Death Pro

At this point I spit out my mouthpiece because my lungs were already seizing up from the water I had ingested.  I realized in this moment that death whispers in good air bubbles and my death was now inevitable.

Another face appeared in my vision.  My dive-mate had seen me eject my regulator.  He had climbed up my body to bring his own good air supply to replace mine.  I took the proffered mouthpiece and tried a breath, but this only pushed the fluid further into my lungs.  His regulator contained good air, but it wasn’t helping.  I spit it out.

Strangely enough, here at the worst part of the drama is where things started to go right instead of wrong.  When I spit out that second mouthpiece with the good air, I ensured that I would drown, but it also saved my life.

If I had made the surface before my breathing stopped, I probably wouldn’t have survived and the second regulator shows why.  Upon reaching the good air, my breathing would’ve circulated the caustic seawater throughout my lungs.  I would’ve died of a process called secondary drowning where the lungs produce mucus to protect themselves from an irritant.  Death would’ve still whispered.  The water I had already ingested would kill me long before reaching emergency care.

I looked up at the surface, where the good air seemed tantalizingly close and the rays of sunlight in the water were reminiscent of many religious images.  That was a melodramatic final scene I’ll remember vividly until my next death.

As my eyes darkened I fully expected death to whisper and that it would be the utter end.  I didn’t experience any fear of pain at this point, even though I knew that my death was inescapable.  I was frightened in my soul because I had no faith in any afterlife.  I knew all I would experience would be nothingness.

I have to say that drowning like this was a fairly painless way to go.  Maybe if my lungs had actually filled up with water it would’ve been worse.  For me, the death was due to a relatively small amount of salt water causing my lungs to seize in rejection.

Death whispered in my ear and with that, I was dead.