Thailand

This is not my usual post-trip report. I have no tales to tell of eye to eye encounters with large menacing sharks, and I have relatively few underwater photos to share with you. I returned from my trip to Thailand and the Andaman Sea much earlier than I had anticipated after diving for only a few days before being involved in a serious in-water accident.

The Dive

I arrived in Thailand on January 16, 2004 and boarded the Ocean Rover, a Phuket, Thailand based dive boat. I had only been on the boat for a few days, but after diving at Richelieu Rock in Thai waters, and off of the Mergui Archipelago in Myanmar, I knew that the diving and photo opportunities in the Andaman Sea would certainly justify the three weeks I was scheduled to be here.

On the morning of Wednesday, January 21, 2004, I dove at a spot known as “Silvertip Bank” in the Burma Banks. The banks are a remote series of seamounts in the Andaman Sea far from the Myanmar coast. The banks were once known as one of the world’s premier shark diving locations, although the area’s reputation has diminished as fishing fleets have taken many of the sharks in the area, not unlike so many places around the world. Silvertip Bank consists of a large flat reef at a depth of around sixty feet gently sloping to over one hundred twenty feet. The top of the reef is covered with hard corals, while the slope is covered with hard corals and patches of pastel soft corals. The topography is not dramatic, but it is a pretty reef with clear water and plenty of small fish.

The dive was uneventful for all but its final moments. I entered the water directly from the platform at the stern of the Ocean Rover and immediately descended to a depth of ninety-two feet, where I stopped to photograph some soft corals growing on a small coral head. I watched as three or four white tip reef sharks cruised past and I attempted without success to approach a three foot long, juvenile silvertip shark. When the small shark headed for deeper water to avoid me, I began a slow ascent, drifting above the top of the reef and enjoying the view. Chastened by the experience of a good friend, who was evacuated from the Ocean Rover a day earlier suffering from decompression sickness (the bends), I continued my ascent to fifteen feet and drifted with the gentle current for seven minutes, taking a long safety stop when my dive computer indicated that I was running low on air.

When I surfaced, I was surprised to see that I was no more than fifty to one hundred yards from the Ocean Rover. I remembered the briefing before the dive in which we were told that if we surfaced near the Ocean Rover it was okay to swim to the rear platform of the Ocean Rover to exit; exactly what I intended to do.

I began the short surface swim to the Ocean Rover, periodically picking my head up to check my bearings, since I didn’t want the two foot surface swells or current to push me away from the boat. The last time I raised my head, I noticed someone getting onto one of the Ocean Rover’s small chase boats, apparently to pick up a surfacing diver. The service on the Ocean Rover had been excellent and I assumed that the chase boat was on its way to pick me up. Not requiring assistance, I lowered my head and continued my swim to the Ocean Rover.

Then it happened.

The Accident

As I was swimming, I heard the chase boat accelerate and almost immediately I was struck by the boat. As if in slow motion, I felt the impact of a blunt object striking my left leg and pulling my foot from its fin, and then the sickening sensation of the propeller striking my right foot and in a rotation or two slicing the fin from that foot.

Stunned, I didn’t know the extent of the damage to my legs and feet and I didn’t bother to look down to make an assessment. I was in pain, had no fins, and knew it was imperative to get out of the water quickly. I was frightened, knowing that it was very possible that I had lost one or both of my feet in the accident. Raising my head above the water I began to yell to the Ocean Rover, through my regulator, “Help!” No response came, and I didn’t see anyone on the rear deck of the boat, so I removed the regulator from my mouth and yelled again, but louder, “Help, Help!” Since there was no air in my buoyancy compensator and my yelling had depleted the air from my lungs, I began to sink, so I quickly composed myself, put my regulator in my mouth, took a breath, grabbed my inflator hose and inflated my vest. Then, my head safely above water, I removed my regulator and yelled again for help.

The driver of the chase boat, Bao, didn’t see me as he was peering into the sun while rushing to pick up another diver in the distance, but he heard the sound of the prop striking me; saw my fins near the surface and turned around. Bao spotted me in the water, stopped and began to place a ladder over the side of the chase boat. I excitedly told him that I was hurt, had no fins nor use of my legs and that the ladder would be of no use and he would need to pull me over the side of the inflatable, which was no small task for a small Thai man half my size. Planting his feet against the side of the inflatable, Bao used his entire body as a counter-weight and all of his might; we locked arms and struggled to pull me aboard. When my chest was securely on the side of the chase boat, I swung my legs up and over the pontoon and lowered myself to the bottom of the boat.

My relief was enormous when I was safely on the chase boat and could see my feet still attached to my ankles. Now I could make an assessment of my injuries. My right foot was bleeding badly, and I could clearly see a half inch or deeper gash commencing between my little and fourth toes and running up the length of my foot halfway to my ankle. The left leg was more difficult to assess, since I was still wearing my thick neoprene wetsuit. My left foot was apparently fine so I unzipped the ankle of the wetsuit and began to feel the leg where it hurt. There was no bleeding, but I could feel a large lump on the outside of my leg, with a large indentation just above the lump. I was reasonably certain that the large bone in the leg (tibia) was intact, but from the pain when I touched the damaged area of my leg I assumed that the other bone (fibula) was broken.

By now, the crew had gathered at the rear of the Ocean Rover. I yelled to them that I had a severe laceration on my right foot and that my left leg might be broken and for them to get one of the other passengers, a friend from our many dive trips together, who I knew to be a doctor in Florida. As I was doing this, this doctor friend was on the other chase boat along with another diver who had jumped into the water to recover my dive fins. He successfully retrieved the undamaged left fin; but the right fin, that he observed had been sliced in three places, continued sinking to the bottom when he was told that the chase boat needed to get back to the Ocean Rover so that the doctor could tend to my injuries.

Once my chase boat was back to the Ocean Rover, I was gingerly lifted to the rear platform. Unable to put weight on my feet, I was carefully dragged to the steps leading up to the dive deck, where I used my arms to pull myself up the stairs. At the top, I laid on the ground while the doctor took a look at my injuries. I knew, and he confirmed, that the laceration on my right foot would require stitches. His initial thought was that my left leg had suffered a severe contusion and that a haematoma had formed, but that it was not broken (although he said that he could not be certain that the fibula was not broken without x-rays).

With two other people assisting me, I was able to move into the salon on my lacerated right foot. There, an “operating table” had been set up on a bench. There were needles, sutures, medical gauze, and hydrogen peroxide in the first aid kit on the boat, but no anesthesia to numb my foot while the wound, which required sixteen stitches, was closed.

Late in the afternoon, Bao, the driver of the chase boat who ran me over came into the salon to apologize for the accident. He doesn’t speak any English, and I don’t speak any Thai, but I think we both understood what we were saying to each other. He obviously felt horrible about what had taken place. He came up to me as I was lying on a sofa, placed his hands together and bowed, which is the Thai custom. I couldn’t understand what he said to me, but his appearance told me that he felt very badly and was very sorry for the incident. I reached out, shook his hand and told him that I knew it was an accident, that I would be okay, and that he shouldn’t be upset.

The Aftermath

The next couple of days I spent on the Ocean Rover, lying in bed with my legs elevated, an ice bag on my left leg, and my right foot wrapped in surgical gauze. I took an antibiotic to avoid an infection and an occasional Tylenol with codeine to ease the pain. The pain, particularly in my left leg, was strong and worsening.

I was unable to put my weight on either leg, and standing was impossible without intense pain; in fact, my few attempts to stand caused such great pain that I was on the verge of passing out. My left leg appeared to be getting worse as the swelling increased. I began to consider being evacuated to a hospital in Phuket so my leg could be x-rayed and if necessary, treated.

While I was initially hopeful that I might be back in the water within a week or less, it was beginning to appear that not only would I not be able to dive for the remainder of this charter, which I had previously understood, but also for the following charter, beginning in almost another week. The stitches in my foot wouldn’t come out for at least ten days and it would take a full three weeks for the wound to heal properly. Wearing a fin during that period of time would undoubtedly be difficult. Given the situation, I began to think that there was no point to me hanging around on the boat, or in Thailand, for that matter.

But the idea of trying to fly home was very scary; I couldn’t move myself through airports and I was sure that the long flight home would be very uncomfortable, to say the least. I started to think that I might be better served taking an ambulance ride to Phuket and starting the process of getting healed properly, so I could fly home comfortably as soon as possible.

On the other hand, I was concerned that once in Phuket, I would be totally on my own, in a hotel, unable to walk, unable to feed or otherwise fend for myself, without any friends or help nearby.

Regardless of these concerns, I asked the crew of the Ocean Rover to arrange my evacuation the following night, Friday, January 23, 2004 when the boat crossed back into Thai waters. The boat would need to stop at Kawthaung (Victoria Point), Myanmar to drop off our Burmese guide. Now I would be taken ashore on the other side of the harbor, at Ranong, Thailand as well.

The ambulance ride from Ranong to Phuket took nearly five hours on a windy, bumpy road. Every turn, every bump, every vibration sent stabbing pains up my leg. While my medical technician, Ruchira, attempted to keep me comfortable, there was little she could do. I played mental games to keep my mind off the sharp pain in my leg, with mixed success. Never before had I experienced such sustained, intense pain. It was five hours of bone-jarring torture.

I was greatly relieved when the ambulance arrived at the Bangkok Phuket Hospital in Phuket, Thailand and I was wheeled into the emergency room. I was met by a doctor, Dr. Pongsakorn Eamtanaporn, who examined my injuries, sent me for x-rays, cleaned my wounds and prescribed painkillers, a tetanus vaccination, an anti-inflammatory and an intravenous anti-biotics, Vancomycin and Ciprobay. The x-rays were negative, indicating no broken bone, which was good news, but Dr. Eamtanaporn said that I had a systemic infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue called “cellulitis”, which was the source of the intense pain in my left leg, which now shot from my lower back all the way down to my foot. The doctor also said that I had suffered some ligament damage in the ankle, not unlike a high ankle sprain and that the ankle would likely remain stiff for as long as two weeks from the occurrence of the injury.

I spent the next five days in the hospital, until Dr. Eamtanporn thought it safe for me to be discharged and to fly home, although he insisted that I have a wheelchair available to navigate the airports and a business class seat so I could elevate my legs. The doctor told me that the infection in my legs was under control and that it should remain that way with the help of oral anti-biotics, Zithromax and Ciprobay. During a quick call to the Diver’s Alert Network, they quickly assured me that my insurance would cover the expense of a business class ticket home and a hotel room in Phuket from the time of my discharge from the hospital until I was able to fly. After a night in a Phuket area hotel, I departed for home.