In answer to our search for stories, Author Russell Twyce shares his memory of a drowning death, fortunately temporary, that resulted from rental scuba gear critically failing. You’ll see how quickly a fun underwater adventure can develop into a life or death, truth or fiction moment of diving equipment drama.
A truth or fiction death underwater – by Russell Twyce
I was on a dive charter near Vancouver, BC. I’ve done a goodly amount of SCUBA but this was my first time in the Northern Pacific waters. I hadn’t scuba dived in cold water with a heavy wetsuit diving equipment since mustering from the navy and my only my only other cold, make that frigid, water experience was from using a dry suit scuba gear set in the Arctic Ocean.
We were diving a 350’ vertical wall, but weren’t planning to go that deep. I was enjoying the new conditions northern waters presented but was experiencing the usual minor difficulties with my rental scuba gear. As typical with most major accidents, mine was a series of little problems adding up to, and exacerbating a critical underwater malfunction.
The heavy neoprene diving gear hood kept pushing my scuba mask askew and making it leak underwater: I often had to clear the water from it. I also found the heavy mittens made doing things more difficult than using bare hands. There were the other standard rental scuba diving equipment difficulties, like a scuba weight belt not fitting correctly and the scuba BC device straps misadjusted. At about the ten-foot mark, I had balanced my buoyancy to neutral but now at a depth of 100’, pressure had squeezed the tiny air bubbles out of the thick neoprene diving equipment wetsuit. This made me heavier than water and as I swam out over the remaining 250’ abyss, I began to sink rapidly.
Strangely, I had the same vertigo sensation that I would’ve had standing at the edge of the roof of a twenty-story building. I kicked and scrambled back onto the ledge. My underwater breathing became moderately heavier from the small amount of extra exertion and mild fright.
I was about to adjust the air in my scuba gear buoyancy control device, when I checked my scuba diving gauges. My diving equipment’s air supply was down to only half a tank remaining which meant we should start heading back to the surface. I indicated my air status to my partner, with a flat hand cut across my inner elbow and he signed back that we would start our slow ascent.
I still hadn’t yet solved my scuba gear buoyancy issue but I turned my head briefly to view a starfish on the rock wall. I swiveled my head back and suddenly began to breath seawater. My underwater drowning had now begun.
A note: In dissecting the underwater events afterwards, I’ve come to a belief that some things could have been done differently but most of these would’ve resulted in a death, with no chance of rescue. Things went wrong leading up to my drowning but then everything began to go right and those saved my life.
My first (mistaken) thought was that I didn’t have a proper mouthpiece seal. I removed my diving equipment regulator and then reinserted it. This was my first and my gravest mistake. I should have switched over to my spare scuba gear regulator. That would’ve saved my life and that’s precisely what the extra one is for. However, I didn’t and another underwater breath of water unmistakably told me that I hadn’t found the correct solution yet.
Next, I tried clearing my scuba dive mask. I’d been having difficulty with the fit around the diving wetsuit’s hood. Now, I incorrectly assumed the water might be coming in from the scuba mask. Retrospectively, this couldn’t have been the source as that should’ve been quite noticeable in my nose.
I first filled my scuba goggles with water and then cleared them completely. But the water in my airflow remained and now I realized that my situation had slipped from problematic to grim. While underwater I never did identify the source of the leak. A post-accident inspection of the scuba gear set showed that a piece of the regulator had inexplicably split.
I briefly considered my current underwater options but as I was already choking on the brine, there was not much time for a lengthy decision process. Ascending from underwater quickly might cause serious medical problems but I made a conscious decision to worry about consequences later. First, I wanted to get some air that wasn’t saturated with water and that would definitely be available at the surface.
I tugged my dive buddy’s scuba fin and I pointed upwards. He interpreted my gesture as a second acknowledgement of the plan to start angling upwards for a controlled ascent. He nodded affirmative before turning away.
With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, I should have displayed more urgency to him. My guide was well experienced in SCUBA and doubtlessly would’ve gotten me to change to my diving equipment spare regulator. But perhaps by this time it might’ve already been too late for that to save my life. I already had a significant quantity of seawater in my lungs.
As my partner resumed his slowly ascending track, I started swimming straight up. Remember that I still hadn’t corrected my scuba gear set buoyancy issue and that means I’m dragging extra weight along with me. Luckily, I forgot about that. I also wasn’t in the panic mode that might’ve had me quickly inflating my diving equipment set buoyancy control device, to take a balloon ride up. That would have definitely had a terminal result.
My dive partner looked back to ensure I was trailing his wake on a shallow upward angle. Instead, he saw me climbing for the top and he guessed I was experiencing nitrogen narcosis from the 100’ underwater depth. In his catching up and arresting my upward progress, my friend did exactly as he should have done. He had no way of knowing that I was breathing liquid. Another diver witnessed the truth or fiction struggle and joined in halting my ascent. As a result I only made it up to approximately 50’ below the surface.
The pressure panic both other divers suspected is an interesting affliction, but whether or not I experienced it that day is a truth or fiction question: I don’t think I had any underwater panic related to depth. The closest I came to even mild terror was in the unusual underwater falling/vertigo sensation but that was before I started drowning. I continued to be lucid and moderately calm through the whole emergency situation that followed. I had also spent years in various fire departments and had been in quite a few dangerous positions before without loosing my head.
To be honest, I wasn’t even completely aware that my underwater progress was being slowed. The two other scuba divers had grappled me from below and outside of my diving mask’s peripheral vision range. I was drowning and was fully focused on my reaching the surface.
At this point I spit out my scuba gear mouthpiece because my lungs were already seizing up from the water I had ingested. I realized in this moment that my death was now inevitable.
Then another face appeared in my vision. My dive-mate had seen me eject my regulator. He had climbed up my body to bring his own diving equipment air supply to replace mine. I took the proffered mouthpiece and tried an underwater breath, but this only pushed the fluid further into my lungs. His scuba regulator contained good air, but it wasn’t helping me.
Strangely enough, here at the worst part of the truth or fiction drama is where things started to go right instead of wrongly. When I spit out that second diver’s mouthpiece, I ensured that I would drown, but it also saved my life. If I had made the surface before my underwater breathing stopped, I probably wouldn’t have survived and the second diving equipment set regulator shows why. On reaching the atmosphere, my breathing would’ve circulated caustic seawater throughout my lungs. I would’ve died of a process called secondary drowning where the lungs produce mucus to protect themselves from an irritant. The seawater I had already ingested would kill me long before reaching emergency care.
I looked up at the surface, which seemed tantalizingly close and the rays of sunlight in the water were reminiscent of many religious images. That was a melodramatic final scene I’ll remember vividly until my next death.
As my eyes darkened I fully expected that it would be the utter end. I didn’t experience any fear of pain at this point, even though I knew that my underwater death was inescapable. I was frightened in my soul because I had no faith in any afterlife. I expected that all I would experience would be nothingness but in a few more seconds I would know the answer to the ultimate truth or fiction question.
I have to say that drowning underwater like this was a fairly painless way to go. Maybe if my lungs had actually filled up with water it would’ve been worse. For me, the death was due to a relatively small amount of salt water causing my lungs to seize in rejection.
And in that underwater instant, I had gasped my last and my scuba gear failure dilemma was over: my vivid afterlife experience had begun. But that’s a whole other truth or fiction story.
The End
Thanks to Russell Twyce for relating that to us. I’ve posted this here at Scuba Gear Sets as a firm reminder that the selection and care of your diving equipment set is critical. A well maintained diving equipment package saves your life every time it’s used and allows you to enjoy underwater adventures without worry.
Welcome to the Scuba Gear Nightclub
Within the sacrosanct realm of my own mind, where truth or fiction and coexist, there is a place I’ve named the scuba gear nightclub. Inside the ambiance is always tropical, even when I’ve entered from the coldest Canadian winter day. The cost for admittance is that each person must wear at least one article of scuba gear, and be willing to leave all worries, stress and inhibitions checked outside of the door. At most times when I’m working, like now as I peck away at my computer’s keyboard, the piece of diving equipment I leave on is my scuba facemask, with its transition lens that eliminates the line of my bifocal prescription. I’m wearing that now.
In addition to the exterior to the real world, an underwater exit leads into the sea. A nightclub patron can don their diving equipment and swim out to a nearby tropical reef, or those residing in waterfront rooms or in yachts can swim in and shed all but one item of their diving equipment. An archway off the hall between the nightclub and the underwater door, leads to a saltwater pool with a glass wall so that those in the water can look through at the dry people inside, and vice versa.
In the truth or fiction of my imagination, coyote girls dance inside the bar and others in bikinis frolic underwater near the glass wall. Some aquatic dancers do intricate underwater routines on their own and others perform together like a synchronized swim team as viewed from underwater. The nightclub clientele dance to with either each other or with the nightclub supplied dancers and they can choose between the dance floor or the underwater venue: the music is the same volume in both.
The nightclub’s décor is in tropical marine, of course, and the walls are weathered planks, trimmed in aquamarine blue. It has polished brass rails around the large bar and the nightclub furniture consists of lacquered mahogany tables, banded with gleaming brass and centered with a metal bas-relief of a diver in full scuba gear. The both the stools and the chairs are upholstered with navy blue to aquamarine chintz with same swimmer in diving equipment motif as the tabletops, but the pattern is done with a slightly longer nap in the fabric.
Now the question you might ask is ‘what’s the point of the last four paragraphs?’ and the answer is none, and also much. The place I’ve described exists in a place that isn’t either truth or fiction: it’s in the gap between and this is the odd part. Because I’ve told you about it, the scuba gear nightclub may be semi-real for you too. Were you to visit there yourself, and were we to compare impressions afterwards, you might be surprised to find that we can relate similar or identical descriptions of some unmentioned minor details without having prior communications. Truth in the mind is like that: it transcends matter and it’s not fiction. It’s quantum science.
So come and join me for a drink and a chat in my scuba gear nightclub. You know the way here. You can reach for the door in your mind that you want to open and your hand will fall onto the correct knob. Or mentally don your scuba equipment and imagine yourself diving into any body of water: the underwater entrance to the scuba gear nightclub will be just where you want it to be. Look for me. I’ll be the one pecking away on a white MacBook computer.
