I Had a buddy dive with me yesterday and he clams he did all his safety stops and he always came up prior to me due to air consumption. He started complaining of his chest/ throat area paining and was asking does it sound funny when he talk. He went to get a burger on the way home and said it felt like he had a bubble in his throat when he swallowed. He called and said he was going to the ER he was real concern. They sent him to Gainesville and they had him on O2 for about 6 hours with no chamber ride. Said a chamber ride could do more damage. He was diagnosed with a Lung Bubble expansion possibly brought on by congestion.

Perhaps Stitch will elaborate on his experience. He would not buy my diagnosis/explanation of Gag Reflex :D

Yes, something similar. About 5 years ago some friends and I were freediving together when one relatively new freediver(Dave) shot a big fish and spent a little more time underwater than he would have liked and exerted himself very heavily.
I was sitting at the back of the boat when my friend Dave came up to the back of the boat complaining he needed a break.
He startedd coughing up blood through his nose and mouth.
We promptly took him to the emergency room where they diagnosed him with an expansion injury due to congestion in his lungs. They put him on O2 and released him a couple hours later.

It was kind of funny when we took him to the ER room we didnt bother to clean the blood off his face or anything so when the lady at the front desk saw him he looked like he had been shot in the face with a shotgun due to the amount of blood.:eek

He was a little pizzed that we took him in there like that but I told him that he would have had to sit in the waiting room for an hour if we took him in there all cleaned up.:D

Ha HA funny Story! I bet that did get him some service ASAP.

I was kidding with Chris today, I woke him out of concern. He will be joining this sight soon. He may have swallowed his atoms apple when he seen a 7-foot Bull shark swim straight to me. He was right above me . He said later he just knew I was going to shoot it. I was in defense mode and it turned away at about 5-6 feet from me and took off. All I thought was WTF glad I’m ready for this sucker. I did notice that the encounter seem to put a dampener on his killing ability opposed to his last time out with me and he dove all the same dives with me yesterday. I will have to start embarrassing him if he keeps coming up empty handed don't ya know. :D This is rock bottom shopping at it’s finest.

http://www.spearfishingplanet.com/showthread.php?t=153

Very nice!

This trip was not like any other one. I dove normal, didn’t over exert my self, wasn’t sick. I just don’t know why it happened. The pain / discomfort was bad enough that I called DAN who informed me that I needed to go to the ER now. I left the house and went there about 10pm, checked in and went in to triage. The nurses listened to my symptoms and I told them about how I could literally feel bubbles in my neck (with my hands) all four of them checked and confirmed it. They took me into a room and put me on O2, performed an EKG and ran some blood tests. They didn’t have a dive oriented doc and the person that runs the hyperbaric chamber was OFF! (he works mon – fri so if you dive don’t get the bends on the weekend) besides that the folks at Baptist were great. Anyways, they load me in an ambulance and rushed me to Shands in Gainesville. I get there and the dive doc goes through the lists of questions and decided that the time out of the water and the straight o2 I had been on since I walked in the hospital in Jax is helping and putting me in the tube may cause them to reoccur or cause worse things to happen. From what the doc told me this could have been caused by congestion trapping air in my lungs at depth and then ascending let it escape into my body. I have been literally grounded for two weeks so no mini season for me. As for the swallowing of my adams apple….no way. That rolled down my leg and out my wetsuit when I 5hit my pants after seeing that shark try to make out with Earl.

Yes, something similar. About 5 years ago some friends and I were freediving together when one relatively new freediver(Dave) shot a big fish and spent a little more time underwater than he would have liked and exerted himself very heavily.
I was sitting at the back of the boat when my friend Dave came up to the back of the boat complaining he needed a break.
He startedd coughing up blood through his nose and mouth.
We promptly took him to the emergency room where they diagnosed him with an expansion injury due to congestion in his lungs. They put him on O2 and released him a couple hours later.

It was kind of funny when we took him to the ER room we didnt bother to clean the blood off his face or anything so when the lady at the front desk saw him he looked like he had been shot in the face with a shotgun due to the amount of blood.:eek

He was a little pizzed that we took him in there like that but I told him that he would have had to sit in the waiting room for an hour if we took him in there all cleaned up.:D


How do you get a lung expansion injury when free diving?

This trip was not like any other one. I dove normal, didn’t over exert my self, wasn’t sick. I just don’t know why it happened. The pain / discomfort was bad enough that I called DAN who informed me that I needed to go to the ER now. I left the house and went there about 10pm, checked in and went in to triage. The nurses listened to my symptoms and I told them about how I could literally feel bubbles in my neck (with my hands) all four of them checked and confirmed it. They took me into a room and put me on O2, performed an EKG and ran some blood tests. They didn’t have a dive oriented doc and the person that runs the hyperbaric chamber was OFF! (he works mon – fri so if you dive don’t get the bends on the weekend) besides that the folks at Baptist were great. Anyways, they load me in an ambulance and rushed me to Shands in Gainesville. I get there and the dive doc goes through the lists of questions and decided that the time out of the water and the straight o2 I had been on since I walked in the hospital in Jax is helping and putting me in the tube may cause them to reoccur or cause worse things to happen. From what the doc told me this could have been caused by congestion trapping air in my lungs at depth and then ascending let it escape into my body. I have been literally grounded for two weeks so no mini season for me. As for the swallowing of my adams apple….no way. That rolled down my leg and out my wetsuit when I 5hit my pants after seeing that shark try to make out with Earl.

That sounds like a subcutaneous emphysema. Something I've never seen, just was taught about when i learned how to dive back in 72/73.

How do you get a lung expansion injury when free diving?

I scuba dive. Im not man enough for that freediving stuff :D

How do you get a lung expansion injury when free diving?

I agree, it sounds weird to me as well but The ER doctor was very familiar with diving physiology( he was a diver) so I assume he knew what he was talking about concerning the overexpansion injury.
I dont recall the details but it had something to do with the congestion blocking the air from escaping/transferring as usual.
I have never seen or heard of this type of injury before or since BTW.

We saw my friends xray that showed where the injury occured in his upper lung and it looked pretty small on film but you would have thought his whole guts exploded by the amount of blood comming out his face.:eek:

That's interesting. Congestion blocking off an area was the only thing i could think of. I'm pretty sure this is the 1st time I've ever heard of such an injury while free diving.

That's interesting. Congestion blocking off an area was the only thing i could think of. I'm pretty sure this is the 1st time I've ever heard of such an injury while free diving.
I wasnt freediving

We're discussing the other incident posted, which happened to a free diver.

This one (emphasis added):

Yes, something similar. About 5 years ago some friends and I were freediving together when one relatively new freediver(Dave) shot a big fish and spent a little more time underwater than he would have liked and exerted himself very heavily.
I was sitting at the back of the boat when my friend Dave came up to the back of the boat complaining he needed a break.
He startedd coughing up blood through his nose and mouth.
We promptly took him to the emergency room where they diagnosed him with an expansion injury due to congestion in his lungs. They put him on O2 and released him a couple hours later.

It was kind of funny when we took him to the ER room we didnt bother to clean the blood off his face or anything so when the lady at the front desk saw him he looked like he had been shot in the face with a shotgun due to the amount of blood.:eek

He was a little pizzed that we took him in there like that but I told him that he would have had to sit in the waiting room for an hour if we took him in there all cleaned up.:D

One of those bubbles must of worked its way to my brain LOL

I agree, it sounds weird to me as well but The ER doctor was very familiar with diving physiology( he was a diver) so I assume he knew what he was talking about concerning the overexpansion injury.
I dont recall the details but it had something to do with the congestion blocking the air from escaping/transferring as usual.
I have never seen or heard of this type of injury before or since BTW.

We saw my friends xray that showed where the injury occured in his upper lung and it looked pretty small on film but you would have thought his whole guts exploded by the amount of blood comming out his face.:eek:

This injury doesnt sound like expansion, it sounds like the trachea got overly compressed too quickly. If you dive real fast and dont warmup, your throat can literally compress too quickly the deeper you go. It causes tears in your trachea and you will cough up blood. Some of it of course will leak into your upper lungs. It heals over time and is not a big deal. The blood in the lungs simply gets absorbed into the body.

Unfortunately, we dont have really flexible trachea like other seagoing mammals do... but with conditioning you can dive pretty deep and fast w/o trouble. i.e. warmups, stretches, etc.

I'm not sayin it's not a lung overpressurization issue, but this usually wont occur unless you breath compressed air at depth, or perhaps overpack and come up real fast from deep w/o exhalation. Congestion causing it though?? definitely sounds odd... i gotta check that out