If none of these actions clears you of the entanglement, you might have to use a knife to cut yourself free. Use caution and work slowly and deliberately. Panic is your worst enemy in this situation, not the entanglement. Disorientation and Vertigo Disorientation, not knowing where you are or literally which way is up, can occur for several reasons when you dive. Sensory deprivation, where you cannot see anything in the water around you, can occur during poor visibility or night diving. Sensory deprivation can cause dizziness or vertigo (figure 7-3). Ear problems, a ruptured eardrum, or trouble equalizing when you descend or ascend, can also cause vertigo. To help overcome disorientation, you must overcome the dizziness and then determine which way is up. To overcome dizziness, hold onto a solid object or hug yourself until the dizziness passes. Do not close your eyes. To know which way is up, look at your bubbles. Air always rises. You should postpone night or limited visibility diving until you acquire confidence through dives with good visibility. If you have an ear problem that might not allow you to equalize your middle ear pressure, you might experience vertigo. Vertigo sometimes occurs during ascent, when one ear equalizes more rapidly than the other. The dizziness will pass in a few moments. Do not get excited if you do experience vertigo. Problems with disorientation are rarely severe. Your most likely problem is not knowing your position under water relative to where you want to go. Develop the ability to know where you are through natural and compass navigation and you are not likely to experience the nuisance of disorientation. Equipment Difficulties Equipment difficulties include gear that is or becomes improperly adjusted, undone, or lost while diving. It also includes gear that malfunctions. Any good diver can handle these difficulties, so you will want to learn how to handle them as well. Your instructor will Chapter 7- Problem Solving help you develop this skill by giving you typical equipment problems to solve as your training progresses. You can adjust almost every piece of equipment while in the water. If you must make an adjustment, first think about what you need to do, then work slowly and deliberately to make the adjustment. If you become excited and find yourself working hard, stop your activity, breathe slowly and deeply, recover, think, and start again slowly. Working with your gear in the water is good practice to keep many of your diving skills sharp. You could lose your mask, snorkel, fins, or weight belt under water. Each piece of equipment is needed for diving, but you must be able to either recover the lost item and continue your dive or be able to reach the surface and exit the water without the missing item. Practice swimming without items of equipment to develop the techniques for handling this type of difficulty. Occasionally, the power-inflator mechanism on your buoyancy compensator (BC) can stick in the open position, which causes the BC to inflate. If this happens, you must vent the excess air and disconnect the power-inflator hose (figure 7-4). If you do not vent Problem Solving 163 FIGURE 7-3. PROBLEMS WITH DISORIENTATION ARE RARELY SERIOUS, BUT IT CAN INVOLVE VERTIGO.
19116TC
To see the actual publication please follow the link above