Friend of mine is in his boat following a water taxi.  Water taxi proceeds to drive over a snorkeler who was snorkeling in the boating channel.  Friend dives down and finds the guy's severed leg sitting inside a barrel sponge.  Hospital couldn't re-attach the leg, but hey.... at lease my buddy tried to help!

Geez.

There's a gal I know who I met through my regular buddy (HE encountered her at a local dive club's meetings). She got certified in her early 60s a few years ago. She whines and bitches. Continually fussing about her weight even when nothing has changed about her gear, exposure protection, etc.

She think's she's hot stuff because she's only ever dived tropical (Mexico, Philippines, or Cayman) with DMs. This is aside from some dives at the local quarry. I am not shitting you. She once told regular buddy and I that we didn't know shit because we'd never dived with a DM. I told her that she couldn't handle being on a wreck by herself on the Great Lakes, not being lead about by the nose by a DM. That was after the last time I dove with her. She couldn't cope with my Great Lakes wreck diving.

But the last dive took the cake. We were on the shallow side of the quarry, working on nav. She had a long history of snorkeling before she started diving. She loved to "skim" the surface when she should have been deeper. She had really overshot what she was aiming for. I tried to get her to stop and regroup. Tugged on her fin, banged on my tank, grabbed her arm. Finally had to get right in front of her face. She wouldn't stop otherwise. Once we surfaced, she started screaming at me when I calmly pointed out she had gone very far past target location.  Wouldn't calm down. An instructor from my shop was there with an Advanced student, floating on the surface maybe 15 ft from where we came up. I heard instructor tell student this was a great example of needing to turn around, or at least pause and regroup, when nav seemed off.

I refused to go back under with her again. There was a group of us. Regular buddy and I descended and swam back to exit place. The gal and her husband surface swam back.

Getting my certs back in the 80's, making a beach dive. I partnered up with a super hot blond...sounds good, right?
The surf was rough enough that she was puking through her regulator quite a bit.
I remember the fish all around her head having a buffet.

I was on night dive, bagging for a guy, in deep water for sport diving. Around 100 feet if I remember correctly.
This was back when gauges needed to be in the light for a while in order to luminess.
My gauges had been in my bag for about a week and I didn't think about it.
I remember getting to the bottom, my flashlight imploding, and watching the glow stick on my buddies tank disappear around a rock.
Nothing to orient myself by in the pitch black.
I really don't remember what I did. I believe I felt around my head for bubbles to orient and try to control my ascent.
I came up a good distance from the boat, in the dark of course. Luckily I could swim over to the line thrown out behind the boat.
I think the only thing that saved me was I basically went down and came right back up.

Then there was the time my flippers got tangled in the anchor chain free diving to set the anchor.
Now, I always make sure to have enough rode.

Diving a wall in the Bahamas.  Basic recreational certification.

I was checking out all the cool sponges and fishes when I felt a tap on my shoulder.  One of the divemasters pointed to his wrist, so i looked at my gauge, which showed 170 feet.

Oops.

Luckily I'd only been below 120 for a minute or so, and on the dive for maybe 10 total, so a nice slow rise back up to 60 feet saved me from having to do a more extensive decompression.

Pardon my 'GD like' response... but you're the first person I've ever seen NOT call it an anchor ROPE.

Thank you.

I'm PADI advanced and I was diving with a girlfriend in Sardinia, Shitaly, many years ago.

All of a sudden, GF panicked - for a random reason (probably thinking she wasn't breathing normally) and started bolting towards the surface.
We weren't deep but I still grabbed her and tried to come up slowly; all of a sudden, a motorboat sped right on our heads, like that - out of the blue.

GF panicked even more and it was a close call.

That GF eventually ended up in the meet grinder, next.

Here on the Great Lakes, it’s a combo of rope and chain

My GD like response - flippers? Are you kidding me?

Dropped down to 60' and plopped on the bottom to load my spear gun. Just as I hit my knees I heard a "pop" behind my head and a rushing sound. It was the o-ring on my first stage letting go and basically free flowing my air out to ocean. Looked at my gauge and I could pretty much see the pressure dropping. My wife and dive partner offered me her octopus but I had a full fill on a steel 120 so I shook my head no and we ascended together. Made it to the boat with about 500 psi. If it had happened later in the dive it would have been different.

I don't remember if I posted this here, but I did post it in the CDF:

Just stopping

On the value of just stopping, or how I almost didn't swim out today.
Not really sure how to share this but today turned into a really bad day of diving.

The day started out pretty well. I was scheduled to meet Silverhippy (Dominick) at 9:30 AM at Dive Outpost. It was to be out first dive since we finished our full cave class a few weeks prior. By the time I had arrived the day was looking up, I was going diving, the weather was decent, and the morning's news didn't tick me off. Great start I thought.

Our plan was pretty simple we were going to swim up the Peanut line then jump onto the main line and swim back towards Olsen sink. We didn't plan to travel far past the jump, only a couple of hundred feet tops; I was looking for a cookie that I place on the main line some time ago swimming up the Olsen line. If we hit my cookie, I'd pick it up and turn the dive or hit 1/3rds; which ever came first.

Gearing up I decided to use a different BC than my usual Nomad XT. It was a bastardized rig that consisted of an XDeep bladder and a DECCO harness. Looking back this was a little bit of a mistake, not a colossal mistake, but a little mistake never the less.

The Xdeep stealth bladder doesn't actually attach itself to the harness, instead you bungee it over your harness and around yourself. In my case though I bungeed it to my harness and preferred the way that it rode. However, up until this point I had predominately used this setup diving in the Caribbean using AL80's and off my kayak using LP50's. My experience using it with LP85's in this configuration was limited.

As we swam up the Peanut line I would notice that in the silhouette of my shadow my bladder was lifting up pretty high. It definitely wasn't Ragnorak, The End of Days, or an Armageddon level event. My trim, buoyancy, and propulsion felt pretty good, it was just annoying because I violated rule number 6; the looking good rule. It had never been a problem but now my tanks were a little heavier requiring a little more lift which in turn resulted in physics having a greater say in the matter and the bladder wanting to float upward. Damn you physics.

This lifting bladder resulted in a distraction that I would naturally have to screw around with and try to adjust. Had I used some forethought I would have come to the conclusion that you really cannot seriously adjust something behind you...that's trying to float away from you...while you're underwater...in a cave. I came to that conclusion after I tried to adjust something...that was behind me...that was trying to float away...while I was underwater...in a cave. Now you'll understand why I had 3 sophomore years in college.

Problem number 2 was my short hose regulator was breathing a little wet for some reason. I didn't consider it a serious hindrance at the time because I would just purge the thing every few minutes by sharply exhaling or hitting the purge button.

As we hit the Peanut restriction I was getting a little annoyed at my regulator. Looking at my pressure gauge it was getting pretty close to switching back to my long hose regulator so I decided that I would drop a cookie, tie in our jump reel, switch regulators, then run the jump.

As I did the reg switch I remember saying to myself "take this short hose regulator," then I put the long hose reg in my mouth ,sharply exhaled, hit the purge button and went to breath. What happened next did rise to the levels of Biblical Floods. As I breathed in I took in a mouthful of water, which cause me to cough slightly. I was able to control this while I hit the purge button to clear my regulator of water.

As I took my next breath what ever it was that hit me, hit me hard. I could not get my breathing under control. I was now completely hyperventilating and over breathing my regulator. The more I tried to get control of my breathing the more I ended up loosing control of my breathing and trying to draw more and more air.

I was hyperventilating and over breathing my regulator.

Now I could feel panic wanting to set in. I literally wanted to be anywhere but 2000 feet back in a cave system underwater. So I did the only thing that I could do in that situation which was to stop and do absolutely nothing.

I didn't mentally articulate that I had to break the cycle of panic but instinctually that's what I knew I had to do. Nothing was going to happen successfully until I calmed down and the only way to do that was to simply stop.

So I grabbed the closest part of the cave wall, wedged my head up against it and pushed into the floor of the cave with my feet. I was literally standing there just trying to breathe.

For the first minute or so my mind was 100% completely occupied with the situation. I was over breathing my regulator...2000 feet back in a cave...I absolutely wanted to be somewhere else...and I still can't breathe. So I decided to do what I do best which is to think of stupid stuff. Some of the things that I was forcing myself to think about:

"How cool would it be if my dog could learn how to drive a car?Man, we could go on a road trip and she could drive and when we'd get to our destination I'd be well rested and refreshed. Vegas, we should totally go to Vegas."

"What aren?t all our fingers the same length? It really seems to me that they should all be the same length."

"What the hell is nougat?"

Yes, these were some of the things I was forcing myself to think about. And they seem silly and dumb and completely antithetical to the situation that I found myself in, but the reality is that they needed to be. I didn't need any thoughts, or feelings that were related to what was going on, they had to be completely removed from the event at hand.

After a few minutes of this things began to subside and I found my mellow. I gave the signal to Dominick that something was wrong, and thumbed the dive. It was pretty much at this point that both he and I realized that 2000 feet is a long freaking swim.

By the time we had swam 300 feet back towards the exit everything was 100 percent completely and totally normal. My breathing was perfectly fine, I was totally calm, and one with the universe which was a good thing because there was 1700 more feet to go.

In retrospect there are a few things that stand out. I was distracted by my BC woes that I didn't realize that the Venturi switch on both my regulators were in the close position. I think this was why I was getting a little water in them.

Secondly, I don't think this was a panic attack. Having been a professional Mountain Biker in my Mid 20's thru early 30's I?m pretty attuned to what my body is doing. That attenuation became hyper focused about 5 years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer. Focusing on my thoughts, stress levels, and physical well-being has pretty much become second nature.

Additionally, reviewing the criteria for a panic attack I exhibited none of the symptoms prior to this. There were no feelings of foreboding doom and gloom, no sudden feeling of terror, no feeling like a loss of control, trembling, numbness, chest pains and the like?. Suddenly I just started to hyperventilate and felt my fear level spike as a result but that was pretty much it. I had none of the other symptoms that are associated with panic attacks.

Personally, what I think happened and I'm sure a lot of you will disagree with me was that I wasn't producing enough carbon dioxide or off gassing enough and went into Hypocapnia with the regulator issues triggering the event when it did.

Many thanks to Dominick who stood by dutifully while I went thru this.

I have had a lot of scary or funny experiences in 45+ years of diving. Here's a few-

1st stage seized at 70' while solo diving. Found out a 2.5 cu.ft. Spare Air will just make it to 10', then you do an EBA from there.

Got stuck in a swim through in the Philippines. It had a slight twist to it that I somehow didn't quite fit. Had to unbuckle from my BC and wriggle out of it to get out of the swim through.

Came mask to nose with a spotted moray on Okinawa while diving in the Kerama Islands. I was going in a hole after a bug and the moray was already there. My buddy said it looked like a locomotive backing up as I was hauling ass to get out. Apparently the eel wanted out too as it rocketed past me.

One of my extreme-deep students told me that getting narc'd was a cheaper, better buzz than drinking but a bit more dangerous... while we were hanging off a staged line decomming.

LOL, what do you call them up there, fins?

double-tap

Yes. We're not the warm water divers who dive one or two days a year, can't figure out how the fuck to put their gear together, and who need a DM to lead them about by the nose.

Goggles for mask, too.

Holy shit.

It ain't like Cousteau didn't call a mask 'goggles' or fins 'flippers'  or any other faux pas while creating the sport in salt water  or Great Lakes divers that piss in their suits when diving salt for the first time... gotta watch for all those sharks!

I won't fault divers that seek out a DM to dive with; I will call them out on any snide bullshit they may come up with, though... just like I will with any diver that doesn't have experience.

While in training and learning, I was 20 feet down in a freshwater lake at night navigating with my partner.  I took a breath and the facemask squeezed to my face when I tried to inhale.  Exhaled again and tried inhaling and nothing.  No air.

Luckily I had a pony bottle and switched over to it real quick without freaking out.

When I surfaced we couldn't figure out why I had no air yet my gauge was still showing a full tank.  Come to find out I was on my pony bottle all along and when it ran dry I was out of air and I switched to my main tank.  Learned a valuable lesson that night.

My funniest experience was while DM a class in the Gulf of Mexico.  I had been on a certain wreck a week before and spotted an octopus in a gear box.  The next week I was guiding a group of student over th same wreck.  I came upon the gear box and saw the octopus again.  I pulled out my knife and started tapping my tank to get the attention of my class.  The class moved in.  I started pointing to the gear box and the octopus within.  They indicated they couldn’t understand what I was pointing at.  The octopus retreating into the box and like a chameleon changed colors to reflect the background.  Realizing what was happening and not wanting to hurt the octopus, I switched my grip to the safe side of the blade.  Then I made my mistake.  I poked the octopus with the grip.

The next thing I saw was the octopus holding my dive knife.  I could hear the students laughing through their regulators.  Well, I couldn’t let this continue so, I grabbed my blade and jerked it from the octopus.  The octopus flushed red in anger.  Maybe I did too in embarrassment.

We were doing a dive at a local quarry, and were just about done when I swam over something about 20' below me.  It stood out because there wasn't any algae or mud on it yet.  It was a small backpack and a duffel.

People throw stuff in, but I thought it was odd because there were a couple pairs of shoes tied to the outside of one bag and both were weighted with rocks.

We get it over to the side and open up the backpack and there's a third pair of shoes inside.  Open up the duffel and start pulling out all these little plastic bags, a pry bar, a box of exam gloves, a video tape, etc...

The plastic bags were deposit slips, many still had checks in them.  The video tape had a number of dates on it like it had been reused.

Called the sheriff and got them to take possession.  Turns out someone had broken into the bank night deposit like 5 counties away, taken all the cash, and dumped the rest of the evidence in this quarry "never to be seen again."  Heard later from the Sheriff that the FBI was already onto them.

Years ago me and my wife were diving somewhere in the Caribbean.

My wife has always been somewhat prone to motion sickness and it was rough that day with a pretty good surge as we descended.

We got down on some sand in a spur and groove type spot at about 80' and my wife starts puking through her regulator.

What really grossed me out was the swarm of fish that came and started feeding on the remains of my wife's breakfast.

We completed the dive and she later said that puking under water was no problem and that she felt much better afterwards.

Put my rental BC too high up on my tank, every kick would cause a TINY turn in the valve on the tank. The end result was at about 25 feet below the surface while my buddy was 15 ish feet away i tried ot inhale and couldn't. it was like getting a teaspoon of air and then sucking on an empty balloon, i couldn't do anything. banged on tank, gave the "OUT OF AIR"!"!"! signal as i went up, and buddy turned around, started to swim over but i was already on the surface going "GASP" best part was when i was on the surface and took a big breath the lower density of air kept the hoses full. it was only when i looked at gauge AND inhaled that it registered what had happened, then i checked HOW. Had to reattach the BC to the tank about 300 yards from the beach. was fun.

Embarrassing and funny story now, but wasn't quite so funny when it happened.

Last October (2017), I was diving the downstream side of Cow Springs with a buddy of mine. It was the first time I'd been in the water in like six months or more I think, and in hindsight, that particular cave might not have been the best one to use as a jumping off point.

On the exit portion of the second dive we did that day (first one was straight back to the EOL on downstream side, second was jumping over to a side tunnel and following that all the way back as well), I started getting some fog in my mask lenses. I attempted to let a little bit of water in my mask to clean my lenses and then clear it. When I cleared it, I apparently let a bit more water IN, and did not force any out. I tried to inhale, sputtered a bit, and tried to clear it again. The same thing happened. This occurred 2-3 more times until the water in my mask was deeper than my nostrils and I took in half a breath of water about 30 feet from the entrance of the cave and open water. Doing so made me fairly certain I was going to be the first dipshit on earth to drown IN his own mask, so I ripped it off lmao. I turned to look behind me for my buddy as I swam toward the exit, but swam off the line as I ripped my mask off and ended up in a small rock cubby to the left of the huge cave entrance, pinning myself against the ceiling and the floor trying to calm my hyperventilating self to the point I could replace my mask and signaling for my buddy with my light.

Apparently the entire time, I was signaling him in a giant circle, indicating that I was okay when I clearly was NOT okay. He put me back on the line facing the exit and I swam out to the basin and entry platform while maskless. The whole thing was captured on my GoPro and watching it was a little disconcerting. I stayed at the surface for about 10 minutes discussing it and then we conducted a short clean-up dive to pull the reels we'd left during the previous two dives. I had no anxiety on the third dive but during the incident I was pretty sure I was going to over-breathe my regulator and/or run out of gas (which was stupid, because I was at 30 feet or less and had 1650ish left in each of my two HP100's).

After that, I decided the best way for me to get over my inability to breathe underwater without a mask or pinching my nose shut, is to get in the tub with no mask and a regulator, and just breathe constantly until I get over it.