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Person Online Asks Deep Sea Divers To Share The Most Horrifying Experiences Underwater, 26 Folks Deliver
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.
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#1
Diving the day before a hurricane on a small south pacific island. Out of nowhere a black and white sea snake (venomous) wrapped itself around my arm. Apparently this happens from time to time before major storms- they can sense it and look for things that are heading towards the shore so that they don't have to put in so much effort to get out of the sea. As soon as I was in the shallows it uncurled and headed up the beach where it hid under a breadfruit tree.
I thought I was going to get bitten to death by a snake at sea... Turns out I was just a taxi for a very calm but rather rushed reptile.
#2
The only scare I've had is some jack**s in a yacht cruising through our dive location at full throttle. You could hear the boat coming for a solid minute or two before it flew over our heads.
Our boat had a dive flag on it and we had a buoy with a dive flag on it. They didn't even slow down.
Barracuda, sharks, rays, manatees, dolphins... All cool. Humans are way scarier.
#3
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.
#4
Not me but my brother, and not deep sea, sorry. He was 18, part of the dive club at his school. They went on a diving trip. The crew that handled the dive counted heads wrong and halfway through the dive the boat went back to shore without them...So there they were 2km from shore with their only option to swim back. There were about 5 of them, 2 girls 3 guys. All of them between 15-18 y/o. About halfway through one of the girls couldn’t swim anymore and started crying, my brother along with another guy swam with her, dragging her along, making sure she didn’t drown. Everyone made it out ok.
Worst part, school tried to hide it, and had the audacity to suspend my brother from school for catching him with a beer while on the trip. Needless to say they were in deep s**t when it came out. Not sure exactly what happened though.
#5
The Byford Dolphin diving bell accident
Long story short, some divers came up from an extremely deep dive at an oil drilling rig, and someone f****d up the decompression procedure and opened the door while the chamber was still pressurized at depth.
The four divers were instantly killed, and the one nearest the door literally exploded and they found bits of his body all over the oil rig.
So, next time someone tells you that people don't explode in decompression chambers like you see in the movies... tell them they're wrong.
#6
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.
#7
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
#8
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
#9
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.
#10
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.
#11
Free dove to about 160 ft in Deans Blue hole in the Bahamas. It’s where a lot of the free diving world records are set - super neat place, google a picture.
Anyway I’d never really been past 100ft freediving, but this was the perfect place to do it. No current, there’s ropes to keep you straight and allow a slight pull back up.
Scary part is that you become pretty strongly negatively buoyant after like 60ft, so you’re basically hauling a** down while doing nothing and using very little air. So I’m dazed out a bit feeling good and counting the lines that mark depth and all of a sudden feel pressure like my trachea is going to collapse and wake up and realize I’ve counted to the line that’s around 160 ft or so.
Very scary moment because I wasn’t sure if my body could take the depth or if I had gone too far and wouldn’t have enough air to get back up, which is a much slower and more air intensive process.
#12
I was diving under an oil rig between Long Beach and Catalina island. I was collecting sea scallops at around 60ft or so and knowing that there were seals all around I always kept an eye out for sharks, you just can't help but think about them. So I was just about to finish my dive but I was looking for one more scallop for dinner and I saw a blur swoosh right by me just in front of my face. My initial immediate reaction was SHARK!, but it was just a damn seal playing with me. I literally was screaming under water for a couple of seconds. Funny thing is I have over 25 logged open water dives, some at night, mostly around Catalina and I never saw a shark.
#13
Not mine but my uncles. My uncle got lost from a group and was beginning to start surfacing when 5 or 6 guys grab him and drag him to a small boat...turns out he strayed into a very small military installation nearby and didn’t realize it. He got grabbed up by some navy divers...kinda crazy
#14
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
#15
Only thing that really scares me is lung expansion injuries. So the one time I was freaked out was swimming near a wreck at about 100ft. I lost perspective (and buoyancy control) and suddenly realized I had surfaced about 40ft in 30s or less. Visions of the bends and a popped lung instantly came to mind and dropped a ton of air from my BC to get back to depth in a hurry. Got a massive squeeze from it in my ears, but it gave me a chance to calm the f**k down and get a better sense of where I was and reestablish buoyancy control.
Bottom line - the scariest things that can happen while driving is the s**t you can do to yourself.
#16
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.
#17
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.
#18
I did a shipwreck night dive on New Years Eve one year, and it was spooky as hell. 80 ft down, really small plane. Visibility was obviously not great (I've only done this one night dive), so these slow moving fish would come looming out of the dark...
Scarier to me was getting back on the boat, because it got really stormy. You'd be looking UP at the ladder, and it'd come crashing down right next to you. The waves were crazy. My brother got hit by the ladder, but not too badly, and we all managed to get back ok
#19
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.
#20
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.
#21
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.
#22
My craziest experience was diving with my father and cousin. We were searching for lobster in the cracks and crevices of huge rocks. My cousin signaled to come over and pointed in a dark hole.
I shine my light in and here is a HUGE lobster stuck in what looked like the back. I sunk my arm shoulder deep into the hole and triumphantly pull out the biggest damn lobster I have ever seen to this day.
As were celebrating with silent underwater gestures of enthusiasm, not one but two moray eel coming popping out of the very hole.
I'll also never forget diving with my father and running into black sea bass larger than a small car. It wasn't scary but I was aware this fish looked big enough to try to eat me.
#23
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.
#24
Not exactly deep but I was doing my certification dive for my PADI basic open water diver certification. I was at about 35 feet when my regulator started free-flowing. We'd been taught to put our tongues against the roof of our mouth to still breathe in that scenario and it worked just fine in the 70 degree pool. Unfortunately I was in a 40 degree lake, the temperature of which adds a bit of stress and anxiety no matter the depth.
I was fine until the tongue technique didn't work and I grabbed my backup regulator. When I tried to clear it of water and breathe from the backup yet still managed to suck water, I panicked. Thankfully it being a certification dive and all, there was a divemaster with my little group. I signaled an emergency ascent and he and I shot to the surface. I was in a complete panic like I've never known before or since. I was convinced I was dead. Once we got to the surface he was smart enough to reach between my flailing arms and inflate my BCD. After a few seconds he was able to calm me down, but I was unable to complete the dive. Every time my face went under the surface, I started having a panic attack.
Eventually I pushed through. Before it was said and done, I got my advanced certification, which involved a dive to 110 feet and a number of other challenges. Unfortunately after that accident, diving gave me pretty bad anxiety and got to a point where pushing through was no longer worth it. It's been a long time since then and I'm not sure how I'd react now. Maybe after all this time I'd enjoy it again.
#25
Diving at gordon rocks in the galapagos. We had hoped to see hammerhead sharks that frequent the area. This is a pinnacle surrounded by deep water and strong currents. Our guide had us hold onto the rocks and wait to see who came by. While we were waiting a group of 10 reef sharks were circling above us while two lager Morey eels were popping their heads out a few feet away, opening their mouths letting us know they mean business. Needles to say I was a bit nervous and burning through my air at a rapid rate. Suddenly a group of dozen hammerhead sharks came into view. We had not really discussed what we would do. The guide motioned for us to follow and the next thing I know we are swimming with the school of sharks. This only lasted a few minutes before they broke away from the group. We began to move into our safety stop zone where currents were pushing us in different directions when I suddenly ran out of air. You don't get much warning when suddenly there is nothing left. So here I am 15 feet or so under water unable to reach my partners secondary air being forced to surface when I should still be chiilin. At least the second time I ran outta air was user error on my wife's part (anniversary dive) and I was able to get to the secondary air and get back to the surface safely. Oh and then there was the time diving bloody bay wall in the Caymans where there is a 5000 foot drop and my partner was narced out and kept going deeper nearly exceeding the recreational limit of 120 ft or so. If I had not grabbed her she might still slowly be falling into the abyss. Diving is super fun ..
#26
My dad was spear fishing and almost lost his hand, scrotum, and leg to a 300 year old eel. Some quick backstory (Greek island of Carpanthos 30 years ago) there was a myth of a 323 year old monster eel (for those that don’t know, eels die after they mate so they live to about 7 months, however if they don’t mate, they will live for an eternity and they will just keep growing) and the locals told my dad where it was, and my dad was like “yeah sure it’s just a myth”. He dived down in the area where they told him it lived and after a few dives he saw a ginormous octopus and he thought, oh hell yeah since it was half his height and it was definitely the biggest octopus he had ever caught, so he shot it, went to grab it but it was still alive and latched onto the rock so it then grabbed his arm and he couldn’t swim up (no air tank btw) so now he had less than a minute of oxygen left and he was stuck down at 18m (not that “deep” but definitely deep) and so he took out his knife, slashed between and underneath the eyes of the octopus, he also lifted up the flab of skin covering its brains and it died after 5 seconds and then he grabbed it and started stringing it on his belt above his pp. well he looks to his left, and he sees a fricking torpedo of an eel, screaming towards him (eels love octopus, and there is a saying, for every 2 octopus, there is one eel). To describe the eel to you guys is hard but I’ll try my best. Imagine a mouth the size of a human head, that was the mouth of the eel. My dad estimates it was about 8-13 inches wide, and 7feet long at least. It swam right up to him, opened its mouth and grabbed onto the octopus, and started thrashing at the octopus and since it was attached to my dads belt, there was an eel right next to his testicles, hands and legs, he unclipped his belt, he dropped everything, his gun, his stringer, his float line. He just bolted to the surface, spent a few minutes at the surface before making sure it had left his gear, and he swam down to get his gun and whatnot. He never went back there. But on the same island, he almost blacked out too after he stayed down too long chasing after a fish...
Btw if my dad had lost his balls or if he had blacked out, I wouldn’t be here so I thank that eel every night before bed lmao
What do you think ?
Jo Choto 2 years ago
Reaction 1: I had to retell all the stories with animals in my head from the perspective of the animal. Guess what. Humans are assholes. Reaction 2: You should never, ever go diving as a tourist activity or some such, without prior training by a professional, and even then, only if you are completely healthy and have experience.
Josy Bannon 2 years ago (edited)
I learned from this that you shouldn't dive alone and that your life mostly depends on another diver coincidentally seeing your distress in a split second.
K Witmer 2 years ago
I love swimming in the ocean but that's it. And even now as I get older I'm starting to not enjoy that too much either. Would never scuba dive.
Seabeast 2 years ago
I also love swimming in the sea and have enjoyed snorkeling. SCUBA diving just seems too complicated by comparison.
Load More Replies...
Jo Choto 2 years ago
Reaction 1: I had to retell all the stories with animals in my head from the perspective of the animal. Guess what. Humans are assholes. Reaction 2: You should never, ever go diving as a tourist activity or some such, without prior training by a professional, and even then, only if you are completely healthy and have experience.
Josy Bannon 2 years ago (edited)
I learned from this that you shouldn't dive alone and that your life mostly depends on another diver coincidentally seeing your distress in a split second.
K Witmer 2 years ago
I love swimming in the ocean but that's it. And even now as I get older I'm starting to not enjoy that too much either. Would never scuba dive.
Seabeast 2 years ago
I also love swimming in the sea and have enjoyed snorkeling. SCUBA diving just seems too complicated by comparison.
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