Hi,i have become aware of a freediver who did some damage to his ear a couple of weekends ago and thought that there might be something to learn from his accident.

What happened
he had been doing relaxed diving most of the day with drops to twenty meters(well within comfort zone) and had been spearing butterfish as well as looking for crayfish.He decided to do a few final dives before packing it in for the day, one particular drop was to a rock at about 8m where he had a short look and headed to the surface.
Once back on the surface he noticed a ringing in his left ear,thinking nothing of it he continued diving for a bit and then returned to the boat.

5 days later his ear is still ringing so he decides to head to a doctor,the doctor has no idea whats happened so he refers him to a specialist.

two weeks after the accident he gets hearing check and appointment with specialist.

It turns out the hearing in the left ear is a lot worse than right ear(this is very likely the result of barotrauma) .it appears the damage occured to the receiving cells in the ear and 3 options are given.
steroids which are long shot at fixing the hearing
doing nothing and it will naturally heal
the hearing will stay the same regardless

he was also told it was advisable not to dive for at least a month
and depending on what caused it(unknown) stop diving completely.

the things to learn here are:
never force equalizations ever.
if you ever develop a ringing after diving to go straight to a specialist as they regard this as a emergency.
the worse thing to do if your ear rings is keep diving.
no one has any idea what caused it.
tinnitus sucks.

Was the 'freediver' really injured diving, or was it the loud snoring/darth vader impressions/clicking noises?

Louanne works at an Audiology clinic.... bad news for that person is, the ringing may never go away, there is no cure for tinnitus, most musicians suffer from that! and that is normally rather servere too!!

Does the specialist that the freediver saw specilise in ears, and know what much about barotrauma? When I had my issue with my ear, I was referred to an ENT who mainly does ears, which was a huge help.