Near Death Experience in Grand Cayman

I hadn’t posted in a while so I thought I would catch everyone up on the latest happenings…

Just got back from a vacation on Grand Cayman Island – it was awesome. White sand beaches, crystal clear water. It was very relaxing and a ton of fun, and I almost died. That’s right. I almost died.

Over the six days we were there I went scuba diving 5 times. One of the times was at night and we had to use flashlights to navigate. It was a crazy awesome dive. We got to see bioluminesent plankton, squid that flashed different colors, and a few box jelly fish (also known as a sea wasp). On the way back in, I brushed one of the jelly fish with my left forearm. Immediately the area of my arm that touched it started to burn like crazy. At this point, we were about 25 ft under the surface and I wasn’t sure if this was serious or not (I didn’t know it was a box jelly or how dangerous they are), so I decided to finish the dive and tell everyone I got stung when we surfaced.

Once we surfaced (5 – 7 mins later), I mentioned my encounter with the jelly fish and how my arm was on fire.  The dive master started rushing everyone out of the water and back to the dive shop. He said another guy had hit one a few months earlier and went into anaphylactic shock, stopped breathing and was in the hospital for a while, just barely surviving.

We made it back to the dive shop and he started spraying my arm down with vinegar, but by this time my entire body was experiencing surges of intense muscle cramping and sharp pins and needle type stinging pains. It was terrible. I don’t think I have ever felt anything remotely like it and hope I never do again. Every single nerve ending was on fire and every muscle was cramped up. Then everything would go away and I’d get another surge of it all another minute (or less) later. The place on my arm that hit the jelly fish got so hot from the chemical reaction with the venom that the pores in that area were actually sweating. I still have some wicked cool red scars where the venom burned my skin.

One of the guys that dove with us was a doctor and told me to monitor my breathing. He said that if I started wheezing or found it difficult to breath, get to the emergency room immediately. He said I was experiencing the beginning stages of anaphylactic shock. Great. He also mentioned that the first few hours would be the worst and if I made through that time ok, I’d probably be fine.

So, like a responsible tourist in a foreign country, who is on the verge of dying, I chose to go back to the condo and hang out with my wife and friends instead of going to the emergency room as a precaution. Very responsible.

Back at the condo, I did the best I could at keeping myself relaxed and focused on breathing. After 2 or 3 hours, the pain wasn’t any better but the surges were starting to spread out. Instead of every minute, it was every 5 minutes or so. I decided to go to bed and for the rest of the night I was kept awake by the surges of pain that were slowly fading out. By 7am the next morning the surges stopped and I felt fine.

Over the next hour I ate a light breakfast, drank a bunch of water and made the decision to go out on another 2 tank dive. hahaha!

Special thanks to Rob at Don Foster’s Dive shop in Grand Cayman for being quick on his feet with the vinegar. I was told later that if I hadn’t gotten sprayed down that quickly, more venom would have entered my blood stream and everything would have been much worse.