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Person Online Asks Deep Sea Divers To Share The Most Horrifying Experiences Underwater, 13 Folks Deliver
Article created by: Robertas Lisickis
The ocean is a very scary place given certain circumstances. Sure, it’s just water, but what if you’re blind and have absolutely no other sense to help you when you’re submerged? And what about all of the sharks and killer whales and other creepy creatures roaming about? And what about sea storms with hella high waves that could capsize a tanker if they really wanted to? I’ll stop there.
Because people on Reddit have been scaring everyone enough as it is with their (and others') harrowing stories of deep (and not deep) sea diving stories that range from “oh, it actually turned out quite nice, but it was scary at first” to simply tragic.
Scroll down to read the most liked stories from the now viral post, which has garnered over 32,000 upvotes and led to over 4,000 comments in internet engagement, and vote, as well as comment on the stories that sent the most chills down your spine.
And don’t forget that we’ve recently covered another creepy deep sea story here, so make sure you get that out of the way too.
More Info: Reddit
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#1
I wear heavy prescription lenses and can’t wear contact lenses. Halfway through a week long liveaboard dive trip, someone dropped a tank on my prescription mask and shattered it. I usually had a second set with me, but could not find them and only brought one, because hey, nothing had ever happened before.
I am functionally blind without corrective lenses; I can see colors and that’s about it, starting about five inches from my face. I was devastated, but decided to go diving anyway, with my husband as my seeing-eye diver. I could see my gauges, so I felt reasonably safe.
It was among the most amazing three days of diving I’ve ever had. I saw the colors, shapes, and movement. Without being focused on the details, I actually took many of the best underwater photos I’d ever taken. I wasn’t worried about focusing on a particular coral or fish; I was looking at the larger color patterns.
So it didn’t turn out to be the disaster I’d thought it was.
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#2
Saved someone from drowning while SCUBA Diving... person had an epileptic seizure at 85 feet of water in a pitch black cavern that I was diving also. I was hovering above just watching the flashlights move about when I noticed one flashlight not moving, I swam down and was met with the other diver with no regulator in their mouth, eyes open and just on their knees. The divers buddy was next to them and in complete shock to what was going on and was not assisting whatsoever. 15 years of diving and instructor training came over me like it was second nature. I thought her regulator just came out so I popped mine out and offered it to her, that when I noticed she had done mentally checked out. I popped my #2 regulator in my mouth and attempted to put my #1 regulator in her mouth but her teeth were completely clenched... I then press the purged button to get air into her mouth and noticed her cheeks moving so I know air was getting in there. That was good enough for me, I then grabbed her under her arm and get the regulator flowing in her mouth and swan to the opening of the cavern and then up over 60 feet to get her to the surface. One on the surface did everything I was trained to do, inflate bc, dumped her weights, got her on her back and started towing to land. As I'm towing her in she is regurgitating all the water she swallowed and inhaled, it seemed like gallons of water. Got her to land where other divers assisted me in getting all her gear off. She was breathing fine and alive but in shock for a while and slowly came around like nothing happened. We were very lucky that we were only 10 minutes into the dive or for sure we would have both been bent and spending time in a hyperbaric chamber. The crazy thing is she didn’t tell anyone she had epilepsy and when we later reviewed her consent form she checked off “no” to epilepsy. I put myself at risk shooting up to the surface like that but if I came across that situation again I would not hesitate to save someone’s life.
#3
I got the bends once. I was careful. Followed my charts and my computer. Had appropriate depths and surface time. But I didn’t drink enough water so I was all out of wack.
Felt fine until I got home, mild headache. Then I woke up and it was just pain in my left arm. Elbows. fingers. Couldn’t even bend them without bad pain. My headache was intense and I was so dizzy. Called my older more experienced dive buddy and I got rushed to the hospital.
Docs got me hooked up and fluids, checked my dive logs while the decompression chamber was set up. And then got me in there with a nurse. 8 hours in a tube about the length of a car but as wide as maybe a double bed? I was on oxygen and hooked up to an IV and it was so loud, with all the air rushing in. As soon as I got to “depth” the pain vanished. It was crazy.
I’m fine now obviously. But I wasn’t allowed to dive for a month which sucked but hey. The dives were pretty great
#4
Not my story but my parents. They like to scuba dive when traveling and have gone several times over the years. Once they visited Mexico and went diving there before I was born. I'm not sure where they were exactly, but my mom was slightly lower down than my dad and looking at the ocean floor. He was looking up and around. My mom had on a gold necklace that was floating in the water around her, it was a sunny day and a fairly shallow dive so it was sparkling.
From my mom's pov, she was going along having a grand old time looking at the sea critters below, when suddenly my dad grabbed her and started frantically shaking her arm to get her attention. She looked up and a barracuda was directly in front of her, closer than was comfortable and staring intently, scary teeth on full display. It was focused on the shiny necklace and was just hovering there, transfixed. She slowly moved up her hand to cover the necklace and they slowly and calmly moved away from it and it took off without bothering them anymore, but still pretty unsettling and taught my mom to be a little more aware of her surroundings when diving
#5
tl;dr I fell ‘asleep’ while diving.
The weather had been pretty hot and the water temp was also around 26C. We’d done a dive and a long swim in the morning. We then headed out for our second dive and the boat dropped us in the wrong spot. So we had to swim against a massive current to get to our intended site. Halfway into the swim I just felt like I needed a nap. And so, I closed my eyes and did exactly that. It felt so peaceful... I immediately dropped down to an even deeper depth and was lucky that one of the guys on the dive turned around at that moment and saw what was happening. He swam as fast as he could towards me and caught me. He asked if I was ok, I said I was and passed out again, this time spitting my reg out and started blowing bubbles. He then went behind me, shoved my reg back in, wrapped his arms around me and took me straight to the surface. He saved my life.
#6
I wear contacts so getting water in my mask is extra bad as I can't open my eyes under water. Shortly after being told about a shark colliding with my friend from behind and removing his mask I am pretty scared about this (not sharks in general.) And I see a shark heading for me. They are curious, they often shoulder bump you as they turn at the last second. But she wasn't changing course. I stayed calm and still as long as I could and at the last second before she hit my mask I ducked. Except instead of ducking under I just headbutted her right in the nose. Everyone saw and thinks it was the funniest thing ever. I may be the only person alive who headbutted an 11foot shark in the nose but it was because I was scared she would take my goggles off.
#7
My biology teacher told us that she once was swimming in the south of the Philippines because she was trying to find an elusive sea horse and she went quite deep at night when they are more active and she got attacked by a shark and her team got out fast , the next day they found a turtle that was bitten in half shell included that was pretty big and its its supposedly the last time she went diving in that area
#8
It wasn't exactly a deep dive, but it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I was on a beach dive with my parents, having swum from the beach out to a small reef and then descending. It was only a few minutes after getting down to the reef that something started going on with my parents. My mother was agitated and clutching her chest. We surfaced and she started spitting up dark liquid and struggling to breathe. Fortunately, it was a busy beach and after we inflated an emergency buoy, lifeguards rushed out and carried her back to the shore where an ambulance waited. It turned out she'd had swimmers edema induced by the greater pressure. Things turned out fine, but having a medical emergency underwater in the ocean is a specially level of scary.
#9
Not exactly a horror story, but that one time as we were circling a reef I saw a huge eye that belonged to something buried in a sand. We just looked at each other as I passed by. I can tell it was definitely curious but non aggressive. Had a weird feeling afterwards.
#10
My family got certified while I was in high school.
Our last dive was open water. We decided we would do it on vacation (all other dives were in the states in a pool). Wreck dive about 200 yards off shore.
Not sure why but Mom’s tank went empty way faster than everyone else’s while we were out at sea. She didn’t realize it until it was less than 5%.
We surfaced and started swimming back. But she panicked. She was an experienced swimmer and snorkeler but she couldn’t handle it with the other scuba gear.
We whistled for help...and the locals thought we were just being tools. Didn’t realize she was struggling.
We kept her up and got her back. Finally about 50 yards out they realized we were towing in a diver in distress.
Everything turned out ok. I haven’t been scuba diving since. My brother went on to become a dive master.
#11
Was doing a boat dive and came up to find 20 foot swells. We just had to chill for a while down under until the boat would calm down and we could actually grab the ladder without getting smashed. I remember seeing the ladder going up and down 6-8 feet at a time. I finally grabbed the rope and climbed up as fast as I could. I hung on to the ladder and the boat crew grabbed my BCD and hauled me out of the water and onto the swim step. Half the divers puked on the way back into port. That was the roughest conditions that I have ever been diving in.
#12
I’m hardly a “deep sea diver” (My deepest dive to date is 111’). This incident actually happened in about 8’ of water. Crystal River, Florida. Known for attracting manatees in the winter. They don’t let you scuba dive there anymore, and the dive master suggested snorkeling this dive because it was shallow and it scares the manatees off. It was my first set of dives out of certification. I was putting my gear on dammit.
So there’s two manatees in the immediate area. An older juvenile who was hanging out and loving the attention from the snorkelers, and what we assumed was likely his mother. I had a little disposable underwater camera. As soon as I hit the bottom, the big one approached me.
I moved the camera out of my face and she just got closer and closer…until she literally grabbed the regulator out of my mouth.
Luckily my skills were still very fresh in my mind and I calmly grabbed my octo. But I spent the entire dive trying to get far enough away to get pictures of her. She was a nosy pest.
#13
Not me but a family friend is a coral diver and a few years ago he went missing at sea. He was diving solo (a big mistake) and failed to surface. The other crew dived down to see his equipment just sitting on the ocean floor with no sign of him, thinking he'd been taken by a shark. They then returned to the surface and tried looking for him at the surface incase he was floating. The crew couldn't see him because of the late afternoon sun reflecting on the water and they left without him. He had to drift/swim for about 12 hours to get to an island, getting all blistered and sunburnt to a crisp. When he washed up on the island in the middle of the night the villagers thought he was a 'white ghost' so they were really scared of him. When they finally helped him it turned out that no one on the island had phone credit so it was a mission to even try and contact the mainland. He ended up home safe and sound so there was a happy ending eventually.
We found out that the reason he abandoned his equipment was because he found a rare clown fish and was trying to catch it (the equipment was quite heavy and would have restricted movement). He did catch it and he held onto it for his whole ordeal. When he got back it lived in a fish tank in his office for a while.
Moral of the story: never EVER dive alone, no matter how experienced you are.
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