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Background, about me
The dives that caused the problems

The Boat
The Dives

How I realized that something was wrong
First Aid
The Rescue Operation

In the middle of the night
The next day

The chamber treatments

Treatment number one
The Hospital
Aftereffects

Afterwards, waiting for the flight home
Home again

The dive doctor
The reactions at home

Reflections and advice

When you dive
Choose the right dive operator
If it happens
Travel alone/travel with company?
Insurances
Criticism

In january this year, I went on the trip of my dreams, to Truk Lagoon in Micronesia. It is sometimes referred to as Chuuk. there you can visit ”the Ghost Fleet”. A large part of the Japanese pacific fleet at the time was attacked by American bombers during ”Operation Hailstorm” a night in february 1944. A large number of ships, planes and some submarines sank to the bottom of the lagoon, and today recreational divers from all over the world travel to this ”Mecka” for wreck divers.

The Boat

In comparison to other dive boats I have been on, the Truk Aggressor II is quite luxurious; there’s plenty of room and the premises are well kept. In the salon there is an autographed photo of David Hasselhoff from ”Baywatch”, apparently he once went on a liveaboard with this boat. Funny, each time I watch ”Baywatch” I get more and more convinced that nobody involved in the production of that show had the slightest knowledge about or connection to scuba diving, maybe I’m wrong... 

On this liveaboard we are eight divers. They normally take 14, so this week we get some extra luxury. Since I am the only woman I get a cabin of my own. However, the problems start right away: Six of the divers are supposed to arrive with a flight sunday evening, but the lights on the runway on the Truk airport has suddenly stopped working, so their plane continues directly to Guam, two hours away, and a new flight is scheduled for them the next morning instead.

This incident tells us a bit about the place where we are; The island of Weno in Truk Lagoon is a little poor island in the third world, with a rather rudimentary infrastructure, to say the least. There is a little airport, but only certain types of planes can land here. It is pointless to fly with Continental Airlines’ new cool jumbo jets to Truk and try to land them here.There is a regular flight every other day, at the best. The unemployment rate in Truk is large, and tourists are recommended not to walk around by themselves on the island, especially not female tourists, since it is not safe. Lots of frustrated unemployed young native men have nothing better to do than harassing tourists or worse things... Many people live in rather shabby sheds rather than houses, the roads are hardly possible to drive on, stray dogs and cats are walking around the streets, etc. The Federated States of Micronesia as a country has basically one major source of income, and that is a rather large amount of money that the US pays for having military bases there. What’s going to happen the day the US decides to withdraw from that part of the world, nobody knows. The day before our arrival at the Truk Aggressor, one of the native crew members, the deck hand, leaves his job. He claims to have seen the ghosts of his ancestors on the boat, and therefore he can no longer work there. The captain tries to persuade him to stay, but in vain.

I want you to remember this picture of Truk, because it will have some significance to what happens later on in the story. The Truk Aggressor is kind of an isolated island of civilisation, in a poor part of the world, far away from the nearest ”developed” country.

When the six remaining divers join us on the monday morning we finally leave the dock, somewhat later than planned, and head out for the lagoon. The captain, who is also a diving instructor, show us around the boat and tell us about the routines on board. Vi are offered to do five dives a day (four day dives and one night dive). They have an itineary that they usually follow every week, which has turned out rather successful. We are going to see all of the most popular wrecks. If someone has some special requests, feel free to express them, but we think that you are going to get the most of the diving this way, he says.

This is a good place to further develop our diving skills, we are told. We can take various courses on board, for example Nitrox and UW photography. Many divers do their first real deep diving (beyond 30m/100 ft) here, and many divers also do their first deco diving here. Here I must add a disclaimer; I am not sure I remember his exact words, but I distinctly remember him saying that many people do their first deco dives here. He also says that Aggressor does not recommend deco diving, and they also recommend that we dive no deeper than 130 ft (about 40 m).

 The Aggressor Fleet has a ”hands-off” policy, he tells us. The crew is there to help and show the way around the wrecks if we like, but they won’t run around checking everybody’s computers or air pressure gagues after each dive. We don’t have to follow the dive guides during the dives. Everyone takes care of their own diving. They do keep a record of everybody’s dive times and max depths, though, in case something happens. OK, sounds fair to us. The rules have been stricter on other boats I have been  diving on, but I guess this works as well. After all we are all adults here... (old cliché, I know...). Although I don’t want to do five dives a day, that’s a bit too much for me. Four dives a day for me at the most. Three day dives and one night dive, that I have done before. And a longer surface interval one day in the middle of the week, that’ll do.

The battery in my dive computer is low again (there must be something wrong with it, I changed the battery last year and haven’t been diving since!), so I have to rent a computer on the boat. I rent an Aladdin Pro Nitrox computer, set for normal air as breathing gas. The only problem with this computer is that it shows the depth in feet instead of metres. @/%#/& americans, why don’t they count like us ”normal metric people”, they have the weights in the weightbelt in lbs instead of kilos, the air pressure in the tank in psi:s instead of bars, the tank volume in cubic inches instead of litres, the temperature in Farenheit instead of Celsius...
 

The Dives

The next day, tuesday, we arrive at Fujikawa Maru, which is generally considered ”The Wreck” with a capital W. There is an enormous amount of things to see. We arrive there on the second dive that day, and we do three dives there. I know I said I only wanted to do three day dives, but this was so amazing, I couldn’t stay behind when the rest of the divers are going down for the fourth dive, could I...? We even go into the engine room with one of the dive guides, that is really something. I skip the night dive today, that way I only do 4 dives today anyway, then everything’s cool, right? The dives today have max depths of between 113 and 81 feet (34 and 25 m). We make sure the deepest dive of the day is the first one, then the second deepest dive, and so on.

Wednesday, we are going to the deepest wreck of the whole week, Nippo Maru. Since this day will begin with two rather deep dives, we are going to have a longer surface interval in the afternoon and then do a shallower dive later before dinner. This means only three day dives today. Dive number one has a max depth of 126 feet (38 m), we reach this depth in the beginning of the dive when we swim down and check out the cargo in the holds. Most of the dive is spent around the bridge at about 100 ft (30 m). A shark and a school of barracudas swim by and willingly pose for the cameras. On this dive we concentrate on the stern (back) of the boat, which is a bit deeper than the bow (front), on the next dive we will check out the bow. The usual routine with a slow ascent and a safety stop follows. The computer shows 37 minutes, which includes ascent and safety stop. The surface interval is 2 hours and 45 minutes, then we go down again.

We follow the line down to the middle of the wreck . We start swimming towards the bow (we think), and when we get there I look at my computer, expecting to see about 115 ft (35 m). Instead it says 133 ft (41 m).  ”¤#&%*”, is my first thought, ”we swam in the wrong direction! We are in the stern now, too!” This navigation mistake was the first serious mistake, together with the fact that we didn’t abort the dive when we realized how wrong this dive turned out. A repetitive dive that is deeper than the previous dive, furthermore it is as deep as 133 ft (41 m). This is no good! I give my buddy a sign that we should turn around, and we swim back towards the middle of the ship, and we spend this dive too swimming around the bridge. We check out the galley (kitchen) and the heads (toilets), then we swim into the wheelhouse, which is at about 90 ft (27 m). One of the best preserved steering wheels and machine telegraphs of the entire lagoon is on this wreck. We are busy watching, taking photos, and trying to avoid kicking up the silt. At that point my computer suddenly beeps and says ”deco: 10 ft 3 minutes”. ”¤%&*!”, I think again (the actual curses in my mind are here edited for the benefit of the more sensitive readers...), ”that was baaad, now we really must start going back up to the surface.” Not having better control over the no-deco limits of the computer was the second serious mistake.

We start to ascend slowly, and we hang around the superstructure somewhere between 50 and 60 ft (15 and 18 m), if I recall correctly. My buddy suddenly sees a little tank on the deck below us. He darts down, then swims around it taking pictures. Meanwhile, I wait for him up in the superstructure. This takes probably about five minutes. When he comes back up, his computer has a lot of deco time, of course. He shows me that he is also running low on air. I have a decent amount of air left, I tell him he can take my octopus if he needs to. It turns out that he never has to. When we arrive at the safety stop, there is an extra second stage hanging down from the boat, which he can use during the safety stop. After a few minutes’ ascent, we are at 15 ft, my buddy takes the extra air, and we start our safety/deco stop.

After three minutes my computer is satisfied and turns off the deco time indicator again. I stay for a few minutes more, just to be safe, since I knew my dive didn’t really turn out as planned. It was deeper than we planned, and deeper than the previous dive. This is not good. After an additional 3-5 minutes (I can’t really remember), I start surfacing. I still have some air left in my tank, but I figured this safety stop ought to be enough. This was the third serious mistake. I should have stayed as long as my air supply allowed for. Probably about 5 more minutes. My buddy stays, he still has something between 12 and 15 minutes of deco left on his computer, so he is stuck down there for a while more... My computer shows 33 minutes after this dive.

After rinsing the equipment and changing clothes, it is time for us to eat lunch. Yummm, it is always good to have something to eat, after all we consume a lot of energy while diving. After lunch it is time for the longer surface interval. We are going to visit an island nearby and watch a destroyed japanese communications centre, an old remainder from the war. Just after lunch, I start feeling a bit funny in my stomach, a bit nauseus. I immediately think it has something to do with the food. Even if the food is good on the boat, it is quite unusual for my stomach (it’s probably very adjusted to american stomachs...). My stomach is rather sensitive and often reacts to unusual food. Oh well, it’ll soon go away if I only rest for a little while. Good thing that we have a longer surface interval today.

One of the crew members approaches me and asks me if I’m OK. ”I’m fine, just a bit tired. I feel funny in the stomach, but it’s probably the food. I just need to rest for a while.” She gives me a glass of water and leaves me to rest for a while in the salon. Then I start to feel some tingling in my hands and feet. Very vague. Later I will find out that at this point she starts to keep an eye on me, because she thinks I look pale. I am not aware of this now, she tells me this much later.

Now, there is one thing you need to know about me here, and that is that my medical history consists mainly of a really nasty severe chronic hypocondria. I can never even watch a TV program about brain tumors without starting to feel a bit of headache and problems with vision (if that’s the symptoms of brain tumors), if someone tells me about someone with breast cancer, I immediately start checking out myself only to find lots of lumps, when they tell us on the news that the flu is on its way, I immediately feel the fever coming, and so on... On my dive trips I regularly feel each and every of the symptoms of DCS that the PADI manual lists...

Of course I assume that this is what happens now, too. I even joke about it with some of the other divers. ”I feel a bit funny, what if it’s bends?”, I say without really meaning it. ”What are the symptoms of bends?” someone asks. I start reciting by heart the PADI manual, the tingling and numbness, predominantly in the limbs, weakness in the muscles, sensory loss, pain in the joints... As the model student I of course memorized all this during the OW classes. Also, to be on the safe side, I always bring the manuals on my trips to be able to check this up in case I forget.

Now we are going ashore to see the japanese communications centre. Without feeling 100% well I go along with the others, mostly because I need to think about something else. I am starting to worry about this. That last dive didn’t turn out as planned, what if... We walk around the island and watch the bunker with the bomb hits. All the guys are completely fascinated by it, I find it interesting, but I am maybe not as consumed by it. However, I forget about my symptoms and start to feel rather normal again.

After a surface interval of 3.5 hours, it is now time for dive number three today. We are going to dive on ”Betty Bomber”, a small bomb plane at about 65 ft (20 m). The question is, should I do the dive? If this actually is DCS I definitely shouldn’t dive any more, but I’m only imagining things, right...? Of course, I only need to get my mind off it, I need something else to focus on. And won’t it be fun to dive on a plane this time, as opposed to all the ships.

We do the dive, and it is great fun. The engines are about 20m (65 ft) away from the plane. We swim in and out of the little wreck and scare the wits out of the fish who thought they were safe inside the plane. We take a lot of photos. After about 20 minutes I give my buddy a sign that I am going up (I told him before the dive I was doing a short dive this time), and I go back up on my own, together with one of the dive guides. I stay at the safety stop at 15 ft (5 m) for quite a long time, probably 10-12 minutes, just to be extra careful after that dreadful second dive. The total time for this dive including the safety stop is 37 minutes. To do this dive in the first place turns out to be the fourth serious mistake. However, you can also say that this dive made me realize faster that something was really wrong, I’ll come back to that later.

A note: The weather has been fine all day, no waves or currents to speak of. Since we are diving from the boat there are no suface swims to speak of either. I never experience any shortage of breath or any stress during any of the dives.
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