24 Hours Underwater

My 17-year-old came up with the idea of raising money for the local YMCA
by spending 24 hours under water. I'd be interested in hearing about
anyone with direct experience at this sort of thing.

Some things are, of course, apparent. We know his SAC rate, and we can
plan the safety divers at 1 CFM to be conservative and add a margin. We
are pretty sure we know how to keep him warm, hydrated, and fed. We'll
bring dive lights in case of a power outage at night. He'll eat a low-
or zero-residue diet for a few days ahead of the event. The LDS is
donating the air and loaning us their entire stock of rental tanks.
We'll get the pool chlorine to the legal minimum to minimize eye and
skin irritation. We've discussed preauthorization for treatment with
the local hospital (2 blocks away) and talked about the most probable
emergencies (hypothermia, dehydration, barotraumas). He'll breath
Nitrox for the last several hours to help stay awake.

But--what are we *not* thinking of? What games work well underwater?
Any thoughts or information born of experience would be most welcome!

John Eells

"JRE" <nothing@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:Ucvuh.1638$JZ1.1226@newsfe11.lga...

> My 17-year-old came up with the idea of raising money for the local YMCA
> by spending 24 hours under water. I'd be interested in hearing about
> anyone with direct experience at this sort of thing.
>
> Some things are, of course, apparent. We know his SAC rate, and we can
> plan the safety divers at 1 CFM to be conservative and add a margin. We
> are pretty sure we know how to keep him warm, hydrated, and fed. We'll
> bring dive lights in case of a power outage at night. He'll eat a low-
> or zero-residue diet for a few days ahead of the event. The LDS is
> donating the air and loaning us their entire stock of rental tanks.
> We'll get the pool chlorine to the legal minimum to minimize eye and
> skin irritation. We've discussed preauthorization for treatment with
> the local hospital (2 blocks away) and talked about the most probable
> emergencies (hypothermia, dehydration, barotraumas). He'll breath
> Nitrox for the last several hours to help stay awake.
>
> But--what are we *not* thinking of? What games work well underwater?
> Any thoughts or information born of experience would be most welcome!
>
> John Eells

For the sake of Pete, put him in a FFM, preferably with comms. If you guys
cant come up with one locally, ping me offline and I'll see what I can do.

Anchor something to the bottom of the pool, with enough room for him to
comfortably get up into, that will contain air (like 25 gallon or larger)
that he can stick his head up into to drink water and eat a granola bar, and
set him up with a pee valve. The WKPP guys used to use big cattle watering
troughs, but they had the cave ceiling to anchor it to. They would just fill
it with gas and stick it to the roof.

Several hours on even a mild OEA can really mess with his lungs and
respiration.

HTH

> Several hours on even a mild OEA can really mess with his lungs and
> respiration.

He'll be in a pool. Why would he be breathing OEA?

Lee

JRE wrote

> But--what are we *not* thinking of? What games work well underwater? Any
> thoughts or information born of experience would be most welcome!

Poker. Plastic cards and plastic chips. Bring other divers in for a few
hands in return for a contribution.

We once took part in an underwater monopoly game for charity. All seats
rotated in that event. Each player chipped in something for the charity in
return for being allowed to play.

How about an evening at the underwater movies. Set up a reasonably big
screen TV where it can be seen from under the water and use waterproof
speakers. I'll bet, if you tried, you'd be able to figure out a way to have
popcorn, hot dogs and even soda.

Lee

Lee Bell wrote:

>>Several hours on even a mild OEA can really mess with his lungs and
>>respiration.
>
>
> He'll be in a pool. Why would he be breathing OEA?
>
> Lee

The thought is to help keep him alert during the wee hours. I'm told
they bleed O2 into casinos at night to keep people from getting tired.
But if it's a bad idea we can pursue other avenues.

--
John Eells

"JRE" <nothing@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:EIwuh.394$JW7.162@newsfe09.lga...

> Hmmmm...have to research that. Maybe we'll hold it to a couple of
> hours. Know where I can find data on this? (I plan to call DAN next
> week, by the way, and see whether they can help with any of this sort of
> information.)

I know the guy you need to contact.

He designs, builds, installs and trains operators on HBO chambers.

Ping me offline and I'll hook you up.

JRE wrote:

> Scott wrote:
>
> <snip - see below>
>
>>
>> For the sake of Pete, put him in a FFM, preferably with comms. If you
>> guys
>> cant come up with one locally, ping me offline and I'll see what I can
>> do.
>
>
> We're working on borrowing one locally--with surface-to-diver comms, if
> we get the one we're after. If we can't, I'll be in touch. (But note
> that we are on the other side of the country from Puget Sound.) I'm
> mostly concerned about him microsleeping at oh-dark-thirty and inhaling
> water around the reg.
>
> However, I did talk to one person in NH who was involved in a similar
> effort (done in a tank in a shopping mall), where there were no problems
> with just using comfortable mouthpieces.
>

I have slept several hours in the water with only my standard reg. It's
no big deal. Generally, you breath wet before it comes out, and wake up.

Sleep face down if you can. Weight your ankles so that you do "fin
pivots".


--
“TAANSTAFL”
__________________________________________________ __________________________

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3
__________________________________________________ __________________________

JRE wrote:
> My 17-year-old came up with the idea of raising money for the local YMCA
> by spending 24 hours under water. I'd be interested in hearing about
> anyone with direct experience at this sort of thing.
>
> Some things are, of course, apparent. We know his SAC rate, and we can
> plan the safety divers at 1 CFM to be conservative and add a margin. We
> are pretty sure we know how to keep him warm, hydrated, and fed. We'll
> bring dive lights in case of a power outage at night. He'll eat a low-
> or zero-residue diet for a few days ahead of the event. The LDS is
> donating the air and loaning us their entire stock of rental tanks.
> We'll get the pool chlorine to the legal minimum to minimize eye and
> skin irritation. We've discussed preauthorization for treatment with
> the local hospital (2 blocks away) and talked about the most probable
> emergencies (hypothermia, dehydration, barotraumas). He'll breath
> Nitrox for the last several hours to help stay awake.
>
> But--what are we *not* thinking of? What games work well underwater?
> Any thoughts or information born of experience would be most welcome!
>
> John Eells

My biggest concern would be hypothermia followed by dehydration. Even
in "warm" pool water, the body's core temperature will fall. The second
concern, dehydration, would come from the body's natural elimination
process plus breathing air with virtually no moisture content.

I am suspecting he will be relatively shallow but still, that much time
underwater breathing compressed air, I have no idea how much if any of a
deco obligation he may encounter.

I would suggest you run this entire scenario by DAN to discuss your
concerns and solicit their input.

nitespark wrote:

> My biggest concern would be hypothermia followed by dehydration. Even
> in "warm" pool water, the body's core temperature will fall. The second
> concern, dehydration, would come from the body's natural elimination
> process plus breathing air with virtually no moisture content.

As I said in a prior post, we'll have the pool more than warm, and take
other measures to prevent hypothermia. We're also going to make sure he
pees at least hourly by bringing him fluids--water and Gatorade, at
least in CamelBaks--and making sure he drinks enough from them! (Any
information about appropriate fluid intake would be great to have.)

> I am suspecting he will be relatively shallow but still, that much time
> underwater breathing compressed air, I have no idea how much if any of a
> deco obligation he may encounter.

As I understand it, no deco will be required. The partial pressure of
N2 at 10' isn't high enough to cause problems upon surfacing regardless
of how long he stays there.

Take this with a large grain of salt: If I understand it correctly, the
PPN2 has to be above 1.5-2.0 ATM [I forget which] to cause bubble
formation. The PPN2 at 10' is 1.022 ATM, and at 8' [a more likely
depth, except for his feet, and certainly a more likely average depth]
it's .98 ATM.

However, I am certainly *not* the world's foremost expert on deco
theory. So if anyone has hard info to the contrary, I am of course very
interested in having it!

> I would suggest you run this entire scenario by DAN to discuss your
> concerns and solicit their input.

Yep. I plan to do that next week.

--
John Eells

On Jan 26, 4:33 pm, nitespark <nitesp...@cox.net> wrote:

> Even
> in "warm" pool water, the body's core temperature will fall. The second
> concern, dehydration, would come from the body's natural elimination
> process plus breathing air with virtually no moisture content.

He's surrounded by fresh water. He can drink some in a pinch. There's
no reason for the core temp to fall if the pool temp is warm enough.
It doesn't have to be 98.6, either, due to the body's internal heat
generation and insulation. Somewhere around 95 degrees is warm enough
to sustain a naked human indefinitely, and that number is obviously
lower if he's wearing a wetsuit that helps maintain a warmer layer of
water. Of course the potential of raising money might increase if he
were naked, and even more if he were a she, but that's beside the
point.

> I am suspecting he will be relatively shallow but still, that much time
> underwater breathing compressed air, I have no idea how much if any of a
> deco obligation he may encounter.

In a pool? None. There's a hotel that's deeper than that where you
can stay overnight. Otherwise, how long of a 10' stop should he do for
a 10' max depth?

My biggest concern is that it will be obvious he's peeing in the pool
at some point. Doesn't anyone care about that?