4 Breath Hold Swimmers Pass Out Simultaneously

[ZAquaman]

Seattlest: Mystery Ailment Sends Four Synchronized Swimmers to Hospital

Saw this on the news last night. Four Synchronized swimmers passed out during a pool training session. Health officials found the chlorine levels in the pool and air to be normal.

Anyone here care to speculate? I often wonder how healthy it is to do breathold training in a chlorinated pool...

[trux]

I doubt that normal chlorine level (that they claimed to have) could cause simultaneous blackout at several swimmers. If it was the case, I think we would see many more blackouts among synchronized swimmers and freedivers training in chlorine pools.

I suspect that more likely they followed inappropriate training instructions. Possibly hyperventilated and then attempted a maximal breath-hold. That's only my speculation, though. It would be nice to hear what exactly they did prior the blackouts.

EDIT: also if the water was unusually warm, it could have contributed to premature blackout. Another possibility is that it were not hypoxic, but rather hypercapnic blackouts, if they performed breath-holds after heavy physical effort. I find it less probable though - I believe that getting into such dangerous hypercapnic level and still being able to push through a breath-hold until blackout is not so easy at so young girls.

[Erik]

"Simultaneously" could be a broader period of time than we think.... if they were all doing a long breathhold, probably nobody would notice they were all unconscious until someone got worried and jumped in to find them all "simultaneously" unconscious.

[Observer]

CNN covered this as well. The story I saw said it was indeed really simultaneous.

[Whopperhead]

I do believe those women could put a real hurting on someone! They look like they are ready for battle. "Let me hear your war cry.."

- I do hope they are doing well.

I wonder if anyone had gotten video of this? It would be interesting to see what happened. Synchronized swimming is a extreme sport- IMO.

[trux]

Originally Posted by Whopperhead

Synchronized swimming is a extreme sport- IMO.

It is not that bad My daughter did it too. It becomes extreme if you do it on the top level and spend 4 hours a day (or more) in the pool. But that's true for any other sport done on the top level too.

The breath-holds in synchronized swimming are rather short. I saw some statistics and in average they are 6 seconds. The longest are (if I remember well) around 20 secs. The entire performance (or training) is not really hypoxic, but rather hypercapnic.

I read a little bit more detailed reports of the accident (here and here), but none of them describe the exercises they performed. They blame a magic dead-zone of chlorine floating on that place, but I do not really buy it easily. Chlorine poisoning would cause pulmonary edema and I think it could be easily diagnosed (well, perhaps it was). I would really like to hear what their training and breath-up looked like just before that breath-hold, and how long the breath-hold was.

In the articles, the trainer comes out of the accident as a hero, but before giving her a medal, I hope they investigate properly what exactly happened. Perhaps she indeed is a hero saving four lives, but it is also not completely impossible she is responsible for the mess.

[billieball]

Interesting occurrence, to be sure. However, I agree with Trux in that an overabundance of chlorine would cause a much different physiological response than "passing out." My father was working with chrlorine in a pool pump house many years ago, and breathed in an extremely large bit of the commercial-quantitiy gas. He began coughing and spitting up sputum tinged with blood...went to hospital and all...but never once came close to losing consciousness. Anyway, that's my two cents.
--Billie

[apneaboy]

Did anyone think to test for Methane??

A mate of mine passed out the other day during a static session, i apologised and left.

[Erik]

^^ Lol!! ^^

[Bill McIntyre]

Originally Posted by trux

It is not that bad My daughter did it too. It becomes extreme if you do it on the top level and spend 4 hours a day (or more) in the pool. But that's true for any other sport done on the top level too.

I guess extreme is a relative term, but I've never heard of four, or even one, sprinters, middle distance runners, or marathoners at the top level blacking out and dying. They cramp up and don't finish well.

My wife has a funny film of me pushing too hard at the end of a marathon. A hamstring cramped up, and I came hobbling in for the last one hundred yards. I was in no danger.

[trux]

Originally Posted by Bill McIntyre

I guess extreme is a relative term, but I've never heard of four, or even one, sprinters, middle distance runners, or marathoners at the top level blacking out and dying.

That's right, but no one ever heard about such case in synchronized swimming either. Even a single black out is extremely rare in synchronized swimming. It means that there was either indeed a problem with some gas, or it was a serious methodical failure of the trainer (for example letting all the girls doing a max apnea attempt in the same time, after strong hyperventilation).

Well, I may be wrong, and there might have been some unknown toxin in the air, but I suspect at least partial failure at the trainer was the cause anyway. From the description in the articles I understood that the girls did apnea training (not figure exercises) just at the moment. And if they blacked out (even if with the help of an unknown substance), they likely were already close to serious hypoxia anyway. It means they did some performance pretty close (or over) their limits. I am sorry, but in underwater sports you never let an entire group doing maximal apnea attempt in the same time! You always do it individually with each member of the group, carefully and closely surveying them.

Please note that this is all just a plain speculation, and my comments may be completely off. I know very little about the circumstances, and my comments are only based on the sparse details available in the articles.

[wolleneugebauer]

[apneaboy]

Legs all up.... loads of bubbles....serious pressure shown in the face and you lot laughed and i was right all along

pfffrrttttt