Herbert Nitsch Recovering Well after achieving World Record depth

[trux]

Does anyone know how big the aqex is now?

On the available photos from the latest attemp, the bottle still looks the same. It looks like maximally a 2l coke bottle, which is strange, because Herbert describes on his blog he fills it at 16m using reverse packs. That sounds strange since at 16 (2.6 bars) he would put just the surface equivalent of 2x2.6 l = 5.2 l of air into the bottle. At his TLC of 10 liters + 5 liters of packing (data from his blog), it would meen he dives still with ~10 liters of air in lungs (or ~7 liters of nitrogen).

 

[Simos]

On the available photos from the latest attemp, the bottle still looks the same. It looks like maximally a 2l coke bottle, which is strange, because Herbert describes on his blog he fills it at 16m using reverse packs. That sounds strange since at 16 (2.6 bars) he would put just the surface equivalent of 2x2.6 l = 5.2 l of air into the bottle. At his TLC of 10 liters + 5 liters of packing (data from his blog), it would meen he dives still with ~10 liters of air in lungs (or ~7 liters of nitrogen).

I was thinking exactly the same thing last week Trux, maybe at the later stage we could get some more details...

 

[watts]

Yeh Erez and I saw this. I first thought it was a smaller bottle like 600ml but those type of bottles go up to 3 litres I think. Still not the right numbers though.

 

[ThomasB]

Yeh Erez and I saw this. I first thought it was a smaller bottle like 600ml but those type of bottles go up to 3 litres I think. Still not the right numbers though.

Maybe he doesn't pack fully?

 

[Simos]

Maybe he doesn't pack fully?

Hmmm - in my naive and inexperienced mind there is no reason not to pack fully on these attempts (apart perhaps of some increased chance of squeeze but I am not sure about this). You will be exhaling a big part of the air into a bottle anyway and surely it can't hurt having more air in the bottle. You can always make sure you are left with the amount you want in your lungs by getting a bigger bottle.

 

[ThomasB]

Hmmm - in my naive and inexperienced mind there is no reason not to pack fully on these attempts (apart perhaps of some increased chance of squeeze but I am not sure about this). You will be exhaling a big part of the air into a bottle anyway and surely it can't hurt having more air in the bottle. You can always make sure you are left with the amount you want in your lungs by getting a bigger bottle.

Time wise such a NLT dive could be done on empty lung , maybe packing less is useful to avoid nitrogen build up and narcosis.

 

[Simos]

Time wise such a NLT dive could be done on empty lung , maybe packing less is useful to avoid nitrogen build up and narcosis.

I don't think having a bit of extra air in the lungs in the first 16m will make much difference.... After 16m or so the air will be in the bottle anyway - if you pack a bit more, you could just take a bigger bottle I would guess.

Also you wouldn't have do it on empty - in theory you could inhale air from the bottle on the way up, say at 20m and use that air for a slow ascent.

 

[ThomasB]

I don't think having a bit of extra air in the lungs in the first 16m will make much difference.... After 16m or so the air will be in the bottle anyway - if you pack a bit more, you could just take a bigger bottle I would guess.

Also you wouldn't have do it on empty - in theory you could inhale air from the bottle on the way up, say at 20m and use that air for a slow ascent.

just wild guessing. My idea is that:

Coke bottle is a must because of sponsorship. Bottle has a max size, Europe is 2 liters. Which should be enough for equalizing to 214 and more. Basically he pack as much as needed in order to avoid having too much air in his lungs _after_ he fills the bottle.

 

[growingupninja]

Interesting i did not know that it was common practice to stop and breath from a tank. This is kind of a let down quite honestly as ive always so proudly told people how amazingly people dive very deep all on a single breath. Clearly i was wrong as it seems thats not the case after a certain depth.

This confuses me as herbert appearantly surfaced and then went back down to breath from oxygen. Why did he surface if he already had a tank to breath from? Maybe he had to throw up? Or am i understanding this wrong? The diver stops on the way up and breaths from a tank. He dosent surface and then go back down to decompress right? All the deep dives ive watched on video the diver swims all the way to the suface on his own breath.

Scuba divers typically stop on the way to surface at least once and hang for a while before finishing the ascent. What Herbert and other deep divers are doing is ascending to the surface all on the breath they started with then quickly going BACK down to a relatively shallow depth and breathing from a tank to decompress. Scuba divers sometimes also do this (ascend without obligatory deco stop, then as quickly as possible return to a shallower depth and hang for a while) but it is controversial and more of an emergency protocol. What Eric is describing is doing the deco stop after surfacing same as Herbert but in apnea, without a tank. Bend and mend; what marine mammals do.

What Herbert did and what Eric described are not common practice. There are only a handful of freedivers in the world hitting the depths where that becomes necessary after one dive.

 

[trux]

As I wrote the information about the lung capacity and the details of the dive come directly from Herbert's blog. He tells he has the TLC of 10 liters, but that he packs 15l before the dive. He then blows the air into the equex bottle (he now calls it A-quix) in the depths of 16m. There are several photos of Herb with the bottle, and it definitely does not look bigger than 2l. On one of them I'd even wonder whether it is 2 liters at all, but I guess it must be.

So if he leaves with 15 liters, fills 2 liters at 16m, that lets him descending still with 10 liters of air in the lungs. That sounds rather a lot. In comparison, Sebastien Murat who just in these days attempts to do a 703 feet NLT dive on FRC, descends with around five times less nitrogen already from the surface. But he does not need the air for equalizing.

Another issue with Herb's method is that he reintroduces the air (including the N2) into his sinus at depth. At the bottom plate the difference of partial pressures is 25/1, and the sinus mucus is particularly well permeable for nitrogen, hence the absorption rate is very rapid even without having the air in the lungs. The absorption of nitrogen in sinus is well documented in the medical literature - in fact it is the pain trigger at sinusitis or at a blocked sinus - the nitrogen gets absorbed by the tissue, hence it creates partial vacuum in the sinus cavities, and hence the pain. And that's at 1 bar of pressure, when there is minimal gradient of partial pressures. At the mentioned gradient of 25/1, the speed of absorption is many, many folds higher.

And then, from what I saw and read, I believe Herbert re-inhales the air from the sinus on the ascent. I may be wrong, but that's what I understood. So in this way he gets plenty of the nitrogen back into his lungs at already quite great depth.

All this together, it means a NLT diver even with an Equex gets many folds time more saturated with N2 than an FRC diver.

But then again, from the report we have at this moment, it is not at all clear whether Herbert suffered a collapse of the trachea, a DCS hit, some other problems, or a mixture of different problems. In one of the blog entries it looks like even the doctors do not really know what happened. I hope though that some details will be revealed later - it is ultimately important to the community, since similar problems may soon start hitting also the standard competitive depth disciplines.

 

[chrismar]

Without any protocol or verification of the record, it becomes even more of a stunt. If this is considered a success, than almost anything could be.

Herbert is already the deepest in no limits. I sincerely hope he doesn't try for his deeper dives as I strongly doubt that he'll make it to 300m without problems. The statistics on deep no limits are bad enough already - I'd hate to see them get worse.

 

[freeln2]

Sorry, do you hate also spaceflights?

 

[pehtran]

re: Chrismar... Rainhold Messner:

We go to a place where we can die just so that we will not die. This is an art. If there is no danger of death there is no art.... Mortal danger is the key ingredient of alpinism.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

That's actually an ok point.

 

[Haydn]

Lets not start calling Herberts dive a stunt. Otherwise all 'failed' dives become stunts. This dive was carefully conceived, trained for, developed and carried out. To reach otherwise unreachable depths, Herbert has modified current equipment to enable him. (all sports at Herberts level of progression need purpose built additions, otherwise we would all be running to the South Pole in trainers and T shirts.) Herberts is a great approach. Remember, once we were all diving with fins, until we became aware of monofins.

Its all about getting down there and back again, without assistance.

What counts as assistance? Well, certainly it can be argued that having a Doctor (just in case) is assistance or support. Even though the dive is usually well over before the Doc gets involved. How many of us have done a deep dive, got a PB or NR and then sat down for a few puffs of Os? Its not cheating and does not reduce the vailidty of the dive.

From what little info I have read on Herberts dive is that he was successful only if he was escorted to the surface, but unsuccessful if he was assisted to the surface. Being assisted back down is irrelevant.

Once on the surface, he then has (having made a successful dive), to swim through a few beurocratic hoops which Aida call protocols, for Aida to judge whether a successful dive becomes a World Record.

So we have two standards. One regarding what constitutes a successful dive and one that turns that dive into a World Record. In fact there is a third, that is whether the dive fulfills other criteria that Herbert imposes upon the dive. This dive may not have fullfilled all of Herberts criteria for him to call it successful.

However, it seems to me that if Aida were not invited or removed themselves, then Herbert will be fully aware that an Aida WR status on a successful dive would not have been part of his criteria.

I must say, I am with Trux on this. The list of non or lost status dives is a disgrace. It is a shame when it seems that protocols carry more weight than the dive.

We could be arguing protocols, but thats for a different thread.

We are all on common ground though, when we all wish Herbert the very best and as he continues to inspire us.

Just to Edit. Maybe in Herberts case, if medical intervention is immediatly required (beyond basic safety procedures) which appears to have been the case this time, that would be sufficient to make a dive unsuccesful. Freediving will always make a dive unsucessful in this regard when the diver cannot save himself. Whereas mountaineers still claim summits despite extreme medical intervention once they get back down.

 

[Kars]

Sebastien Murat dives exhale, and if I recall correctly claims not to experience narcosis nor DCS. Will exhale NL will be the way forward? We might see it within a week. I wonder how he equalises though.

Hopefully does this possible dcs episode of Herbert not compromise his future plans.

 

[trux]

Seb floods his sinuses. I asked him this question in another thread, and he confirmed that. At Herbert we still do not have any official word whether it was really a DCS accident, or rather some kind of barotrauma, or another problem, or a combination of multiple issues.

 

[growingupninja]

Seb floods his sinuses. I asked him this question in another thread, and he confirmed that. At Herbert we still do not have any official word whether it was really a DCS accident, or rather some kind of barotrauma, or another problem, or a combination of multiple issues.

Sebastion must experience a staggering dive response in that condition. Does he also dive without goggles of any sort for his deepest dives?

 

[trux]

Does he also dive without goggles of any sort for his deepest dives?

No goggles :

also Seb's sled is rather rudimentary in comparison with Herb's interplanetary rocket. It is rather closer to skandalopetra. Back to the roots!

 

[chrismar]

re: Chrismar... Rainhold Messner:

You're aware of who that is you're quoting?

Messner was the first man to do a completely unassisted ascent of Everest - no buddy and no supplementary oxygen. He had nobody to pick up the pieces if it all went wrong and had no additional assistance. Pretty much the exact opposite of no limits, surely?

I remain pretty horrified at what people are considering success. Everyone has their own version I guess(Stig's survival rules would be my favourite).

Ignoring the fact that he's in hospital, does anyone who thinks this was a success actually know what happened? Escorted means to me he was carried. Safety divers always surface with you, so if that was all that happened it wouldn't have rated a mention. There is no video available and we don't have a neutral observer (like a judge) on site to validate anything. It makes it hard to find out what's actually occurred, especially since sponsors have paid a lot for this and they are the only ones reporting.

In other news, I'm planning to break the 1000 feet mark first. I'm not inviting judges, but a mate will blog about it. We'll let you know once I succeed!