'Pop' goes the eardrum...
I used to do a fair bit of diving in the mid nineties to early 2000's. I deliberately took a long time in qualifying as I wanted to get as much experience under my belt before subjecting myself to the rigours of exams and practical test situations. My final in water assessment happened in the summer of 1997, and on reflection, there were a number of factors playing out that should have made the marshal for the day say 'Fuck it, let's go home'.

First off the sea was very lumpy; the club boat was anchored just off shore and was pitching about like Glaswegian coming out of a chippy at 2am. There had been some engine trouble before setting off from port, so while the crew set about at the electrics the rest of us got in cars and headed the 30 miles up the coast, where the boat would then come and meet us and we could board from the shore. Not a problem.

So it was that we waded from the shore to the boat with our kit, and attempted to hand it up to the crew. Not easy when the vessel is lurching up and down; I have a hazy recollection of one of the group having the rubber tubing smack down violently on their head... but we managed to all get on board and headed off to our dive site at the Farne Islands.

As soon as I was in the water and making my descent with my instructor, I had an uneasy feeling about things. Clearing my ears was proving to be difficult, so I took things steady, stopping my downward trajectory a couple of times and putting a bit of air in my jacket so I could ascend a little, clear my ears and then then continue heading downwards again. As long as I was careful about this, things should have been fine. Except, they weren't. The pain in my ears was becoming excruciating, and as I signalled to my instructor, who was a couple of metres below me, that I thought we would have to abort the dive I felt a sudden pop, followed by what felt to be half the North Sea invade my eardrum...

I felt like I was spinning uncontrollably at about ten metres below the surface and the sensation began to make me feel quite sick. This all coincided with me about to inject a little more air in my jacket to control my buoyancy, the effect of which was for me to press the inflator valve a little too heavily in my sudden blind panic. Cue one disoriented and frankly shitting-my-drysuit rapid ascent to the surface in a cloud of bubbles, feeling like I'm on the world's fastest merry-go-round. My instructor apparently tried to grab one of my fins, but I'd risen faster than an 80's teenage boy at the sight of the Kays catalogue ladies underwear section and shot out above the surface like a cork just a few metres away from the dive boat.

On trying to pass my weight belt up to the boat, it slipped from my grasp and sank rapidly, never to be seen again. A quick check by one of the club members confirmed that I had indeed perforated an ear drum; over the next few days I would experience a sharp pop every now and again and my ear would fill up with what can only be described as 'gunk', including once at work, mid client interview - "Excuse me a minute", I had to say to him, "I just need to go and empty my ear..."

The rest of the trip went equally badly, with another member finding herself shooting to the surface from twenty metres, upside down as a result of air getting trapped in her drysuit boot. Then the boat engine failed again as we tried to get everybody back to the surface and to shore. My fellow diver probably got the raw end of the deal as she was whisked off to the decompression chamber for the night with a suspected bend, but, fuck me, for a few split seconds I was about as scared as I ever have been.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 10 Apr 2012, 20:24, 7 replies)

yeah
you sound like a fucking bsac cunt




:-)
(little lord muthafuckin fauntleroy, Tue 10 Apr 2012, 20:36, closed)

I've actually just cancelled my membership.
Haven't dived for about six years and the local club I was in has gone belly up in a flash of internal politics and apathy. Plus the (until just last week) not having a job meant that forking out £50 odd quid on something I probably wasn't going to use seemed a bit decadent.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 10 Apr 2012, 20:41, closed)

Clicks.
That is one of the more terrifying ways to go DG.
( The Mock Turtle ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Tue 10 Apr 2012, 21:01, closed)

^^What Sexbiscuit said^^...
However...

My Dad was a scuba-ist, and one day he had an accident that resulted in the somewhat unwelcome appearance of a metric fuckload of water in his lungs. - i.e drowning a bit.

When he told me about it (and his subsequent ressucitation) later, I launched into: 'Fuck-a-doodle do!, you must've been petrified'

'On the contrary', he replied - 'I now know it's one of the BEST ways to die...Your body just sort of gives up pretty quickly, you don't fight it and all you have to do is breathe the water in'

As you can no doubt tell, my Dad is slighty less of a cowardly fuck-knuckle than I am
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Wed 11 Apr 2012, 9:00, closed)

It's not often that someone can tell you what drowning was like.
I still don't want to try it, though.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 11 Apr 2012, 9:29, closed)

^ This.
Bloody hell...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Wed 11 Apr 2012, 12:02, closed)

Clicks aplenty!...

This post is choc-full of win.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Wed 11 Apr 2012, 8:57, closed)