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Old 08-09-2012, 05:31 PM   #69
MakoShark
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Alexandria, VA
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Re: Advice on spearfishing alone

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill McIntyre View Post
First of all, its highly unlikely that you'll have water in your lungs unless you set the time trigger at some ridiculous time way in excess of your normal dive time. When you black out, your throat spasms and prevents you from breathing water.

So you will probably be on your back on the surface. Then after some time passes, if you haven't started breathing, the throat opens and you gasp for air. At that point, its better to gasp air than water.

And as you said, maybe a buddy or a boater will see you, and they wouldn't have seen you if you were underwater.

And if nothing else, its easy to recover your body. That may seem trivial, but it beats having an unsuccessful search and telling your loved ones that you're out there somewhere.

I have just one personal experience with this sort of thing, but its dramatic what a difference a vest would have made. The third diver and I were picked up by the Mexican driving the panga and headed over to the other guy's Riffe float. By the time we got to it, it was obvious he couldn't have held his breath that long. We jumped in to look for him, and saw him on the bottom at 90 feet, but that was only possible because of the exceptional vis.

When we got him in the panga, his lungs were definitely full of water. Bloody water and foam came out of his mouth and nose with every compression. He was dead.

If he had been wearing a FRV, then when we headed over to his float, he would have been floating on his back next to it.
Understood now Bill, thanks for taking the time to explain. I wasn't sure how the FRV actually worked in this regard in relation to how the body functions in the water.

Sorry about the third diver. RIP. I think I'll get that FRV sooner than later at this point.
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