Compressed air mid-freedive

[5ata]

As a side note - I have known of freedivers who do carry on their weight belts a spare air for just such an emergency like entanglement in kelp or something similar...

 

[Marlinspike]

So technically, one can breathe off a compressed gas source, but having done that, the standards by which I have been taught stipulate that you are no longer a freediver, but a scuba diver and are to adhere to scuba protocols for ascent, and surface intervals. And it has been shown that when doing scuba first, there is to be no freediving for 24 hours. That is the safety protocols I have been taught and I prefer to side towards safety.

I hope I was able to answer your question.

Thanks 5ata, and in case people missed it, the description of the snorkeling/freediving forum in the main forum menu was edited by Scubaboard to reflect that freediving is NOT an "after-scuba activity". Thanks Net Doc and Dee for listening.

~Marlinspike

 

[Kim]

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Name calling is against our Terms Of Service.
Please remain civil to each other whatever your views.
***Mod Post***​

 

[anakin]

i guess i should have read that. ROFL

 

[JimQPublic]

In the past couple months I've read every piece of info I could find online about freediving. I'll just add two things that I don't recall being specifically discussed in this thread regarding a freediver taking a breath at 400+ feet down.

1: The lungs are collapsed and partly filled with plasma and the airway is collapsed. It may not even be possible to inhale if you had a regulator in your mouth.

2:

...That is the safety protocols I have been taught and I prefer to side towards safety...

Taught, not learned through experience or verified by scientific/medical testing. Why? Because although no-limits freedivers are considered insane by most people, even they aren't willing to do something that has a good chance of being fatal in many unexpected ways.

Jim

 

[anakin]

the airway, as in the esophagus and rigged parts of teh bronchi are not collapsed, if they did you would die.

The only reason the lungs fill with fluid is to protect them from being damaged be the reduced volume from a breath hold. Filling with fluid makes them incompressible and therefor the freediver lives on!

 

[freediver]

the airway, as in the esophagus and rigged parts of teh bronchi are not collapsed, if they did you would die.

Airway? Esophagus? Are you referring to the trachea perhaps?

 

[JimQPublic]

Okay, I over-generalized. I presume the trachea must not be collapsed since the cartilage shell would not like that. Still I have to presume that the airway has become unable to operate. I'm guessing that any soft tissue that can does get squeezed into portions of the airway.

Disclaimer: -Guessing-

 

[Marlinspike]

the airway, as in the esophagus and rigged parts of teh bronchi are not collapsed, if they did you would die.

The only reason the lungs fill with fluid is to protect them from being damaged be the reduced volume from a breath hold. Filling with fluid makes them incompressible and therefor the freediver lives on!

WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG Anakin.

Compression beyond residual volume of the lungs, such as when extreme breath hold diving will cause pulmonary capillaries to swell resulting in fluid leaking into the lungs. If the compression is not extreme and for a short period of time, like on a breath hold dive, there is little effect and recovery is usally complete since only a small amount of fluid will enter the lungs and not nearly enough to "make them incompressible". However if the compression is too great or for an extended period of time the fluid may enter the alveoli and prevent the gas exchange necessary for life once the surface is reached. This is known as a thoracic squeeze and is a life threatening condition, NOT a self-protection mechanism for the lungs.

~Marlinspike

 

[5ata]

WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG Anakin.

Compression beyond residual volume of the lungs, such as when extreme breath hold diving will cause pulmonary capillaries to swell resulting in fluid leaking into the lungs. If the compression is not extreme and for a short period of time, like on a breath hold dive, there is little effect and recovery is usally complete since only a small amount of fluid will enter the lungs and not nearly enough to "make them incompressible". However if the compression is too great or for an extended period of time the fluid may enter the alveoli and prevent the gas exchange necessary for life once the surface is reached. This is known as a thoracic squeeze and is a life threatening condition, NOT a self-protection mechanism for the lungs.

~Marlinspike

If I had tried to go there, I would have only gotten flamed - You stated it perfectly dude...

I got to thinking about this while at my divemaster class tonight. When diving at those depths, freedivers flood their sinuses as well to reduce any airspace having to be equalized. Trying to breath off of a compressed gas could cause problems with trying to control the effects of clearing out the sinuses - but since I have no ambitrion to dive that deep, I'm not going to worry about it..

Jim - For someone who is just beginning - the very fact you have actually did research and made a common mistake like that is not out of the ordinary. Even so, the fact you could even jump into this discussion is great. Are you going to be taking any freedive courses???