Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 180 posts

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#23

Post by killjoywashere »

cstrat wrote: post #10
latch wrote: post #5

Reminds me of the fantastic movie The Abyss (1)...vaguely recall a similar scene where there's N tanks of oxygen for N+1 people, so they submerge 1 of the crew to lower her (i think) metabolic rate. Curious why they don't have emergency unmanned drones with the crew or why they don't have emergency tanks at their work site (which he was able to get back to) (1) - Not sure how well it has aged ( https://en.wikipedia.o…

Yeah even if the unmanned drones are too hard, having spare tanks at the work site sounds like an easy way to at least supply oxygen... however without the umbilical cord he loses the heat supply. Maybe its more pleasant to pass out while your body freezes.

Getting cold probably saved his life by reducing the metabolic burden. This is done intentionally during certain surgeries, such as aortic aneurysm repairs. It also informs the ER standard: you're not dead until you're warm and dead.

Also, it's staggering how much oxygen can be dissolved into your system at depth. The Navy did some experiments where they put pigs in a chamber, pressurized them to something obscene, like 300 feet, and replaced their blood with water. The oxygen diffused so well the pigs were still conscious and walking around. Source: I work with a lot of Navy dive medicine officers.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#24

Post by dmead »

latch wrote: post #5

Reminds me of the fantastic movie The Abyss (1)...vaguely recall a similar scene where there's N tanks of oxygen for N+1 people, so they submerge 1 of the crew to lower her (i think) metabolic rate. Curious why they don't have emergency unmanned drones with the crew or why they don't have emergency tanks at their work site (which he was able to get back to) (1) - Not sure how well it has aged ( https://en.wikipedia.o…

IIRC the rig was moved out of place. they were already having massive problems at that point in the film.

fun facts about the abysss.

1. it's a version of the divine comedy, particularly the inferno.

2. the set still exists as of a several years ago

https://io9.gizmodo.com/take-a-tour-of-the-abandoned-remains...

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#25

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

ducttape12 wrote: post #21

> They now use emergency tanks that carry 40 minutes of air rather than five. Glad to see the change, but why even carry a tank with 5 minutes of reserve? Might as well just plan on holding your breath in that case.

Well, it's better than nothing. That's enough to hold your breath 2-3 times, IIRC. That time means a lot.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#26

Post by nradov »

ducttape12 wrote: post #21

> They now use emergency tanks that carry 40 minutes of air rather than five. Glad to see the change, but why even carry a tank with 5 minutes of reserve? Might as well just plan on holding your breath in that case.

The idea is that if there's a problem with the umbilical, 5 minutes should be enough time for a diver to get back to the bell where they have plenty of gas. But in this case the bell was dragged out of position.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#27

Post by sytelus »

ayakura wrote: post #4

>If you lower the brain temperature down to 30C (86F), it can increase the survival time from 10 to 20 minutes. If you cool the brain to 20C (68F), you can get an hour. Wow, I actually didn't know this until now. Is this method used anywhere in medical procedures to resuscitate or prolong life?

So this may be the basis of cryogenics? If you just cool down in specific way, you can turn off metabolism and then turn back on again at later date?

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#28

Post by ip26 »

ducttape12 wrote: post #21

> They now use emergency tanks that carry 40 minutes of air rather than five. Glad to see the change, but why even carry a tank with 5 minutes of reserve? Might as well just plan on holding your breath in that case.

This is just idle observation, but when you ascend the air in your lungs expands and you are supposed to continuously exhale to prevent lung rupture. Supposedly if you start with a full pair of lungs, you can ascend pretty much from the bottom of the ocean on just one breath because of this.

Also somewhat related, the deeper you go the less time your tank lasts. From what I remember, at 100m, a "5 minute tank" is probably similar in size to a standard scuba tank.

Re: A man who ran out of air at the bottom of the ocean

#30

Post by CrowFly »

sytelus wrote: post #29

Related - David Blaine's world record of holding breath for 17 minutes: https://worldrecordacademy.com/stunts/longest_breath-holding... Which is probably already broken: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/132l2v/i_hold_the_gui...

I love David Blaine, but we should remember he is a _magician_ and they don't always tell the truth.
Post reply on HN