800 ft arrow which was incorrect, I realized that I turned right at the Roller Coaster jump. Once we reach the 700ft arrow where the cave freaked me out last time, I felt just a hint nervous because of what happened last weekend. Once we got past the turn at which I had started to turn last time I felt much better. We continued to swim to the maple leaf and took a short break there. I still had about 200PSI more penetration gas but decided to turn, Maple leaf seemed like a good new discovery. On the way back everything went great and we exited after about 59 minute dive.

Back at the surface I went to get fills at CCDS and we started to plan our second dive. For this dive we decided to make a jump to the Bone Line and follow it until we hit 3rds. Since I had no experience with this jump my buddy took the lead. We made the jump to the bone line at the park bench with no issues and started to head down the tunnel. Everything went well. Once we made it to the Bone Room the visibility started to turn cloudy, I was amazed by the size of these rooms compared to the rest of the cave I've seen. We started swimming along the gold line since there is nowhere to pull and glide. I enjoyed the whole dive until we got towards the end of the Big Room, in this vast room the line on the ceiling of the cave wasn't easy to keep in the field of view for me. As we went just past the Mud tunnel jump ~1000ft I got a slight bad feeling and a headache and decided to turn the dive (I still had about 200PSI more penetration gas) As soon as I turned I started to focus on the gold line as I didn't want to loose the view of it. After about 50ft I relaxed and started to look around, I noticed that looking around and checking out new places will keep the bit stress I had away. We made a relaxed exit from that dive.

All in all I feel better about my diving now, I'm glad I repeated the dive that messed me up. It was a lot of fun diving with an experienced buddy and I saw a ton of new cave (new to me). I appreciate everyone's input to this issue, I kept a close look at my breathing and as soon as I felt myself breathing heavier I slowed down. Great day, great dives. Thanks again, especially to my dive buddy for coming along.

[jpf]

it takes guts to throw yourself in the ring to be judged by your peers. We could all said that you did something wrong or felt something (narc, CO2, CO,....), but you made it because you thought things through. That's training!

However, what generated this feeling of anguish may be as simple as fear and most of us had experienced it at one time or another. How you deal with that fear in these circumstances is your presence of mind executing the "Stop, Think, Act" or listening to that little voice. That's experience!

Your narrative is a testament that you are a better diver now, that you were before this incident. We all know that bad things happened from the most to the least seasoned divers, so it is refreshing to hear about someone who admits being human and a safer cave diver. Have fun, keep pushing that envelop safely, and listen to that voice.

[next gen]

It takes a lot to hop back on the saddle and keep riding. Hope you have some great diving.

[TONY CHANEY]

I have been pm'ing back and forth with NKAVALLAR and was going to post a rather long explaination as to why I felt that it was over exeration that lead to the situation but nothing more is needed to be said at this point. Glad that you were able to take from your mistakes and turn it into a learning lession and continue to dive. I had one friend that totally walked away from diving due to one scary dive. I miss diving with him and he was a very good diver.

[nkavallar]

Thanks jpf and Tony,
I appreciate everyone's feedback on the issue and hope that it will help some other diver to maybe learn from it as well.
Tony I'm still very interested in your findings if you have them, feel free to PM me or post them if you would like - thanks
for all your communication!

[jcr]

Good article but it more or less pertains to the density of gases and how the greater density of the gas can cause increased build up of CO2. The article was not much help in this situation. The diver was using 32% and at a max depth of 100' with an average depth of 80'. According to the article the gas used was only about 3.4 gram/liter more than air at 1 ata. Also, the article stated that, "Unfortunately, only testing under hyperbaric conditions was successful (13). The existence and prevalence of impaired CO2 response in cave and technical divers is not known". Still a good article none the less.

The article discusses gas density AND exertion as well as their combined effects. I'm not sure I understand your point about the gas density not being a factor on this dive. The gas density at 100 ffw is four times that at the surface. That's a significant difference which becomes problematic during heavy exertion.

"At rest, while breathing nitrox at 4 ATA, PCO2 is normal, indicating adequate ventilation to eliminate CO2 (10). During exertion, however, the increase in lung ventilation is less than occurs at 1 ATA, and PCO2 rises to a significantly higher level than during exercise at 1 ATA (5,10)."

"The primary cause for CO2 elevation during diving, then, is exertion coupled with increased gas density."