Ultimate breath up video guide!

[Jo_duiker]

Hi jo_duiker.
thank you for your complements.
I'm sorry but i think your fuelgauge model is flawed, because if the fuel is O2, the what is the CO2?
Anothe important point is that hyperventilation INCREASES O2 consumption, draining the O2 tank faster then normal.
The urge to breath is only based on the CO2 amount in your blood. That amound gets quickly lowered by over breathing/hyperventilation. The result is that even though the body is burning more O2 to rebalance the abnormally low CO2 level, the O2 will run out before the CO2 level reaches the treshhold levels to alarm the diver to get fresh air.
The body does NOT alarm you for low O2!
One could drain an recompressiontank of O2 and peopl would only feel tired and yawn before passing out.

I hope this posted helped to clear up the last confusion of the fuel anology which i think is a confusing oversimplification. I'm sorry but I had to correct this.

Kars,

You are right, the analogy is not able to account for all the aspects of hyperventilation. It is uncomplete and also confusing indeed. Thanks for correcting me!

(Still, if I may admit, the analogy helped me to understand even better than I already did that a blackout can occur without any warning signs at all. Likewise: I'll be totally surprised to see my car shutting down when its fuel runs out if I don't know the fuel gauge is broken or that someone has messed with it to make it go slower than it should).

Youbuur, sorry to hijack your thread!