A Tribe Called K2 Buhl-oog!

The following post is seeded from the ScubaDiverGirls Blog at http://www.scubadivergirls.com

I love me some Margo something fierce and am so tickled to share this with you as my reader.  The actual post is at:

http://scubadivergirls.com/blog/?p=934

Without further adooooo, prepare to laugh your happy butt off!. . . and ya’ I know, it has been circulating the web for awhile. . .still dang dogily funny!

May you never have a Jellyfish Bad Day

Posted By scubadivergirls on April 23, 2009

Scuba Diver Girls Margo and Stephanie would like to thank Scuba Diver Girl Occhi for emailing this funny story to us.

If you don’t laugh out loud after you read this you are in a coma!

This is even funnier when you realize it’s real! Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy.

Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.

Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It’s a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool.

So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse.

Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don’t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn’t stick to it, however, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.

His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn’t poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.

So, next time you’re having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.

Now repeat to yourself, “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.”

Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day?

May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day

 Hi Folks, I’m seeding this from my friend Scuba Mike of Gordonismo.  Please read this with a open mind and keep it as a foundational lesson.  I dive regularly to deep depths to get the rush of narcosis, tho’ if not respected it sets a diver up to a word of hurt!

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was only a week ago that I wrote a post about narcosis, and this weekend I dealt with my first example of quite serious narcosis. We were diving at Playa Chica, here in Lanzarote, and here’s what happened:

My buddy was an experienced diver, but he hadn’t dived for several months, so we agreed to do a check out at 10 meters before heading deeper onto the house reef. His buoyancy  was a little off, but everything else was fine, so off we went. As we reached the drop off and descended though 20, then 25 meters, I watched him carefully and all seemed well.

It was when we hit 30 meters that he started to act strangely. I saw him grab his contents gauge and stare at it for what seemed a long time. I was also conscious that he was continuing to sink slowly in a upright position. I signaled him to tell me how much air he had, but he just continued to look at his gauge. It was as if he couldn’t get his brain to work properly. I signaled to ask if he was OK, and after an age he gave me the sign for a problem in the head. I moved close to him to check his eyes, and they conveyed confusion and fear, so I took both his hands (which were shaking) and we finned upwards, with me watching his eyes.

At 25 meters, he suddenly relaxed and I could see the change in his eyes – they came back to normal and he signaled that he was OK. It was dramatic the way he went in seconds from being scared and confused, to being back in control. I signaled that we should stay at 25 meters, and told the other divers that we would hover over them while they carried on exploring the reef.

After about five minutes my buddy told me that he wanted to descend again, so we did, and I watched him very carefully as we went through 30 meters again, and all was fine.

We had a good dive, seeing a couple of huge grouper, a playful spider crab and one of my favorite fish, an Angel Shark. The shark was resting on the sea bed, well covered with sand and was spotted by another diver. We had the pleasure of seeing it move off – it’s amazing the way the dorsal fins unfold, the sand is shrugged off and with one whole body flick, the shark is gone and way.

This was a good lesson for me about narcosis – it can strike at any time and can come on very quickly, but by taking the right action it can be “cured” just as quickly.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thanks Mike!  Please visit him at Scuba Mike’s blog.  This begs the question if his divebuddy had an inattentive SOB (same ocean buddy) accompanying him?  Worst case scenario, he would drowned by sucking the bottom of his tank while confused.

This is one of the most salient reasons for team oriented diving as previously written in this crazy kool blog!

Tevis

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Powered by CDNN – CYBER DIVER News Network
by PETER MICHAEL

WHITSUNDAY ISLAND, Australia (12 Dec 2008) — Investigators say charges should be laid against the boat firm and scuba instructor who left two divers off the Great Barrier Reef.

Miracle dive couple Richard Neely and Allyson Dalton survived a 19-hour ordeal after being lost at sea during a Whitsundays dive expedition.

Now a Queensland Workplace Health and Safety report, after a six-month investigation, has found their failure to be picked up was due to “operator error”.

The report has recommended Airlie Beach-based dive company OzSail and its former dive trip director Kylie Irwin face charges.

State Government officials yesterday confirmed the report was being reviewed by a senior officer before being sent to a legal team.

“Legal officers will examine it to see whether it will lead to charges and to see whether there has been a breach of the Act,” a spokesman said.

Despite the high-profile case, which made headlines worldwide and sparked a media bidding war, officials are refusing to publicly release the document.

The British scuba instructor, 38, and his American girlfriend, 40, sold their incredible tale of survival in an international magazine and television deal rumoured to be worth as much as $250,000.

Rescuers found Mr Neely and Ms Dalton – experienced divers with more than 2000 dives – clinging together for warmth after they were swept 15km out to sea on May 26.

A six-month investigation found that OzSail and dive instructor Kylie Irwin should be prosecuted for leaving behind tourist divers Richard Neely and Allyson Dalton (pictured above). OzSail is also under investigation for a fatal scuba diving accident that killed a tourist last month (see CDNN Related News).

The couple told how crew and passengers failed to spot them waving a red safety inflatable as a strong current dragged them away from their dive boat, the Pacific Star.

“We were shouting and whistling but nobody saw us,” Mr Neely said.

“The boat stayed where it was, on a mooring, but we just kept drifting further away.”

Their disappearance on Bait Reef, northeast of Hayman Island, sparked a huge search, involving seven helicopters, three planes and a flotilla of boats, estimated to have cost $170,000.

Their harrowing ordeal was compared to that of the American couple Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who disappeared off Port Douglas in far north Queensland in 1998 and were never found. That tragedy was the inspiration for a movie, Open Water.

Mr Neely and Ms Dalton, a dive master, tied themselves together with rope from a marker buoy and desperately waved to helicopters that flew overhead every 45 minutes. Mr Neely said he clung to Ms Dalton every half an hour, wrapping his legs around her and pressing their stomachs together for warmth.

The couple also jettisoned (scuba) tanks and (weight) belts to make themselves lighter.

Mr Neely said: “If I could see Ally getting weak, or Ally could see me getting weak, one of us would shout, ‘I love you’.”

The QWHS findings offer a ringing endorsement for the couple after they were accused by some in the dive industry of a “stunt”.

OzSail owner Shannon Platt and company manager Fraser Yule did not return calls to The Courier-Mail.

In a separate incident, QWHS are also investigating the death of Taiwanese snorkeller Jade Huawg, 25, who was pulled from the water unconscious and died during an OzSail chartered reef trip to Hook Island last month.

OUCH! Diver spears himself in groin

12:00a.m. 2nd January 2009

| By Rebecca Marshall

Seeded from the Daily at: http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2009/jan/02/diver-spears-himself-groin/

Greg Robertson is winched to the Energex helicopter after his groin was speared by his own speargun while crowds gathered to watch the rescue. Photo: Michaela O’Neill/180206

OUCH!

Mooloolah carpenter Greg Robertson is recuperating in Nambour hospital after a sickening accident in which he speared himself in the groin area with a speargun at Coolum yesterday.

The drama unfolded off the rocks at Point Perry about 3.30pm when the 25 year old was pushed onto the speargun, which had been washed out of his hands by a wave.

The two metre long spear pierced his inside upper thigh, just millimetres from his genitals and femoral artery, and lodged several centimetres under the skin.

The first time spear fisherman had been enjoying a day at the beach with his girlfriend Jacinta Fisher and mates Casey Jensen and her fiance, who unscrewed the spear from the gun when the accident happened.

It remained lodged in place and sticking out from his body as paramedics gave pain relief and packed around the wound.

“A big wave knocked him into the rocks, he lost his spear and the spear rebounded off one of the rocks and got him right near the groin,” Casey said.

“The spear’s barbed on the end, so it’s locked in there. He got up and said ‘It’s in me, it’s in me!

“He’s ok now. He’s still conscious and talking.

“He’ll probably have a laugh about it in a week. We joked about it…we told them to not spear themselves and mistake themselves for a fish and then it actually happened.”

Brisbane holidaymakers Doug and Richard saw the accident happen and called triple 0.

“The girlfriend was holding him and we were all quite anxious because he was walking around the rocks and slipping and sliding with this spear hanging out and we’re yelling out, ‘Stop, don’t move, the ambulance is coming’,” Doug said.

Richard communicated with the two couples from the headland above.

“He seemed to be ok, but he was in shock,” he said.

“He was very close to being in real trouble.”

The Energex Community Rescue Helicopter dropped off two crew on the nearby rocks and then performed a winch rescue in front of hundreds of onlookers who had gathered for the spectacle.

Those who had stationed themselves right on the Point Perry lookout tower had the best view, as the chopper hovered right at their eyeline for the winch.

“The challenge for the crew was how to remove the two metre long spear to something that was manageable,” Energex crew member Dan King said.

“They stabilised the bit that was lodged in his leg and unscrewed the long pole so there was only six or seven inches sticking out.

“He certainly could have come off a lot worse than he did. Initially he did say that he thought he got washed into another rock, but when the wave drew back he realised, ‘Oh dear, there’s a big metal thing stuck in my leg’.

“Hopefully he’ll make a full recovery.

“And I asked him if he caught any fish and he didn’t. But if you are going to have one bump a year, you may as well get it out of the way of the first day of the year.”

Mr Robertson had surgery to remove the spear last night.