Don't Panic

I was just watching the video on Anderson Cooper of the guy from Nigeria (a tug boat cook for Chevron) when the diver searching for bodies at 100 feet in the Atlantic Ocean inside the tugboat found a hand reaching out for him. If you listen to the radio conversations they were breathing through their tanks a helium oxygen mixture to avoid the bends. However, the Nigerian had been breathing the air in the galley (boat kitchen) which had been compressed several times (at least 3) at 100 feet. So he would have a lot of nitrogen in his blood which might have been fatal as he surfaced after being there at that depth that long. Likely, the helium mixture he breathed to the surface helped him breathe a lot of the Nitrogen out and replaced it with helium which is much less of a problem when surfacing after being over 50 to 70 feet deep. So, they put the Nigerian in a decompression chamber which likely saved his life as he stayed there for several days to slowly pressure wise come to a normal atmospheric pressure like we have on the surface above the ocean. Amazing true story.

This is like an advertisement for not panicking in life no matter what happens. Panic usually isn't helpful unless you want to die. So training yourself to stay calm no matter what when things go very bad often can save your life.

I've noticed it is even more important when you get to be 40 or 50 or more to not panic if you want to stay alive. The more you can be clear headed to be able to make better decisions in emergencies (your own and for others) the more likely both you and the people around you are going to stay alive.

Note: When I was 12 in 1960 I worked for my father as an electrician's helper at my Dad's Electrical Contracting business. I talked him into getting my Junior SCUBA diving license at that time. So, we both became licensed SCUBA divers in the Los Angeles Country area of CAlifornia then. When we got to Catalina I dove down to about 50 feet. There was something wrong with one of the divers regulator because air was coming out really fast so I showed him what was happening and he quickly went to the surface because all his air was coming out. Then I went with another diver into a cave to get Lobsters but there was a large Moray Eel which was likely the most scared I have ever been SCUBA diving.

If you want to approximate what this was like for me imagine the telephone poles outside your home. Now imagine the dive boat was that far above me. So, when I went down the anchor chain and reached the bottom and looked back up it was clear enough in the waters of Catalina Island to lay on my back and look up floating neutral in the water at the surface with the dive boat or ship bobbing there in the water suspended from the anchor chain. So, it would look just like if you laid down on your front lawn and saw a boat keel as high as the highest wires suspended from your telephone poles.

As the years went by I made it a rule that if the sharks were bigger than me I would get out of the water, but according to people's tastes and experiences everyone is different about this sort of thing. Also, people know a lot more about sharks in general now than they did in 1960.

It is possible the Nigerian had never SCUBA dived before, so you can imagine just how much courage it took for him to put that on for the first time and then hear his voice from the helium Oxygen mixture. And then he didn't have a wet suit so likely the water was likely in the 40s Fahrenheit at that depth. (100 feet) So, he likely really froze with no wet suit on while getting to the surface. But, he survived it all. Amazing! Remember don't panic. It might save your life.

Here is a copy of the dive table for depths I was taught to dive by when outfitted with a SCUBA tank or tanks.

begin quote:

Table Two is the Surface Interval Credit Table. This table credits the diver with time out of the water. While the diver is out between dives, the body is gradually out-gassing nitrogen. After 12 hours the body returns to normal levels. This table with Table 3, are only needed if the diver plans to make a repetitive dive, another dive before the 12-hour period has passed. The times are expressed in hours and minutes, and 2:30 stands for, two hours 10 minutes.

end quote from:
http://www.rescuediver.org/physics/divetabel.htm

What this table actually means is if you exceed those minutes at that depth with a normal tank of air, (Literally just compressed regular air from the surface) you must get into a decompression chamber for a certain amount of time if you don't want to lose limbs or die from nitrogen bubbles blocking blood flow to organs, head, arms, legs or the brain.