cave air pockets

[Disco850]

I know its dangerous to breathe the air in cave pockets I was wanting to know what is the exact danger of doing it? Passing out from prolonged use and ascending with the a single ir in your lungs is dangerous too but what about a single breath or maybe two? What's the danger? Thank you

 

[Scuba G]

the danger is of not knowing whats in them, methane/carbon monoxide etc, due to the nature of a cave, these pockets may not have had fresh air in them for many years, or even never, not worth taking a chance to be out of breath and be intoxicated too. Unless you know these pockets are feed from a reliable source never chance it, its different for a diver as they can test it and go back to their reg, but even then its not something I would do, way too risky.

 

[freedivinmike]

Disco, Never do it! There was a young man at Blue Spring in your state a couple years ago that very nearly lost his life doing this very thing.

 

[Disco850]

Ok I understand what your saying I got the idea while freediving into a cave and watching a divers bubbles flowing into one of the pockets. I took a couple breaths and didn't notice any ill effects. It made for a really neat day. The cavern is huge and has a huge opening so I wasn't concerned with getting lost, trapped or silted in. I've scuba dove the entire cave system there and im very much comfortable there.

 

[cdavis]

ScubaG got it right, you just don't know whats in the air. In the Blue Springs case, the air pocket was used scuba diver's air. Fine when you breath it at depth, but it appears that the low 02 content of the used air led to classic BO after the freediver breathed it and stayed down some more. One or two breaths would be plenty to cause a problem. Since he was diving without an attentive buddy, the guy is very lucky to be alive. Its a pure crapshoot, bad on scuba, much much more dangerous freediving.

Connor

 

[octopus]

It is not air pockets - it is gas pockets.

 

[trux]

Besides the risks mentioned above, you also risk a barotrauma on the ascent if you take a breath from a gas pocket at depth and forget to exhale on the ascent. Then, you also risk a DCS accident - even at a bottom time much shorter than on scuba (due to the high CO2 during a breath-hold). The risk of breathing in an unknown gas does not mean only a risk of intoxication (methane, carbon monoxid, high CO2, ...), but can also confuse your urge to breathe, possibly increasing the risk of blacking out.

 

[Disco850]

It sounds like its a bad idea so ill quit doing it and continue to work on my breath hold.