[thechat] sport and life?

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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To:   thechat at lists.evolt.org
Subject:  Re: [thechat] sport and life?



>>>Just a hunch, but wouldn't this essentially turn the diver into a depth
>>>charge? How deep would you need to go before (theoretically / actually)
>>>exploding?


>Depends on the air mix... you need more nitrogen at greater depths or risk
>oxygen toxicity (really, really nasty seizures and death).

But you also need to be careful with Nitrogen for a number of reasons,
including:

* Nitrogen narcosis (at 30m+ you slow down on tasks and start to feel
   very lightheaded. If you see another diver lauging and giggling down
there,
   the instruction is to take them up to less than 30m)

* Decompression sickness (nitrogen dissolved in your Central Nervous
system,
   blood and tissues decompressing out too fast - paralysis and death being
   distinct possibilities). The deeper you are, the faster it happens. The
limiting
   factor in dive time isn't usually the amount of air you carry, but the
amount of
   Nitrogen you're absorbing.

If you're doing a shallow (< approx 30m), quite often you'll be breathing
Nitrox
(Oxygen enriched air) - the enrichment will determine the max depth - to
avoid Nitrogen issues, and if you're doing deeper dives, you'll often
have gas mixes with other inert gases such as Helium added to get
over the Oxygen ones.

Any PADI training materials you buy (books, CD ROMs etc) have really,
really big warnings along the lines of "Do this right or you will die"
And they're right.

Cheers
Martin


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