Just had a very vidid and intense freediving nightmare..I’ve had some good ones in the past, but this might be the “best.”
First scene is a bunch of freedivers very overweighted wearing mask, snorkel, no fins and wetsuits, walking on the bottom level of a partially framed house which is underwater. So they are walking around like normal into the classroom. I realize this “dive shop” is running a freediving class. I then notice that the access to the surface is several rooms away. I am super enjoying this moment cause its so cool looking and then I realize oh crap these folks are going to be VERY soon needing to breathe and they are walking away from the air. Everyone is trying to act cool and walk into the class like everything is normal. They start looking around at each other, but no one wants to act like they need to breathe so they keep walking. After about 20 seconds of them walking into the classroom they start jumping off the bottom to get to the surface so they can breathe, but they hit the celling and then realize they have to swim out of the room and go into another room before they can surface.
Everyone realizes the situation and starts swimming out of the classroom to the other room where they can access the surface.
They all make it out of the room and into the other room towards the surface. I’m behind the entire group so they all get to the surface ahead of me. I know with out a doubt one of the women is going to black out as she was totally freaking out more than anyone. I am about 10 seconds behind the mass exodus of students leaving the classroom. Before I can reach the surface (which is the ground level of a partial built house) she blacks out and starts sinking down as I had expected would happen. I get there after she has been under for about 2-3 seconds and I’m still calm as I know I’m only a couple seconds late.
I grab her and bring her to the surface and perform blackout rescue (blow, tap, talk.) I’m really struggling to keep her airway out of the water. Then I realize she is crazy overweighted, which makes sense as they were walking upright underwater earlier. At least my freediving nightmares have some logic to them. I’m having a really hard time getting her belt off. It was wrapped under her regular clothes she is wearing. My one hand is trying to keep airway out of water and my other hand is trying to unbutton/raise her shirt so I can get at the wetbelt buckle to release. This is very difficult to do with one hand. I know if I just let go of her neck and had 2 seconds with both hands I could easily get this weight belt off, but I know as soon as I let go of her neck her head will go underwater, which is a problem as her mouth is open. I eventually get the weight belt off right before I was gonna say the hell with the weight belt just use all my energy to keep airway above the surface. So I get the belt off feeling alot of relief thinking ok I got this now, everything is back to “normal.” I go to drop the weight belt and now I see 3 of the students are on the bottom blacked out and another 3 are sinking down. They are in such a tight space I can’t drop the weight belt with out hitting someone on the head. I have to swim over to the corner where I can drop the weight belt. At this point the woman is coming around and I have her hold on the side, which is the wooden floor of the house/dive shop.
Then I’m diving down taking off their weight belts first then bringing them up. Once I get one up, I’m yelling at who is ever is nearest to grab them by the hair and keep their airway out of the water. Thanks for that one Kirk.
Then I get into a rhythm of brining them up, getting who is nearby to keep their airway out of the water, and I bring about 4 folks to the surface and then wake up.
That was a very vidid and intense nightmare!