Enjoying a day on a beach on Bunaken Island

It was a pleasant enough environment, lots of people sitting around enjoying the sea view. There was one older western tourist though, sitting about ten metres away from me, who had a really nasty cough. I was not really paying attention, and didn't notice that the coughing had stopped. When I did eventually look around I saw he had passed out! I jumped up and sprinted over to join the people gathered around him. None of us knew what to do. One of the men felt for a pulse in his arm and said, "He's dead." What? I felt my hair stand on end. "Get some oxygen!" Someone shouted.

One of the men ran off and came back... with a scuba diving tank and a regulator. How was he going to get the oxygen from that? Someone else was screaming, "Call an ambulance! Call the hospital! Does anyone have a number for the police?" Nobody answered. The body was just lying there awkwardly. I am not sure how it ended, my stomach was heaving and I had to get away.

In 2006 I returned to Bunaken, this time to go diving with some friends. At around 9 a.m. our boat arrived at Sachiko Point, and we pulled up next to another boat that had arrived earlier. We had been diving maybe ten minutes when I saw the DM (Dive Master) signalling us and using her hands to alternately cradle a baby then draw her hand across her neck. Child dead. No way! Dead? Whose child? I was totally panicked this couldn't be happening again!

We came up to the surface and the DM told us her child had disappeared in the sea not long before we went under. It turned out that her son was the Dive Master of the group from the boat next to ours. I climbed up onto the boat, scanning for any sign of him on the surface while some of the others were searching underwater. In the end the dive was called off. The atmosphere was sullen, to say the least, and our DM was devastated.

Some of us took the other boat back to the resort. Most of this dive group were in their early twenties. They didn't seem to be showing much sympathy for their DM who had completely disappeared, they were enjoying themselves with a beer. The head of our group, who was a dive instructor, questioned each of them individually and I overheard some stories that really turned my stomach.

It turned out their instructor was really out of line. He had left his beginner students (who had only had their first dive in a pool the day before) alone in deep water so he could dive to 70 metres to break a record. These new dive students had been taken down to 40 metres. One of them had a panic attack and ripped off his regulator. The DM of the group was left alone to look after 4 divers on his own and he himself ended up with nitrogen narcosis (nitrogen poisoning that leaves the victim unconscious)... and was carried away by the currents and disappeared.

Even more bizarre was that apparently the instructor had been up until dawn drinking with his students. This is one thing that is absolutely forbidden for any diver, let alone an instructor or student. We tried to comfort the mother, but by dusk there was no sign of her son. Apparently a patrol boat was still out searching. Through her tears she told us she had only just lost her other child in a motorbike accident. There really was not much chance at this stage that the DM lost at sea was still alive. I couldn't sleep imagining how it felt to be drowning and finally... darkness.

These two events made me think. First, as an ordinary person in Indonesia, we are never taught CPR, or even basic first aid. In America, it is compulsory learning for everyone. Even though I have looked it up, I still don't know how to do it. Where exactly on the chest do I press? For how long? How hard?
Secondly, I have never known the number for a 24 hour emergency service. Even if I wanted to ask them for help, I would be scared they would blackmail me. And if they did come, it would probably take them forever.

In America you just dial 911. You have a single number that is easy to remember and you have access to the police, the fire department and the ambulance service. If your cat is stuck in a culvert, you call 911 and they come right over... they will even dig up the road if they have to just to save your cat. Final word: scuba diving is a high risk activity, so follow the rules. If you want to learn, do some research on your instructor first.

Enjoying a day on a beach on Bunaken Island 2014-02-24T12:00:00+07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Vera