Tag Archive
What Causes Abalone Divers to Die?
By Jack Likins I thought I'd take a stab at trying to explain why divers die abalone diving. I've been abalone diving for over 50 years in both southern California and here on the north Coast. It can be a very dangerous sport if not done with proper training, conditioning and knowledge of the ocean. Let me explain why. From what I have observed most of the deaths come as a result of what the newspapers call a "medical emergency". In other words the deaths occur not directly from drowning, but from some other medical problem (usually a heart problem) that may lead to drowning. Think about it this way... A person who dives once or twice a year comes to the coast with his/her family and friends for a little diving and a lot of fun. If they have dived before they begin to get excited about the prospects of diving and getting abalones for a meal or to take home. If they haven't dived in a while or kept swimming over the winter, they may not be in very good condition and many divers are older (50+). In any case, anyone will have anxiety and apprehension on their first dive of the season (it still happens to me and every diver I know). They look at the ocean, but they don't have enough experience to know if the conditions are within their personal capabilities and they see other people and their friends diving so they think it must be OK. It's difficult to say you don't feel comfortable going into the water when your dive buddies all say they want to go. Who is going to be the one who backs out first? Ten years ago is was not going to be me? Anxiety probably causes most of these so called "medical... More »
Shark Stroking
I get all sorts of input from readers and I welcome it. Sometimes it's to tell me about some great new dive site, to tout a particular dive operator, or simply to grind an ax or two after some youthful divemaster tried to perform an unappreciated rescue on them because they dared to place their mask on their head upon surfacing. But the call I got in late August in 2002 from Dr. Chip Scarlett of Austin, Texas got my attention. "You have to drop what you're doing and check out these white shark photos on this guy's website," he gushed enthusiastically into my speaker phone. "C'mon, Chip," I yawned. "I've seen more white shark images than a sea lion at Dangerous Reef. Don't you think that's a subject that's been covered enough. What's this about: more flying shark footage or are these whites actually flying planes now?" "Just check it out, you'll see what I mean." Chip and I have done some extended diving together in Palau and Yap and he's as accomplished a photographer as most pros. I figured if he was excited about some photo gem he had uncovered, I'd probably be well served to check it out. So I dutifully copied down the cryptic instructions and then summoned one of my youthful twenty-something staff to help me wade through the Internet because at that time I was the last executive on earth to learn how to use the Web properly. I've got staff members who can't spell or walk fully erect but they can zip through the Internet like a Jimmy Dean sausage patty through a wolverine with irritable bowel syndrome. In a matter of seconds I was connected and viewing the images. I was enthralled and had to banish my assistant who rapidly lost interest once he found out the site held... More »
Amazing
We all have anecdotes to tell of things that happened during dive trips. The aft deck of dive boats ring loud with divers competing to outdo each other with unusual experiences retold. Approached by a publisher to write a scuba diving edition of their Amazing Stories series, I was vain enough to think I was the man for the job. After a meeting with the book editor of Wiley Nautical, the reality dawned on me. They wanted sixty to seventy stories and I had a deadline of only six months. A moment of failure in my own self-belief ensued. Could I do it? I got the deadline extended to nine months, sat down at my computer and steamed into the job. One month later, it was more or less done. It seems that twenty years traveling and diving full-time had furnished me with enough tales and all I had to do was to send copies of the stories as remembered by me to the actual combatants, for them to check the details and correct any misunderstandings or memory failures I might have had. I am pleased to say that with all but a couple of exceptions every person involved was more than helpful and I am indebted to a lot of people, all featured whether by name or anonymously in the book. Those that were less helpful wanted to claim ownership of the particular event concerned, which of course is not possible. Even those that preferred to remain anonymous, for reasons that become apparent when their stories are told, proved very co-operative. I am commercially minded. I knew that nobody would want to read the autobiography of a nobody so I wrote the stories in third-person and although I was present, witnessed or was actually involved in most of them, I am not... More »
Speak Up!
Most married men understand selective deafness. This is attained by training over many years to automatically tune out sentences with the words "washing up", "garbage", "shopping" and so on, and tune in to sentences with words such as "dinner", "wine", "sex" etc. Long serving devotees can become quite expert, tuning in to "Dinner is ready" but out to "help with dinner" or "go out to dinner" or "clean up after dinner". It is important that women understand that this is actual, real deafness developed as a kind of defence system that enables men to survive marriage. I am reporting on this since male divers have an additional problem to contend with. In solidarity with Global Warming believers I will check on the facts later but, at the moment, I will just say what I feel. My feelings are that men seem to suffer from this affliction rather than women and the problem is that male divers develop a high frequency loss, due to diving damaging their ears, which makes conversation around the dinner table difficult if not impossible. I used to sit around thinking of witty replies to conversation, now I just wonder if someone said what I think they did. This problem advances with age, number of dives (we are talking in thousands here), and whether the diver has done much free-diving - or only used scuba. Free divers are notoriously prone to ear damage probably because it is harder to clear ears when head down, and, because they are breath-holding, have not got time to hang around if one of their ears is slow to clear. Free divers, but also some scuba divers, may damage their inner ears quite seriously if they fail to clear regularly and easily, and end up with Tinnitus. This is a persistent "ringing" sound in the ears... More »
Long-Term Effects of Scuba Diving on Hearing
"I get periodic inquiries RE the long-term effects of SCUBA on hearing. Heres' my customary answer followed by the latest research: Diving-related hearing loss is pretty much limited to those who are commercial divers exposed to loud noses and divers who have experienced barotrauma of the ear. The recreational diver who equalizes appropriately and sustains no ear injury does not appear to be at significant longitudinal risk for SCUBA-related hearing loss or tinnitus. 1. "Undersea Hyperb Med. 2011 Nov-Dec;38(6):527-35. Assessment of the central hearing system of sport divers. Hausmann D, Laabling S, Hoth S, Plinkert PK, Klingmann C. Department for Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Germany. Abstract OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of regular scuba diving on central processing sequences of sport divers who have no history of noise exposure or ear-related accidents using a comprehensive topographic examination of the central hearing system. DESIGN: Cross-sectional controlled comparison study. SETTINGS: General sports diving community. PARTICIPANTS: 81 sport divers with a mean of 300 dives each were compared with a control group of 81 non-divers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The participants were classified into three age groups. Hearing test results were combined for both ears. Examination included brainstem evoked response audiometry (BERA), cortical evoked response audiometry (CERA) and dichotic listening tests to screen for retrocochlear and central hearing disorders. Testing of brainstem latencies was performed in a gender-dependent manner. RESULTS: BERA showed a pathological extension of the I-V-latency in one diver. Magnetic tomographic imaging ruled out brainstem lesions. No reason for the measured latency could be detected. All other latencies (I-III, III-V and I-V) in both gender groups were within normal limits. No statistically significant differences between divers and non-divers could be detected. Dichotic listening... More »
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