anyhow, more was to come. when she reached the bottom, she suddenly found her regulator (which is the mouthpiece bit) filled with water. this is actually not a serious thing and we are all taught during training how to purposely take it out (after which it fills with water), purge the water out and then put it back in. Even now, I do intentionally occasionally take out my mouthpiece during a dive to rinse my dry throat. Nonetheless, the poor girl panicked and thought her equipment faulty. She signaled a panic "No air" signal to her buddy who then came over and handed her his alternative air source ("octopus"). The octopus was of course also filled with water (since it was hanging in the water all this time) and the poor girl now thought both pieces were faulty (I don't know why her buddy didn't reassure her all this while.. I blame him... I really do..)

With her air supply now cut off from her (and mentally and actually running out of air..), she then started to do a rapid ascent to the surface in a state of panic. (Remember what I said about rapid ascents? The correct speed is a slow 15m per minute, followed by a 3min wait at 5m, and finally another 1 full minute to reach the surface) .. but the poor girl didn’t realize how deep 28metres is (it is about 7 to 8 storeys of an HDB flat) and she felt herself taking forever.. which didn’t help with her state of panic and feeling of doom. She then started to swallow water and by the time she reached the surface, they found her pale, her lips purplish, unconscious and foaming at the mouth.

It took a while before they could revive her and by then, she was hysterical, crying, vomiting and all that…

I don’t know if she will ever dive again.. but I detest how badly some divers are trained in Singapore… especially those dive schools that promise a certification after only a weekend of training. I took almost six months to complete my own dive training – did more than 12 sessions in the pool, attended 20 lectures, did many theory and diving competency tests before I actually entered the sea for the first time.. and even then I was accompanied by a qualified trainer until I was competent enough to rescue even my dive buddy…

I hate the bad dive schools in Singapore. I hate those people who make diving look so dangerous and risky when they are actually just stupid and arrogant and badly trained..