Panicked divers who bolt for “sunshine and seagulls” risk a case of decompression sickness, or the “bends.” Severe bends can permanently handicap, paralyze, or kill a person. Divers who have witnessed the writhing, screaming agony of a bad bends hit swear that they would rather suffocate and drown on the bottom than surface after a long, deep dive without decompressing.
While that may be academically true, when confronted with the actual spectre of dying, most people will put off the inevitable, even for minutes or hours in that final panic—no matter the pain.
