Pushing the Limits of Extreme Breath-Holding
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-06/one-dive-one-...
Although, my first exposure to the topic was a movie called The Big Blue about a free diver pushing himself to and past his limits. Had Jean Reno in it. Just found out it was Luc Besson's movie, too.
[0] http://www.smh.com.au/news/big-questions/we-breath-in-oxygen...
One danger of being under water is that you can pass out even after you've taken a breath of fresh air, so the spotter also is there to make sure you are good in the few seconds after you come up.
There have been very few (I think only one) deaths during freediving competitions, where protocols are used to guarantee the security of the athletes. Remember that you don't die of a black out, you die of drowning because you inhale water during a black out. As said in another comment, the black out is a protective mechanism when you run low on oxygen, but the breathing reflex is triggered by high CO2. Freedivers train both to sustain low oxygen (by doing long breath holds) and high CO2 (by doing repeats of shorter ones).
Monitoring a static apnea is pretty simple if you just pay close attention: when a black out happens, the diver will usually release a lot of air for instance, and pulling them out of water before they drown is what you do. Then you slap them to wake them up :)
In open water competitions, these days divers are tethered to the dive line, announce their target depth and can't go past it. They also announce an expected dive time which is used to plan the start of the safety divers. These safety divers escort the athlete on the end of the dive up (sometimes, as deep as from 30m), staying close enough to grab them if needed, but never touching them (that would disqualify as assistance). There is also a counter weight in place to bring up everything quickly in case something goes wrong deep. Issues are usually happening close to the surface (let's say in the last 10-15m); deep blackouts are very rare and usually a consequence of other problems like being disoriented if you get a ruptured eardrum.
Recreative freediving is a wonderful activity with very little risk if you just use a buddy system and don't push the limits beyond what both of you can do. It's good for you body and your mind!
Even if you have a buddy while this happens and they manage to grab you and drag you out instantly, then start CPR the moment you're on the surface there's nothing guaranteeing you're going to survive.
PS you don't need CPR to recover from blackout.
The source is "Laryngospasm in breath-hold diving", found in the proceedings of the 2006 Breath-hold diving workshop:
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/files/UHMS_DAN_2006_Breat...
Vocal cord closure is certainly protective in the initial stages of an immersion accident. This occurs only when the victim is conscious. A person who is unconscious when they enter the water or who loses consciousness in the water will not have protective laryngeal reflexes. If consciousness is lost during static apnea or in an underwater swimming contest, the vocal cords will relax and will not close in response to inhaled water. Similarly a breath-hold diver who loses con sciousness will not develop laryngospasm.
I am Greek and so I've grown up next to the sea. I learned to swim around the time I learned to walk. I am a strong swimmer, in other words and very familiar with the sea. And yet, I've almost drowned twice, once when I was grabbed by a strong current and once when I misjudged the strength of the waves and got in the sea to play with them. I'm lucky to be alive, twice over.
It is important to understand that the sea is not your friend. Every time you enter it, you put yourself in mortal danger and that's no exaggeration. Ignoring this puts you into even greater danger.
And, honestly, blacking out while 30m under (or even six, or one) is my own private nightmare. It's the last thing any sane person wants to happen to them. Dismissing it by saying that the rescue procedure is "straightforward" is completely missing the point, that such a situation is very likely to be fatal.
Deaths are more frequent than that.
A total of 417 freediving accident cases were captured; 308 fatal and 109 non-fatal. [1]
Of those 417, 18% or ~75 were freediving proper (the rest were snorkelling, spearfishing etc). That was between 2006 and 2011- so about 15 incidents a year, 3/4 of them probably fatal.
Your comment specifically mentions competitions, but that is not really a good measure, because people often dive solo to go after records etc.
In any case, there have been several high-profile deaths in recent years: Audrey Mestre [2], Nicholas Mevoli [3], Loïc Leferme [4], Patrick Musimu [5], Adel Abu Haliqa [6] and of course my personal hero, Natalia Molchanova [7] whom, I should say, is not really gone and is going to come up any time now.
So, you know. Not exactly "very few" deaths.
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[1] http://divewise.org/education/freediver-blackout/statistics/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Mestre
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Mevoli
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo%C3%AFc_Leferme
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Musimu
[6] https://www.thenational.ae/sport/risks-of-freediving-apparen...
I stand by my point that if you use well known safety measures you reduce the risk level a lot. Specifically from your list: Mestre did not have proper safety (a total shit show from Pipin), Musimu was training alone, Leferme has a inadequate setup for what he was doing, Molchanova was diving alone in >30m (should have been a joke for her, but anything can happen). We'll never know for Adel Abu Haliqa.
I'm not even sure why I argue about that on the internet. I should go diving...
Also, the statistics I quoted include competitions. The point is that, safety or no safety, if you black out during a dive, there's a strong chance you'll drown.
>> I'm very well aware than many die in less well catered environments. I've lost spearfishing friends, and I've been part of search and rescue operations more than once unfortunately.
I'd expect anyone with such experience to not take matters of safety lightly, nor dismiss the grave danger of a blackout -with smilies.
Is there some hope that treating the seriousness of the difficulties one can come into during a freedive lightly, could bring more people to the sport? If the only effect of bringing more people to the sport is that more people die, then they're better off staying away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopat...
Most documented cases have occurred in athletes involved in contact sports such as American
football, wrestling, ice hockey, rugby, and soccer.[1] Other risk factors include being in the
military, prior domestic violence, and repeated banging of the head.[1]> Most documented cases have occurred in athletes involved in contact sports such as American football, wrestling, ice hockey, rugby, and soccer.[1] Other risk factors include being in the military, prior domestic violence, and repeated banging of the head.[1]
For me the idea of controlling my body and mind to do such a feat felt like a huge accomplishment. It requires fighting off reflexes, relaxing my muscles and reducing my thoughts to the bare minimum so as to use the least oxygen possible.
Control and determination are tested and it feels great to overcome these things.
I stopped practicing apnea because I didn't have any data on how it could affect my brain negatively but I still am very proud of my accomplishment. Also before I started I couldn't swim a full lap underwater without coming up for air but now I can do it without any problem.
https://www.deeperblue.com/what-does-a-freedivers-brain-look...
There's lots of recreational activities like that that people start doing because they're very pleasant, then they start getting all competitive about them and take it all to extremes where the only reward is knowing you can beat the competition.
That's kind of sad, really, and completely misses the point of doing something for enjoyment. But I guess it's the prevailing culture. We value being the best at something more than we value life itself.
Edit: btw, I think it's fine to "judge" people. My judgement, if that's what it is, can't really affect anyone's life, or actions and they're not even addressed to any particular individual.
You might even say they're actually my, you know- opinions.
I mean, there's no way to objectively decide what is acceptable risk. You can choose some arbitrary cutoff point, but it's always going to be an arbitrary cutoff point and nothing else.
And I think it's important to be able to look at facts (limited obviously by our ability to know them for sure) and make a decision about what you think is right to do based on them- and not just regarding risk. Regarding anything. In many issues that we have to deal with in our everyday life there is no cut-and-dried answer, so we just have to exercise our best, well, judgement.
You're right that we must leave such judgements open to re-evaluation, absolutely. That's what debating them on the internets is for :)
You've just described most people's second to third year of Crossfit.
That being said, static apnea is actually pretty safe, there is a spotter with the person the whole time. Competition free diving is fairly safe as well, as they have divers stationed at different depths who spot for black out and have spare air.
I don't freedive, but given that I am an avid spearfisher I do apnea training to hit deeper depths and to be able to hunt longer at depth. It is probably the most dangerous of any of the apnea related sports but still relatively safe if you do it correctly, which means having a inflatable buoyancy device, a knife and practicing one down 2 up where one diver goes down, another follows down half way a minute later and one stay at the surface as a spotter. Not only does this provide aid in the event of a blackout but it also provides spotters for sharks.
Another issue with safety is setting a reasonable limit, in static apnea in a pool I can hold for over 5 minutes, but when I am spearfishing I set my clock to 4 minutes, 3 if I am going to 100ft or deeper no matter what is going on, when the time runs out I am surface bound. Once trained it easy to ignore hypoxia and spend another 30 seconds chasing a fish but that can be the difference between life and death. The average human can hold enough oxygen in their lungs to stay conscious for over 6 minutes, the CO2 reflex is what get's them, so if one keeps their dive below 4 minutes as a safety margin the chances of black out are minimized significantly. It becomes dangerous and stupid when people start to throw away those safety mechanisms in a quest to cut corners and push further.
A good example is we where diving a wreck last summer, I was at about 70ft, my cousin was down to 45 2 minutes after I went down. I lined up on a huge Pompano and it started swimming away from me, I pursued for about 20 seconds and it had stopped and turned broadside to me, I needed to close 30 ft. to take the shot but I was already past the 4 minute mark by a few seconds. When you are in that situation it's easy to get tunnel vision on the goal and go for it, but then if the fish moves again you are in this game of just a few more seconds. Anyways, I broke off, flagged my cousin to descendand showed him where the fish was, I went up, took the spotter position, the spotter depended to 45 and I took the spotter position on the surface. My cousin ended up with a prize Pompano and bragging rights, but we all got to ride home on the boat and listen to him go on and on about lining up the shot, at that's the point with proper safety procedures everyone get's to enjoy the ride home.
You mentioned 6 minutes is a typical limit, so 4 gives a good buffer. How much of this buffer do you think is used up by the exertion of descent, hunting and so on?
If I where to take a guess I would say if well trained in controlling muscles and heart rate non-static apnea required 15-25% of the oxygen supply that you would have had if you where doing static.
Also the 6 minutes I mentioned has a margin in it as well. I remember reading that totally calm and motionless it's closer to 8 (I have never tried to push past 5, due to the cognitive issue talked about in the article). Most people drown because they panic which can spend it all and get you to black out in as little as 2-3.
That is the really interesting thing about spearfishing, it's requires you to be almost meditative in the face of a bunch of stimuli such as you are in water, you are deep, there are predators attracted to what you are doing and the excitement of the hunt. All those have to be put aside because you biggest issue is time, when it runs out none of it matters so you become hyper focused on time and mastering control of your body to extend you time.
One time I got pinned between the surface and a nosy tiger shark and it struck me after the event, that I never had an oh crap a 14ft tiger is interested in me moment. Instead every thought was about how to engage in a pissing contents with this shark while I conserve energy. It was a fascinating conversation of variables in my mind and almost meditative and robotic. In the end I decided to use the blowfish defense (Compact yourself into a tight ball with eyes on the shark, then when they come in to bump you, you sprawl out in a X formation fast like a squid or a blowfish, predators in the ocean don't like it when something triples in size right as they approach) as it would be one quick burst of energy, instead of poking it with my gun until it got deterred, which would be a death by a thousand prick by slowly eating my time each time I had to volley with it.
Competitive diving: During competitions in breath-hold diving, most divers hyperventilate extensively and determine the duration of their breath-hold by means other than the hypercapnic ventilatory drive. Some seem to react to hypoxia via the urge to breathe, while others actively decide to abort the breath-hold when vision starts to falter, described as 'greyout' (personal communication with elite divers).
From:
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/files/UHMS_DAN_2006_Breat... (Chapter 2, Physiological mechanisms involved in the risk of loss of consciousness during breath-hold diving; pg 27).