Pool breathhold training fatality

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Without having been there or knowing all the details there's plenty of things that could be speculated about, but the central lesson I hope people draw from this incident is always having an attentive dive buddy while training (one on one, in the water with check ins by tapping if static breath holding because there's plenty of natural contractions from elevated CO2 that are entirely different than a SAMBA/blackout/terminal gasp..). I believe lifeguard training is in and of itself inadequate to differentiate a trained freediver going through contractions like he or she always does from a problem, and honestly even though I've trained for years, FII level I and PFI level II, I wouldn't guarantee my own ability to differentiate between a problem from non-problem during an extended static breath hold without positive feedback (tap back...) from person having contractions....
In addition, without knowing enough facts on this specific case it's important to realize this type of tragedy could occur with a complete novice that was pushing themselves after hyperventilating (PLEASE don't hyperventilate, take a class and learn proper breathing techniques!) all the way up to a freediving world-record holder (which through years of training has narrowed the gap between a CO2 driven urge to breathe and the physiological need for sufficient 02 to maintain consciousness which simply had a BAD day..). Way too many more questions and uncertainties than answers (also, I'm one of the largest proponents of all individuals' right to determine one's own path and a personal risk/reward ratio, but please keep in mind your loved ones and rescuers/lifeguards in the choices you make...)
 
I have seen an advice forbidding running, diving and breath-holding in swimming pools all around the world, including everywhere in Europe, in Canada, US, South Korea, India and Australia.
It must be said that this was most in hotels or in universities.
Perhaps in municipal facilities the regulations are more lax...
Hmm… in at least four local pool here in my city there is no such notice pasted for breath-holding only for diving/jumping into pools. I will talk to the local pool I visit and tell them to put up a notice.
 
It’s not just the civil suit.

“The drowning also led to a criminal case against a man who was working as a lifeguard at the time. In October, RCMP charged a 25-year-old man with criminal negligence causing death.”
"It is so hard to find pools to rent for training, I don't understand it."
 
I have seen an advice forbidding running, diving and breath-holding in swimming pools all around the world, including everywhere in Europe, in Canada, US, South Korea, India and Australia.
It must be said that this was most in hotels or in universities.
Perhaps in municipal facilities the regulations are more lax...
Running was forbidden in my childhood pool, but diving from that board was fine and we played breath-hold swimming games. That was many decades ago and we had one lifeguard who worked all afternoon everyday, no breaks.
 
I’m going to throw a wrench into this discussion, as I’m one of those snorkelers who does repetitive breath-hold dives in pools as a part of my training. But, and it’s a big “BUT,” I do it differently than most. I get into the pool, and swim laps, easy swims with fins, mask and snorkel. I then start a series of breath-hold swims/dives, coming up after only a little while (about 30 seconds) when I start (only start) to feel the “must breathe” signal. I don’t hyperventilate at all, taking a deep breath before the dive, then coming up. I spend about a minute on the surface, then dive again, and keep that up for about half an hour. I find that my time underwater extends naturally when doing this, without the hazard of shallow water blackout. Toward the end of the swimming, I can usually hold my breath upwards of a minute without a “must breath” signal to my brain. I use this time practicing some of my experimental underwater swimming techniques too.

I have not been questioned by the lifeguards, and have not informed them of what I was doing too. I call this technique “rhythm breath-hold diving,” and it seems to work well. The human body does adapt, and without trying extend the dive time, it does extend, rather effortlessly. But it takes a while (about half an hour for me).

I have done extensive research on the history and physiology of breath-hold diving and shallow water blackout. This, to me, seems a very reasonable approach to preventing shallow water blackout. I know it goes against all the training/instruction by those who teach breath-hold diving, but I’ve found that it works.

SeaRat
 
I’m going to throw a wrench into this discussion, as I’m one of those snorkelers who does repetitive breath-hold dives in pools as a part of my training. But, and it’s a big “BUT,” I do it differently than most. I get into the pool, and swim laps, easy swims with fins, mask and snorkel. I then start a series of breath-hold swims/dives, coming up after only a little while (about 30 seconds) when I start (only start) to feel the “must breathe” signal. I don’t hyperventilate at all, taking a deep breath before the dive, then coming up. I spend about a minute on the surface, then dive again, and keep that up for about half an hour. I find that my time underwater extends naturally when doing this, without the hazard of shallow water blackout. Toward the end of the swimming, I can usually hold my breath upwards of a minute without a “must breath” signal to my brain. I use this time practicing some of my experimental underwater swimming techniques too.

No monkey wrench for me, that is similar to my snorkling/freediving routine. It won't set any records but I can spend an enjoyable afternoon diving like that for hours on end.
 
I have not been questioned by the lifeguards, and have not informed them of what I was doing too. I call this technique “rhythm breath-hold diving,” and it seems to work well. The human body does adapt, and without trying extend the dive time, it does extend, rather effortlessly. But it takes a while (about half an hour for me).
There is so much light and dark grey between casually holding one's breath for "shorter" periods of time to "longer" periods of time, but the reality of blacking out is "only takes once" to die if you don't have an attentive dive buddy at the time...
There's also some physiological realities (such as euphoria is a symptom of hypoxia...) that make wet breath-hold activities so dramatically safer with a buddy than without. At the end of the day the worst case consequences of dry solitary use of a rowing machine alternating between breathing and not almost certainly non-fatal even if one were to pass out and blacking out on any solitary breath-hold in the water is almost certainly fatal...
My personal rule, which I don't advocate and almost never break, is no more than one-third to one-half (trust myself but verify with dive computer) of my personal bests if i don't have a trusted buddy watching me.
 
There is so much light and dark grey between casually holding one's breath for "shorter" periods of time to "longer" periods of time, but the reality of blacking out is "only takes once" to die if you don't have an attentive dive buddy at the time...
There's also some physiological realities (such as euphoria is a symptom of hypoxia...) that make wet breath-hold activities so dramatically safer with a buddy than without. At the end of the day the worst case consequences of dry solitary use of a rowing machine alternating between breathing and not almost certainly non-fatal even if one were to pass out and blacking out on any solitary breath-hold in the water is almost certainly fatal...
My personal rule, which I don't advocate and almost never break, is no more than one-third to one-half (trust myself but verify with dive computer) of my personal bests if i don't have a trusted buddy watching me.
GirafeMarineSalvage,

I like your cautions, and by what you say I should have died in my teens. I had blackout in a pool when doing an underwater swim during swim team practice. We were in a 20 yard pool, and my buddy Tommy had just completed 4 lengths underwater. I was determined to beat his time, and experienced some of that euphoria on the third length. I was swimming the fourth length, and told myself that I’d hit the wall, make an underwater turn, take one stroke and swim to the side, which is what I did. However, I did not remember anything after that last turn. Suddenly, I was holding onto the side of the pool, just like I’d preprogrammed myself to do, and a bit dizzy. I’m pretty certain that if I had not told myself to surface after one stroke, I would have continued swimming underwater until I died.

I’ve since done a lot of investigation of Shallow Water Blackout, and the one thing that stands out is extreme hyperventilation prior to the swim underwater. The hyperventilation does not increase the oxygen in the lungs, but it does “blow off” the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the blood stream. And, guess what? It is an excess of CO2 in the blood stream that is the signal to breathe, the “must breathe” signal. If that signal is postponed beyond the time that the level of oxygen in the blood stream becomes insufficient for consciousness, the diver will unexpectantly black out.

The mechanism is slightly more complicated for deeper breath-hold dives, in that the lessening pressure can lead to oxygen actually traveling backwards, from the blood stream back into the lungs, with the lessening partial pressure of oxygen in the lungs, also leading to blackout in shallow water, the notorious shallow water blackout.

The technique I’ve developed I call “rhythm breath-hold diving,” which does not rely upon hyperventilation, but on gradually increasing breath-hold time over about half an hour. The “must breathe signal” is still there, and comes in prior to low blood oxygen level. But over that half-hour time period, the body does naturally adapt. This is similar to how the Japanese Ama divers dive, although without the whistle. This rhythm breath-hold diving does not try to set any records, just to adapt to breath holding. I explained the technique in the post above.

The problem I have with a buddy being there is not that the buddy is there, but that the breath-hold diver is pushing himself, using hyperventilation, to go further without adaptation, and may actually black out prior to ceasing body swimming motions. It is this attempt to break records, stay further, or go deeper, that is extremely hazardous and I do not recommend. The idea is to prevent the blackout entirely, using sound physiological concepts, rather than a buddy trying to resuscitate an unconscious diver after having to bring that diver to the surface.

SeaRat

PS1, a DAN report:

PS2, 1994 research article on Ama divers:
Arterial blood gas tensions during breath-hold diving in the Korean ama

J. Qvist, W. E. Hurford, Y. S. Park, P. Radermacher, K. J. Falke, D. W. Ahn, … See all authors
01 JUL 1993https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1993.75.1.285
PDF (4 MB)
TOOLS
SHARE
Abstract

Korean female unassisted divers (cachido ama) breath-hold dive > 100 times to depths of 3–7 m during a work day. We sought to determine the extent of arterial hypoxemia during normal working dives and reasonable time limits for breath-hold diving by measuring radial artery blood gas tensions and pH in five cachido ama who dove to a fixed depth of 4–5 m and then continued to breath hold for various times after their return to the surface. Eighty-two blood samples were withdrawn from indwelling radial artery catheters during 37 ocean dives. We measured compression hyperoxia [arterial PO2 = 141 +/- 24 (SD) Torr] and hypercapnia (arterial PCO2 = 46.6 +/- 2.4 Torr) at depth. Mean arterial PO2 near the end of breath-hold dives lasting 32–95 s (62 +/- 14 s) was decreased (62.6 +/- 13.5 Torr). Mean arterial PCO2 reached 49.9 +/- 5.4 Torr. Complete return of these values to their baseline did not occur until 15–20 s after breathing was resumed. In dives of usual working duration (< 30 s), blood gas tensions remained within normal ranges. Detailed analysis of hemoglobin components and intrinsic oxygenation properties revealed no evidence for adaptive changes that could increase the tolerance of the ama to hypoxic or hypothermic conditions associated with repetitive diving.
 
The family is suing the Regional Recreation Corporation of Wood Buffalo and four staff members alleging they neglected to adequately supervise and rescue him.
.
The statement of claim says the operators of the pool failed to develop a policy concerning repetitive breath-holding exercises, citing the Alberta Public Swimming Pools Regulation.
So, the man isn't responsible for killing himself with his own decisions and actions, but the pool is responsible?!?!

Anyone who abuses sympathy to extort innocent individuals doesn't deserve an ounce of sympathy. Any family member involved in this suit is evil as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not sorry for saying that. The rest of the family (who isn't part of the suit) has my sympathies.

edit: To phrase it differently, they had my sympathy until they abused it.
 
The technique I’ve developed I call “rhythm breath-hold diving,”
SeaRat, would you describe more details about your breath holding in a pool? Most pools designate lanes for lap swimming. Are you doing this in the deep end and going deep and trying to stay on the bottom?
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom