The Disappearance of the World’s Greatest Free Diver

Re:The Disappearance of the World’s Greatest Free Diver by shorttime on Saturday August 08, 2015 @11:54AM (#10027596)

I'm surprised that she did not have a diving buddy. All of the training I've had with water diving, scuba or freediving, always recommends to have a buddy. The freediving buddy typically waits on top, looking down, to see if the diver has issues. If any issues are encountered, this buddy can potentially save the divers life.

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Re:The Disappearance of the World’s Greatest Free Diver by abandonliberty on Saturday August 08, 2015 @12:10PM (#10027679)

Expanding on what you said, the top 10 metres are by far the most dangerous due to rapidly dropping air pressure in the lungs causing shallow water blackout. For serious freediving, your partner meets you at -10m as you ascend. This can clearly be seen in the fantastic william trubridge arch video. [1]

It's quite common for an instructor to dive alone with students. Even a first level freediver knows how to save someone from a shallow blackout; it's unclear if her diving partners were suitable or if she took excessive risks. This is a good reminder that no one is invincible.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXQbucZUDA

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Re:The Disappearance of the World’s Greatest Free Diver by fabrice_d on Saturday August 08, 2015 @12:13PM (#10027692)

We don't know what happened to her exactly, but if she had an issue while being still deep (more than 20m) that would have been very hard to spot for a buddy, and even harder to do a rescue. She was not alone by the way.

The only way this could have been totally safe would be to dive along a line, using a lanyard to not drift away. This is the setup used in all competition or deep training and this has prevented many casualties.

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Re:The Disappearance of the World’s Greatest Free Diver by abandonliberty on Saturday August 08, 2015 @12:34PM (#10027777)

Still speculative, the original article mentions a lack of spotters and an io9 article mentions a depth of 30-40m.

For her this was child's play: freediving gets exponentially harder the deeper you go. She could've decided to go exploring a bit on the bottom - at that shallow depth she'd have 2+ minutes of bottom time.

With ~5 days of training, a person can get to 30-40m. Then it becomes harder (e.g. the air in your lungs gets squeezed to a smaller volume than a complete and total exhale)

http://io9.com/well-probably-never-know-what-happened-to-fre...

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