Don Shirley

I could still talk and I could still think, but that was about it.

I spoke to Andre, and our standard greeting after any dive is, I'm alive.

So that's what I said to her on the phone, I'm alive.

And when I spoke to her at three o'clock in the morning, she left where we are and did the 12-hour drive to Bushman's to come and see me.

So that was the start of yet another journey, really, of getting better.

And it took a long time.

So the CO2 buildup basically knocks you out.

So what we believe is that the CO2 buildup in his body put him to sleep.

So he wouldn't have known what was going on any more than I would have known when I was spinning around at 46 meters.

Now, we've looked at that tape and we followed it through breath by breath.

And I found myself breathing the same way or breathing with Dave.

Because you could hear on the genuine tape, you could hear the breaths.

So each treatment I did, I got about 50% better with each time.

But I still had a big problem with balance.

I couldn't walk in a straight line.

I could walk unsupported, but I couldn't walk in a straight line.

I couldn't walk at night in the dark out to crawl.

So if I wanted to use the toilet at night out to crawl, I'd hold conversations and I would have to concentrate so much on what I was doing, I'd actually forget the conversations.

I didn't even know if I could dive at that point, so I went into the water and found that I actually felt better in the water than I did on the land, because I'm an aquatic person.

So I felt better there because I could actually sense things.