Determination or foolhardiness !?!
Last Sunday morning, the island of Tioman was resplendent. The dark clouds had cleared and the sea was calm. There was no indication that I would soon have my closest brush with death.
With some 15 other divers, my buddy Ken and I assembled our equipments, or rather, he worked while I watched idly. I felt no trepidation, although my last dive trip was more than a year ago and I had forgotten most of what was taught in my open water diver course.
After all, my two dives the day before had gone smoothly and Ken is a doctor with 103 dives to his name. A boat took us to Labas, essentially an area with a group of boulders and water depth of 18m.
Before entering the water, both our pressure gauges showed 3000psi ( pounds per square inch ), a measure of the amount of compressed air in the tank.
I was unusually buoyant that day and struggled to sink, so Ken slipped me a two-pound weight. By the time I reached the seabed, I was panting.
The coral reefs were teeming with tropical fish. I was soon engrossed catching Nemo, or clown fish, in sea anemone and looking out for giant turtles and trigger fish which Ken cheekily warned could bite my fins off.
We were supposed to signal to each other at 700 psi and ascend by 500 psi. I thought mistakenly that we would use up air at the same rate and did not bother to monitor the gauge.
When I did, about 25 minutes later, my air was down to 300 psi. Ken had double that amount. I signaled to him and he asked me to wait. He was going to inform the divemaster we were going up first.
He swam away. I inhaled. The air felt thin. I inhaled again. Nothing. It dawned on me that my air supply was depleted. -- at 12m below sea level, about four storeys deep.
I could see Ken signaling the the divemaster but I could not reach him. In my panic, it did not occur to me to discard my weight belt and fin up.
I removed my regulator, tried to scream and swallowed gulps of water.
What happened next was surreal. Dying is a lonely process. There was no tunnel of light, no voice from God and no childhood flashing before my eyes.
I simply thought with resignation: " This is it; this is how it ends. "
Before I could pass out, Ken reached me and put his alternate air source into my mouth. I gasped.
When we surfaced, my first urge was to cry. But I saw how distraught Ken looked and had enough presence of mind to realise this was not time for hysteria.
Diving is an enjoyable and safe sport, if a diver is well-trained. The incident was nobody's fault but a result of my own negligence and complacency. Life is so fragile. But instead of taking responsibility for my own safety, I expected Ken to look out for me all the time.
I should have taken a refresher course to re-acquaint myself with the emergency procedures, and I should have trusted my equipment instead of my instincts.
( Momentous Part )
This may sound foolhardy: An hour later, Ken and I did our second dive of the day off Pulau Renggis. Ken discouraged me but I did not want to live in the shadow of my fear. Giving up diving was the defeatist's way out.
Besides, I said with a weak smile, I haven't seen any giant turtles or trigger fish. This time, he did not let me out of his sight and I waved my gauge in his face every five minutes. Unfortunately, we did not see any giant turtles or trigger fish.
Never mind, there's always next time.
Oct 12, 2004 -- Streats
Janice Wong
By: QuaSarZ Aurora Emperor of Thunder & Tornado !?!