Why is It Called The Bends When There is No Bending, and the Most Gruesome Accident

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[HMAlaska]

The bends is certainly rough and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but I think “most gruesome way to die” goes to Hisashi Ouchi and the Tokaimura criticality accident.

[manning]

As an advanced open water certified scuba diver (max rated depth of 30m), it's very common for us to do a decompression stop at around 5m, just in case, even on "no decompression dives".

One thing that wasn't mentioned, is the transition from diving, to airplane travel.

Just because a dive has no need for decompression, it doesn't mean you are safe from DCS, getting into an airplane or even driving up a tall mountain can push the pressure difference past conventional dive tables, which assume you'll be exiting and remaining at or close to sea level.

[MrBusby]

As a former professional diver, well done. Facts and figures all correct. Well researched and presented.

[greenbimoon]

Simon, as a diving Instructor, this was well put together. Nice to finally hear someone mentioning Oxygen toxicity, especially as I cringe every time I hear a news item mention we breathe O2 while scuba diving, and not the compressed air that we do. Also your follow through of commercial diving and technical deep diving. Thank you

[TrailRat]

It's almost like we don't belong that far underwater!! 😅

[shaylasosa]

My papaw had a friend who was on the rescue squad in a city close to where we live. He had accidentally grabbed tanks with the wrong gas mixture mixture for his dive (they were doing body recovery in a lake) and the man asphixiated and passed out underwater. They rapidly brought the guy to the surface and put him in a recompression chamber and he ended up having a heart attack in the chamber and died. Diving is really fun but you have to be really really careful with everything.

[HayTatsuko]

Nitrogen narcosis nearly took the life of Jacques-Yves Cousteau during a deep dive in 1953. He's the one who referred to it as the "rapture of the deep" because he wanted to go further down. Fortunately for him, and for us, some small part of his mind resisted said urge, and he instead ascended to safety, and went on to advance oceanography for years to come. I believe there is an account of this near-mishap with the Aqua-Lung in his 1954 book _The Silent World_ (co-written with fellow diver Frédéric Dumas).

[RAS_Squints]

Honestly I like ads in the front of the vid instead of in the middle on the vid. I tend to watch the ad this way ratter than fast forwarding when the ad is in the middle

[Nomadca]

Shortly after I first received my open water scuba qualification my friend, a scuba instructor, took me on a dive to 130 ft, the max for my qualifications, so that I would experience nitrogen narcosis first hand. I'm glad he did. It's like an instant high, everything was colorful and pretty and I felt so carefree, then he brought me up 20 ft and it was instantly gone. During that brief experience I came close to ditching my reg and tanks and just go sightseeing. It was a scary and sobering experience. It's only one of the reasons we dive in pairs, never alone.

[stocktonjoans]

A really good feature of UK recreational diver certification is that the lowest level teaches about decompression sickness and how to avoid / mitigate it even though it only qualifies you to dive to a depth of 19 meters where there is a very low risk of it happening, so by the time you are diving deep enough for it to be an issue the knowledge and techniques used are already ingrained as habit.

[ilovecatvideos]

The 2009 report from the Buford Dolphin suggested that it was faulty equipment rather than human error that was responsible for this gruesome accident.

I only mention this because of the tarnished name and easy scapegoating of a man who also tragically died in the accident.

Thanks for another great video. 💕 🐱

[lazytommy]

"There are people out there, no thankyou!"

Simon whistler is my spirit animal, i am convinced

[sethchapman]

My hats off to anyone able to Sat. dive. Personally I can't think of a more terrifying job.

[coconyt]

How you managed to present so much information around this subject so eloquently in just 15 minutes, or actually less than that, is rather impressive. Very little that was new to me, but... wow.

[matthewlafrance]

I remember learning about the bends in Elementary school. The lesson always stuck with me

[JUBUTR]

I appreciate whoever edited this, using a screenshot from a certain scene in “Total Recall.” Now the sounds Arnold makes as his eyeballs bulged out of his head are stuck in mine.

[DKN]

From what I remember, the sudden drop in pressure did not blow that one diver to bits on its own. Rather, since he was standing so close to the chamber/bell connection when the dumbass outside decoupled them too soon, he was sucked through the narrow gap that had been opened between the decom chamber and the prematurely-detached diving bell, a gap far smaller than he was, and so he was crunched down / ripped apart in order to, uh, "fit" through the gap. Look up the trope "Fold-Spindle Mutilation".

[Stonehorn]

I’m a big wave tow surfer (40-50’ max, not the Nazare 90’ waves rushing into cliffs kind of stuff), been surfing since childhood since I grew up on a farm on the coast of BC.

We were surfing in Jaws in Maui’s North Shore, waves were about 45 feet.

There were divers nearby, and one got caught hard by an incoming swell. I was getting towed into a wave when the panic broke out. The divers buddy has to go down almost 200’ to get him, and he was almost out of air. He went straight down, grabbed his buddy who was out of air, he had no time to stop for decompression, and ended up with an awful case of the bends. The original guy who went under died, and the guy who saved him has no feelings in his legs. He can walk, with crutches, but still has no feeling below the waist.

It was frightening for me as well, because while my partner stayed with me, the designated safety ski took off to help, so If I wiped out and got pounded, I inly had one guy looking for me (we wear flotation vests underneath our suits, but waves don’t care about vests and can keep you under for as much as a minute). Thankfully I rode it out and we were able to stay out if the way and not complicate the rescue.

[Dan-uyld]

As a PADI dive master, cave diver, BSAC CEO, shark fighter, free diver, navy seal who once dived to the center of the earth itself:

well done incredibly well researched topic and well presented.

[wutangalex]

Another excellent episode Fact Boy. Very informative as always. Thank you to you and the team.