Herbert Nitsh - The world's deepest dive without an oxygen tank

Dubbed the "world's deepest dive without oxygen" , Herbert Nitsch, an Austrian citizen, drank to a depth of 253.2m in the Spetses Sea, Greece, in June 2007. To date, Herbert Nitsch holds 33 world records for deep diving, including holding his breath for 9 minutes and 4 seconds.

An Austrian freestyle athlete, Herbert Nitsch was born on April 20, 1970 and was a pilot for Tyrolean Airways. He said: 'From the time I was 6 years old, I loved swimming and diving. In the tiny swimming pool at my house, I once dived for more than a minute, making my mother think I was drowning. From the shore, she jumped down with her clothes on, pulling me up while shouting for my father. Until she saw me open my eyes to smile, she gave me a painful butt.

Herbert Nitsch after recovering in a 253.2m dive.

In 2001, the first world record that Nitsch achieved was a diving depth of 131m. Next, Nitsch again won a record with 4 criteria set by the World Swimming Federation: It is static apnea (meaning apnea in a state of total inactivity), dynamic apnea (stopping breathing while still breathing). diving), free-sinking (stopping breathing to allow the body to sink on its own) and active apnea without wearing a diving suit . Next, in 2002, he broke his own record for 'unlimited diving' with a depth of 214m. All without oxygen tanks.

For divers who do not use oxygen tanks, the most dangerous thing for them is blood nitrogen poisoning . It occurs when diving more than 18m deep. At that time, nitrogen gas in the blood will form nitrogen bubbles, which travel into the lungs and into tissues in the body such as the biceps and thighs. If, out of panic or loss of self-control, a diver comes to the surface too quickly, they will experience first memory loss, convulsions, then paralysis of the limbs, and then the whole body. If they are lucky to survive, they will also be paralyzed for the rest of their lives.

Therefore, in many countries around the world, diving associations prohibit recreational divers without oxygen from diving deeper than 12m, and from 12m to 30m, a diving certificate is required. From 40m and above must have an oxygen tank and must be accompanied by a diving instructor if the diver does not have a certificate confirming that he has mastered the use of the oxygen system.

Back to Herbert Nitsch's record of deep diving, after training with a device called a 'torpedo', which pulled him into the water very quickly, at 9 am on June 6, 2007, Nitsch set off. in the Spetses Sea, Greece with some depth gauges, heart rate monitor, temperature control and an airless balloon, a can of compressed air. According to calculations, before emerging, Nitsch will activate the compressed air tank to make the balloon inflate, giving him enough oxygen to breathe when he reaches the surface of the water. In just 9 minutes, Nitsch was 253.2m deep and 4 seconds later, just as he was about to come up, he activated the oxygen balloon. The total time Nitsch took to hold his breath to reach the world record depth was 9 minutes 4 seconds.

Fast descent, slow rise, it is the principle of all divers to prevent nitrogen gas in the blood from forming nitrogen bubbles, killing the diver or disabling them for life. It took Nitsch 3 hours and 37 minutes to reach the surface, but he still developed symptoms of decompression. Fortunately, when he was taken to the decompression chamber, he recovered, contrary to experts' predictions that he would be confined to a wheelchair for a long time. Recalling this, he said:'My original plan was to stop every 10m to stop for 1 minute to decompress, but when I got to 100m, I had a feeling of dizziness, lost the concept of time so I skipped the decompression stage. As I neared the surface of the water, I suddenly regained consciousness. To avoid sudden depressurization, I went down to a depth of 10m and stayed there for 20 minutes. By the time I was completely on shore, the emergency team quickly took me to the decompression room at Athens hospital…'.

From then until 2012, Nitsch continuously set more world records in 8 categories according to the standards of the World Diving Association. In total, he dived 34 times without oxygen, at least 62m deep in the condition of no protective clothing, no propellers, only swimming trunks on his body! Medical investigations show that Nitsch's brain can withstand total hypoxia for about 10 minutes, unlike normal people, it only takes 3 to 5 minutes of hypoxia to destroy nerve cells. recovery, causing permanent damage that causes the person to live a vegetative life. Similarly, the hypoxia in Nitsch's lungs can last for 10 minutes without the consequences of respiratory failure, not to mention that Nitsch's heart rate when diving is only 30 to 40 beats/min in normal. usually it's 80.

After 2012, Nitsch retired. Currently, he makes a living designing ships - including submarines. In response to a question from Divers Magazine why he didn't open a diving school, Nitsch replied: 'Teaching someone how to dive is easy, but whether they can dive is the problem'.

In 2098, Italian astronomer Vincenzo Casulli, when he discovered the asteroid number 295471 according to the convention of the World Astronomical Union, named this asteroid after Herbert Nitsch named it in honor of the divers. deepest in the world. From there on the astronomical map it was called the asteroid Herbertnitsch.