Freedive Spearfishing Black Out- Ben Choi
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ต.ค. 2015
- On Sunday October 12, I blacked out while freedive spearfishing. I was coming up from a 71ft dive during which I had shot a mangrove snapper. My dive time was 1:12. I had done a surface interval of 4 minutes before this dive. We had been diving that depth (~65’) most of the day chasing those mangrove snapper. Everything about the dive felt comfortable to me. I didn’t feel any more fatigued than I normally do when coming up from that depth after shooting a fish. As I hit the surface, the last thing I remember is exhaling. The next thing I remember is my buddy Sterling shaking me and not being able to speak because my mouth was full of water.
I had my reservations about posting this video online. But after some encouragement from my close friends and dive buddies, I am posting this so that the spearfishing community can learn from this incident. The lesson I want people to take away from this video is that a black out can happen at any time. It doesn’t have to be a 100’ freedive. It doesn’t have to be a 2 min dive. It can happen on a routine dive that you’ve been doing all day. We all know the risks that are involved in our sport. The only way to mitigate these risks is to implement a good safety system with a buddy watching you every dive.
I never thought that a black out would happen to me. I always thought that I wasn’t diving deep or long enough for a black out. But the fact of the matter is, you never know when it’s going to happen. Thankfully, I had Sterling there to save me. He did exactly what a good dive buddy should in this situation and had my head out of the water in a matter of seconds. If he hadn’t been around me, and if we hadn’t been buddy diving, I probably wouldn’t be here to tell the story.
You can do everything right in a dive and black out. I didn’t stay too long. I didn’t go too deep. I didn’t drink the night before. I got plenty of rest. I have been running 3-4 miles every other day and was in good physical shape. I drank two bottles of water on the way out. I had a surface interval 4x my dive time. After consulting with some freediving instructors, I have realized that my breathe up wasn’t optimal and that instead of purging (which I thought I was doing), I was hyperventilating on my breathe up.
I hope that this video will make the spearfishing community a lot more aware of just how easy it is to black out and how critically important it is that we dive with a good buddy system at all times. I really want the next generation of young freedivers to take note of this. You may think that it will never happen to you, but it hits you like a ton of bricks when you realize that you could have very easily died that day. Stick with your buddies. Keep an eye on them when y’all are diving. Don’t be so focused on out shooting them, or getting a trophy fish that you lose sight of them. Competition between friends is good, but everyone making it back home safe is a lot better.
I welcome your thoughts and comments on this video and I hope that this reinforces the need for an attentive buddy system while spearfishing. Feel free to share this with your fellow spearos and let’s get a constructive discussion going about how to dive safer and get everyone home to their loved ones.
Turn up the volume when playing the video.
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Dude the love your friend had for you when he rushed over got me emotional. That is a good man right there.
Hi Ben. Just want to show support for your decision to post. Honesty with oneself and proper incident analysis are so, so key to water sports, and vastly extends the range of learning experiences both for oneself and others. If some people here do not understand your intent or the community value of this, most likely THEY should not be diving. I think you made a very responsible decision posting.
fucking awesome friend you have there, no hesitation
Thanks for sharing, Ben. This is a perfect educational video, also for the things you guys do right. Keep looking out for each other.
1:49-1:51 that's how a guardian angel looks like... You have a nice buddy there dude! Be safe. P.S Thanks for the educational video
Thanks Ben for posting this. I know you are going to get some crap, from all the "experts" that are going to tell you what you did wrong. But man, I think this video will save lives and open eyes. I have shown it to some of my stubborn dive buddies, and now we are changing the way we dive, and how close the buddy stays. Before this, i couldn't get them to get it, they though 20-30ft away was good enough. After watching this, its an eye opener. thank you.
+Randall Brown my dive mates were the same. especially at depths of 2-3m. But that kinda changed when one of them stood up at 1m and blacked out for a few seconds faced down. I support this video!
It ain't no joke Bro
Thank you Ben for sharing this, who knows how many lives you will save by making people more aware of the risks involved in free diving/spearfishing. Kudos to your buddy he was on you in seconds, he is a hero!! Always dive with a buddy. You have balls of steel for sharing. Thank you!!!!
Your buddy definitely deserves a life saving award. What an awesome friend. Great video and thanks for posting it. It is something we can all learn from.
Ben, thanks very much for posting this video, and especially for your excellent incident report. I mostly dive by myself, even with others we go our own ways, almost never watching each other. I think of myself as a safe diver, just as you describe... good fitness, good breathe up period, not pushing limits, never hurrying to the surface... but this video makes me rethink my "normal".
Thank You Ben!! I still have much to learn n guys like you help me get there. btw Glad your still with us
I'm glad your ok and thank you for posting this video it shows how having your buddy on top of you pays off
Ben, thanks for the post! I actually watched this like 4 years ago and thanks to your video and a few other similar ones I took a course that showed me how dangerously I had been diving before (due to hyperventilating and bad technique). After an LMC of my own and seeing a buddy of mine SWB inside an underwater cave I'm convinced that that course saved both of our lives.
"great" video, thanks for posting! send chills down my back, good thing your buddy was right there and super quick.
Ben thank you for having the guts to share this, hopefully this will save some lives down the road. Thankfully your buddy was right on you, freaking scary for sure. I'm going to share it with my buddies.
Great buddy, great reaction, and great video. Ben thank you for sharing this. Sometimes we forget how vulnerable we really are in our sport.
Really good you posted this man, it can help a lot of people
Thanks for sharing this Ben. Definitely a reminder for all of us to be more cautious divers...and more importantly, better dive buddies. Cheers.
Hey man, just wanted to say thank you again for sharing. I have used this video in every class since I fist saw it.
Good Buddy, system. I almost lost a friend to SWB but I saw him before he made it to the surface. Ben learn to relax more. Your pumping your fist on the way down and you were kicking hard to the surface. Find calm in your body and relax when you tighten up on the way up forcing your muscles to stiffen and you use oxygen. Relax believe you can make it and trust your partner.
Thanks for the tips John. I wasn't pumping my fist. That's actually a technique I use to get those snapper to come up in the water column. It's more like waving at the fish.
+Ben Choi which i wish you were not making public..lol
+George Steele yeah now all 20 freediving spearfishers know about it LOL
+Jordan Link Hahahhahahaha
+George Steele i love doing fist pumps on my dives - makes the fish want to party
Bravo for posting. That took a lot of courage to put your own mistake up as an example. Thank you and I hope folks learn from this. Well done!
What a great buddy u have! He was swift and got your back almost immediately. I always thought diving not too deep and not too long would prevent BO and it won’t happen as long as one doesn’t push too far. Now I learned from your video that it’s always safer with a buddy. Thank you for your courage to post this. Wish you a happy and safe dive.
Thanks for posting Ben. You’ve got a good friend there that didn’t care his day was done only about keeping you safe
Thank you for posting this it could save lives. It could be even more helpful to the community if you say in the description that you were hyperventilating in the breathe up and this is why you felt comfortable but actually had dangerously low oxygen - and to stress the dangers of hyperventilation. Glad your buddy was looking out for you.
Thanks for posting this and glad you are okay. Scary stuff.
Ben, Thank you for your posting of this.
thanks for uploading this video Ben.... whether you did things right or not, it's a great reminder for us all to be safe. great vid.
Thanks for sharing and for the written summary. Glad you had a buddy there to save you!
Looked like a really comfy dive, no panic, smooth exit and bang, out of no where. Buddy system is a must! Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting this. Always have a buddy.
Great post man buddy system all the way! Always gotta pay attention to that stuff in freediving sometimes we don't always focus on it but rather on the prize of the fish. Nice reminder to always remember safety. Thanks
thanks for posting and sharing your story, there will be people that makes fun, i say f them, im glad u have great buddies that where there to help and also to call the dive, some one else might of keep on diving
awsome diving buddy.
Thats scary stuff. Glad youre ok. Your buddy was quick on the scene - good job!
I got goosebumps. So glad you have a friend like him
Thank God your alright. Thanks for posting and stay safe.
i find this kind of videos very usefull for free diver! cause we need to learn from the mistake, fortunatelly you are alive! and this the most important ! good video
Thanks for sharing. Ive been diving since I was 13 years old. 56 now. I realize that there will always be fish to be speared tomorrow as long as I make it to the beach alive today. No fish is worth your life or a trophy picture. Plenty of fish in the sea just waiting. Buddy system is always good. As can be seen, even with a buddy system SWB can happen and people do die even with a buddy system.
I subscribed just for the fact that I also spree fish free dive. Amazing team work and self awareness I just witnessed.
awesome video and experience, dive safe and keep us updated
thank goodness you're alright dude. awesome buddy you have there.
Thank you for sharing this, I think it's important!
Thanks for posting this - hopefully people watch and read your description.
Holy hell Ben! Glad you made it!
Glad to watch/read the story. Always freedive alone. Just heard, I suppose to have somebody with. Will look for some dive groups. Thank you man. Good it endup this way. Cheers
loved this video. good to post educational stuff!
You should not feel guilty about a blackout afterwards you will be a better diver it's the knowledge you give to others after the accident and you did man good for you keep diving!
Yep you owe him a box of beers. Never ever hyperventilate!!!
Nice job. Most people shoot their pants below 10'.lol. After hyperventilating like that, you still made it to the surface on your own and your buddy was there to help. End is good, all is good. Live and learn, good job. Looks like you got your fish though. And thanks for sharing.
Ben - Great thing of you to share this video and I'm glad you're ok brother!! I'm new to the sport and have a lot to learn so take this with for what it's worth. Listening to the beginning and end of your dive I'm wondering if 2 things might have prevented your blackout: Set aside the hyperventilation, the last breath you took in before you started the dive seemed a little short - Do you practice the "stomach, chest, shoulder and neck technique" or a 3rd level inhalation to get the biggest breath possible and the most amount of oxygen in your system before your dive? Also I didn't get a look at your mask, but as you were ascending I noticed a lot of air expanding out of it - Breathing in through your nose as you ascend, especially during the last 33 feet, can allow you to recapture some of that air and depending on the volume of the mask it can be significant. Both might have kept your O2 saturation level high enough to prevent the blackout. As you mentioned having a good buddy and working in teams of 2 ideally 3 is the best safety you can do as statistics show LMCs and Blackouts can happen to even the best spearos or freedivers. Thanks again and may God watch over and keep you and your buddies safe and protected in the future!
what technique is that
Thumbs up for posting the video!
Red flag went up before he even made the drop , hyperventilating before his dive , huge mistake . Great video that will teach people to get certified and educated , dive safe ! 👌👌
Great share. Valuable find and lesson for anyone who comes across it. Glad you're ok and had an attentive, quick buddy. 🙏 Like everyone has mentioned, your pre-dive breathing sounded very rushed (hyperventilating) and final pre-dive breath sounded very shallow. I was taught it's safest to mellow out. Focus on relaxing every muscle when you're on the surface. This naturally slows down heart and breath rate. Then when you're max chill, do a single massive, 3-stage inhale and drop. Hard to chill when there's fish to catch though 😁. Again, glad you were ok.
I don't understand why all you so called experts are busting on Ben. He's just uploading this video so we can have awareness that swb can happen at anytime. I lost a close friend to swb, and it took the death of a friend for me to realize the importance of a buddy system.
+Shane Castro Sorry to hear about your mate. It's just too hard for these keyboard warriors to not throw in their 2 cents worth regardless of the situation the video is portraying. I'm sure Ben is now a better diver. Thumbs up for the video and to the positive advisors.
+Ca Mai facts
Ben that scared the **** out of me
glad you are ok. I think we can all learn from this. thanks for sharing. are you diving a rig in the gulf of Mexico?
Hey man i am just glad your OK nice to see someone survive.
thanks for posting!
and kudos to your buddy!
you have nice friend :)
I noticed you were kicking a lot when at the surface. I'm not sure if it was because you were trying to put your mask on or not. I would recommend double checking your weight belt. You should never sink at the surface and should be neutrally buoyant at 30 ft deep. No sinking or floating.
Glad your buddy was there to quickly grab you and prevent a very dangerous situation. Good call to end the day right then and there as well. Also, you should always try to slowly exhale for at least 10 seconds during your breathe ups.
Dive safe and thanks for sharing the video. It's very important for people to see these types of situations as most divers don't tend to take shallow water blackouts very seriously.
You're a beast Ben!
holy shit your friend literally saved your life. It sounds like you had taken a couple mouth fulls of water and were going down. He was QUICK to get to you. Wow, buy him a beer... or two!
Good friends. Great save.
Subbed. Thanks for posting
you are lucky man, glad you had a diligent buddy diving with you and that you are OK! so the big question, y'all shot your limits?
Great buddy. Thank u for sharing. It might save many people from blacking out.
Well shit Ben....you got our lines tangled up again!
Quick Buddy response! Thank God!
Scary bro! No fish is worth a life, glad your safe and can preach your experience on to others.
Love
Glad ur okay buddy
Hyperventilation not only delays ones urge for breath, but also increases ones heart rate, hereby hindering relaxation. One may test it by comparing (dry) static breath hold time after slow deep breathing, where exhalation is 2-3 times longer than inhalation, and after hyperventilation.
Your buddy is on the ball 100%
I haven't read any of the other comments so I may be repeating something someone already said but you seemed like you were hyperventilating before the dive. Good thing you had a good dive buddy with you. Stay safe brother
wow crazy to see, it can even happen on a short dive.
What do you guys think contributed to this black out?
It kinda sounded like the last few breaths before he went down were hyperventilation breaths. I've heard this can make it easier to become hypoxic.
Also once he shot the fish it seemed like he might have been overexerting himself to get to the top.
I'm super beginner freediver and have never even gotten close to black out that I know of so it goes without saying my comment is not meant to be critical of the diver and comes from a place of humbleness. Just wanting to learn what to do to prevent this for me and my friends.
Interested to hear what others think caused it. BTW great work on his dive buddies part for being so quick to lend assistance, bravo!
Thank the Lord your buddy was close. You better send Sterling a Christmas card.
Always have a dive buddy ALWAYS... I don't care how many years you've dived anything can happen an will happen.
Definitely Hyperventilating. Thanks for posting and great buddies.
Wow, Compelling stuff,
Well done for making this public
That guy is a great dive buddy
Stay safe bro, The family waits.
Personally I think that the main problem in this example was hyperventilation due to the fact that he had spent enough time being on surface (more than 4:15 minutes after the previous dive) and was not under water too long (only 1 minute 17 seconds). He did not feel the temptation to inhale because due to the hyperventilation he removed CO2 from his blood and sensors in blood vessels did not reacted on it. However, the pressure of O2 in the blood was low and he exacerbated the issue by energetic fins movements. As a result near the surface he lost consciousness.
Damn hope that never happens to me XD glad your ok hey I am pretty young to be starting to spearfish I am only 12 I have been interested into free diving/spearfishing for about a year now and I was actually able to hold my breath for 2 minutes which is really weird because now when I try to beat it I only get about 1:00 -1:20 but when I'm actually diving it's like about 45 seconds any suggestions on what I should to hold my breath longer as well as any tips for me?
hello dear friend free-diver
i think you should pay attention to the breath-up before you dive ... i heard you breathing heavily .. i don't which system of breathing and free-diving you took but i can tell you for sure , from your breathing i knew something could happen .
please pay attention to you body and dive safe !
Ben you are wrong when you say: You can do everything right in a dive and black out. This dive was far away from ''everything right''. You were hyperventilating a lot!!! This is one of the most dangerous things you can do in freediving.
Listen to my advice:
- never freedive alone
- never hyperventilate
- visit a freediving course
.
.
.
.
+juredaic Thanks for the advice. I didnt realize I was hyperventilating at the time. I have taken a freediving course about 5 years ago. It's been a while, but I thought I was purging. Somewhere in those 5 years since the course, 1 second in 4 seconds out turned into 1 second in, 1 second out.
inhale 1 second in 4 seconds out is also hyperventilation
You must breath at least 5 seconds inhale and 10 seconds exhale ideal is 7 seconds inhale 14 seconds exhale.
+juredaic Actually, his statement is factually accurate. One can do everything right and still have an incident. He wasn't explicitly claiming he did everything right, but he certainly thought he did at the time. It was a preliminary analysis, and he was pretty shaken up obviously. So what he got wrong was that he thought he did everything right and he realizes that now and has another chance to learn from it. Good job of recovering and learning (and teaching), and good for an attentive buddy. Keep on diving and be safe, Ben.
But incidents can and do happen to people who DO get everything right. Thankfully, those are rare.
I'm glad you said it. FII would do wonders for him.
Hyperventilation is not a good breathe-up technique. (And I say this as a novice.) Better to stick with just a couple of sharp exhales (2-3 at most), or just no breathe-up at all. Scary stuff, man. I'm glad you had a good buddy.
Hyperventilate so much I almost passed out just listening to it.
you got a good friend
Yeah, I was taking a free diving class at ascuba venture about a year ago and I hyperventilated while holding my breath during one of the classroom lessons and I would have smashed my head on a scuba tank had someone not caught me
Damn what a good buddy
I am really interested in diving but is swb something that can be control or not? i came here from another video of a guy who's been diving for 8 years had no problems and just hit a blackout and was lucky to be alive.
Dude I was with my friend cj who makes polespears and he took me to a spot in 50 so I pushed myself way too hard and nearly blacked out. I was so scared after... I went into the boat and said " dad I love you but I'm going to die" I was crying so hard because I thought that I was going to dry water drown... my dad helped me so much!!! Cj helped me too and he told me that I would be ok and that the best thing to do was to dive again so I shot some hogs in 35.... I'm not going to try 50 again until I'm comfortable with it
hope you bought your broski dinner that night, without his quick work, that could of been your last fish. 👍 for your brah. keep diving safe
great partner there! lucky
Hello Ben, do you spearfish near Miami? I've just moved here and done spearfishing in Panama. Let me know if I can arrange one trip with you guys,wouldn't want to dive alone. Thanks
Crazy!! Even though the partner was aware!
good friend 👍
Keep safe diving friends.always on your limits don’t push your self in trouble
Wow...
Black out...
#staysafesir.
As someone just now exploring and getting into freediving and spearfishing, this was good but hard to watch from pure beginner POV.
your friend he is a good man i salute
be careful