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Free Diving: One of the World's Most Dangerous Sports

guardian.co.uk — Four years ago she was a yoga teacher living with a camel, six cats and a dog. She had never even heard of free diving. Now Sara Campbell, aka Mighty Mouse, is the world champion in one of the world's most dangerous sports. Here she talks to Guardian about her love for free diving.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 22, 2009

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  • analogkid01, on 04/22/2009, -0/+17Dad?
  • DouglasQ, on 04/22/2009, -1/+15I bet you're awesome at parties
  • PterionFracture, on 04/22/2009, -0/+13Her record-breaking dive:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozzNSn_5QS0
  • Surferess, on 04/22/2009, -0/+10You prolly don't like beer pong either!
  • Garofoli, on 04/22/2009, -0/+9Equalize, my young Padawon.
  • amabaie, on 04/22/2009, -0/+8I don't think I could do that, but it does look awesome!
  • spacerobot, on 04/22/2009, -0/+7And my ears hurt after going to the bottom of a 10 foot pool.
  • Ry3687, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7My good friend's brother-in-law died free diving. Apparently he got tangled up in his weights and couldn't reach the surface in time. His body washed up on shore a few days later. :(
  • davidsmero, on 04/22/2009, -0/+7Spearfishing while freediving is the ultimate sport. Nothing like being in the middle of the food chain!
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+7I don't think you could do that either.
  • jacobmorrison, on 04/23/2009, -1/+6The reason why free diving is so dangerous is "shallow water blackout". If you hyperventilate too much you push all your CO2 out of the lungs. That will enable you to stay down longer, but you will use all your oxygen. When you swim back to the surface partial pressure of that remaining oxygen in your lungs fells and you black out just few feet before surfacing.

    Add too much weight and you go down and drown.

    NEVER TAKE MORE THAN 4-5 DEEP BREATHS AND ALWAYS DIVE WITH A BUDDY.
  • cms04t, on 04/22/2009, -0/+5I love diving! Even the kind w/o air its fun. Watch out for that shallow water blackout. It took the paramedics and a lot of luck to revive my friend after he blacked out ascending from around 60'. Talk about a scary experience.
  • Garofoli, on 04/22/2009, -0/+4It may be dangerous but it's so much fun. I've gotten to 8m myself.
  • cly8419, on 04/22/2009, -2/+6At first I read it as "Free Driving" and all I could imagine was an image of a girl in a Mitsubishi Lancer driving down a huge mountain at 80 mph without a road in site.
  • n8f8, on 04/22/2009, -1/+5Big Blue
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+4She can go down on me any time.
  • inactive, on 04/22/2009, -0/+4She is missing something in her life: oxygen.
  • davidsmero, on 04/22/2009, -0/+3I am an avid freediver and have partial hearing in my right ear.
  • davidsmero, on 04/22/2009, -0/+3Very nice, I recommend a book called "Manual of Freediving". This helped me get started a few years ago. It has a lot of breathing techniques and exercises for newcomers.
  • analogkid01, on 04/23/2009, -0/+3He ought to consult a diccionary.
  • blindmelon1, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2"Desitions?"
  • yoda91, on 04/22/2009, -0/+2If you like this you might like the movie The Big Blue by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, The Professional), very interesting movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQQ_HtyH-KA Not a very good trailer though.
  • UwasaWaya, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2No way you could go that deep without equalizing. The pain is beyond what you can tolerate and the damage to the human body would be unbelievable.
  • GoKings, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2Lol you don't even see at all what she looks like.
  • inactive, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2"It's like being rolled up in a big hug." That's a great way to go.
  • whoreable, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2One of the many sports that doesn't play well with weed smoking. That's why I just stick to video games. Even Wii games are too physically exerting.
  • milkmage, on 04/23/2009, -0/+2nah. you can breathe on a mountain - no so much underwater.
    the record for no limit apnea (Where you use a weighted sled to dive) is 214 meters (that's almost 600 feet).
    from surface to 600 feet, and back on one breath with the risk of decompression sickness? there are so many different ways to die freediving vs. climbing w/o ropes.

  • UwasaWaya, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Man, I'm fine with just hitting around 30/40 feet unless I have a scuba tank on my back.

    Lots of fun though.
  • Balanced, on 04/22/2009, -0/+1I've read that a lot of historical free divers have lousy hearing because they've popped their eardrums so much... I prefer to stick to relatively shallow water scuba.
  • hackiavelli, on 04/23/2009, -1/+2Not when you're hauling ass like that. In regular scuba diving you want to ascend/descend at around 1 foot per second. It looks like she was doing around 10 feet per second.
  • Hashshashin, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1i usually take about 20,,,till the back of my head start to hurt,,My Hgb can handle it,i hope,but then again where i go it is 9ms deep ...without extra hyperventilation ,,i would not be able hang out near the floor ,,i will end up going down then up immediately ...
  • MushinVin, on 04/22/2009, -2/+3An excellent movie, for those who don't know.

    Written and directed by Luc Besson (of Leon, The Fifth Element, Le Femme Nikita).
  • pitchblackjava, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1yeah, Sara. You should be surfing the Net.
  • alecks, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1I was trying to figure this out in the article and they didn't mention it.
    What happens when you black out under water, especially after holding your breath for 3+ minutes?? Doesn't the body naturally try to breath in? Is it assumed that passing out = unconsciously inhaling water?
  • Garofoli, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Some people can equalize by moving their jaw, probably what she did.
  • UwasaWaya, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Shallow water blackout is nasty... big part of why diving is so dangerous. My girlfriend works on a tour submarine out here in Hawaii, and they had to search for the corpse of a diver who'd blacked out once. Freaky stuff.
  • rentdn, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Freediving is really challenging sport and it's one of most extremal activities without any doubt . In April was held first Ice-Freediving competition in Norway. I bet this is even more dangerous. I got 2 link from this event.

    http://www.dailyscubadiving.com/news/under-ice-fre ...

    also this is the gallery posted by Fredrik Naumann , who was participating in this event

    http://www.photoshelter.com/c/felixfeatures/galler ...

    Geez it might be cold there

    and also check this too

    A video of one of the world records set in April at Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas. William Trubridge dives to 88m (288 feet) with no fins, weights, or any other assistance.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF4PN8-2YSk
  • blindmelon1, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1That felt weird to digg up..

    But R.I.P, that's sad.
  • hackiavelli, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Oh, I didn't doubt they try. I just doubted the effectiveness.
  • KELLI2L, on 04/23/2009, -0/+1Free diving is extremely enjoyable. From my experience the freedom of not having to wear the oxygen gear is shear joy (U feel like one of the sea creatures) - the freedom is similar to riding a horse bareback, or a motorcycle without a helmet.

    This is a nice story but there are other people who can hold their breath twice as long as she does. Pearl divers held there breath for extreme periods of time. Not too long ago I saw a show about a male diver who held his breath for a minimum of 5-minutes. This lady is the first one that I have heard of - who actually passes out.



  • kdmkdmkdm, on 04/23/2009, -1/+1Whoa-man.
  • eddstar, on 04/23/2009, -1/+1WOman?
  • saltydawkins, on 04/23/2009, -1/+1no fun
  • SquidLips, on 04/23/2009, -0/+0 thought that cave diving was the more dangerous sport, but this was before BASE jumping and wingsuits.
  • Dadfather, on 04/23/2009, -1/+0Hey lady, I'm a world class free baller.
  • inactive, on 04/22/2009, -4/+3Why not see how long you can hold your breath someplace safe, like sitting on the couch or jogging through a soft grassy meadow, and then once that's settled go diving with proper breathing gear? Depriving yourself of oxygen in a place where you can't get more is like drinking and driving - two fun activities that don't go well together.
  • warmtrooper, on 04/23/2009, -2/+0Will the world ever stop producing these idiots?
    Just do some drugs and spare us your extreme sport heroics. Nobody gives a *****.
  • fabriciom, on 04/23/2009, -3/+0I think she is old enought to make her own desitions. Dont you?
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