Very good clip (excuse me!) if one wants to know what a blackout is, thanks for posting. It looks awful because Erik turns incredibly blue and the eyes are discustingly dead. It's also good cause you can see how quickly the diver comes back when the safety diver blows him in the face (are they shouting 'blow him in the face' in the background?); I'd educate safety divers from footage like this.
It's not the worst blackout I've ever seen, though; Hubert Maier (Germany) suffered a terrible blackout during the Ibiza world champs in 2001, when he cramped up in the legs going up from 70m constant (not fun!). He swam with his arms most of the way up until he blacked out some 5m from the surface. The safety diver gets him to the boat blacked out, and the doctor has to pry his mouth open with a plastic tube where after he starts to breathe again. A few seconds after that, this weird mix of blood (probably from the sinuses) and spit comes out of his mouth and runs down his neck. Absolutely awful to watch, being a fellow freediver. Even though Hubert a few moments later is walking around on the boat, perfectly recovered.
I have the video footage on a Swedish copyrighted freediving documentary (Pal VHS), so it's not online, I'm sorry.
Chris Engelbrecht, Copenhagen
