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OUT OF AIR AT 37 METERS BELOW SEA LEVEL

SE Asia 2004 (part III)

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-22 19:09:58

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After I returned from Phang Nga Bay, I took the bus to the Khao Lak, 60 mi North from Phuket along the Andaman Sea. I arrived at Khao Lak at 7pm, Dec 18. Khao Lak is very new resort and it is even not shown on the most of maps. It has been grown very fast because of its proximity to Similan Islands, a popular diving destination. It has dozens of diving shops. At 7 pm most of diving shops had nothing left for the next day. I barely found one with space. I took two days and one night sleep-on-boat tour.

Diving at Similan Islands did not impress me very much. The dives were OK, but not as outstanding, as I expected. Similan Islands have different sites and those which we visited were probably not the best.

On the second day of diving I had a diving accident, which I would like to describe in detail because I have several divers on my list and I hope my experience will be useful to them.

I run out of air at 37 meters below. This is how it happened: My secondary air hose was leaking periodically, but pressure in my tank was OK. After its drops from initial 250psi to 100 psi, it stay at 100 psi and I was happy. Than, at one moment I feel difficulty breathing. I take a look on my pressure gage, it was 100 psi, so it was nothing to worry about. It was probably something intermittent with my regulator, I thought. And I continue to swim. Then few moments later the airflow stopped. I could not inhale the air anymore. It was at 37 meters below the ocean surface. My only option was to go straight up to the surface, I thought. It is very dangerous I knew. The lung can explode or blood can virtually boil and bubble of air can get into the brain or heart.

But before going straight up, I decided to inform my scuba instructor. I swam to her and grabbed her fin. It looked like pretty frivolous action, and she react accordingly, she continue to swim. When, with the last drops of oxygen I caught up with her and showed her that I will go up,... straight. I forget the diver's sign "out of air". In no rush she take a look on my pressure gage, it still shows 100 psi, than she tried my mouth piece and found no air in it. And only than, she gave me her secondary air-hose. By that time I was in a desperate need of air. Then, we went together to the surface with all necessary decompression stops. She had enough air in her tank.

Analyzing this incident I came to conclusion that my recent experience of long solo snorkeling was counterproductive, ironically, because it taught me to rely only on myself. When airflow stopped, I reacted automatically as if I was still snorkeling alone. I completely forget that just for such occasion every diver has an axillary air hose, to give it to the partner who needs air. However while my motivations were wrong, my actions fortunately were right.

Also it is became clear that it is not a good idea to dive with the company which has plenty of spaces, while others are full. Leaking air hoses and defective pressure gages simply should not be present at the diving boat.

Postscript:

Six days later tsunami hits the Khao Lak. According to CNN, the Khao Lak has largest number of victims in Thailand, mostly the Europeans and mostly Swedes. And it was mostly family, not backpackers type people there, as I observed. It was large number of victims in Khao Lak because many resorts, mostly upscale ones, were build almost at the water level at the Khao Lak shore.

Alex Mumzhiu
Washington USA
Jan 7 2004