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Hi =0D=0A= =0D=0A= =0D=0A= This is not a test to try with your buddy but Tim*s adjustable wrench sto= ry reminded me of narcosis incident I had a few years back.=0D=0A= =0D=0A= I was working on a wavebuoy mooring in about 36 msw (on air) off the east= coast of New Zealand. We were deploying various oceanographic instrumen= ts on the seafloor and had lowered another mooring from the surface which= had landed some 20m from where it was supposed to.=0D=0A= =0D=0A= The mooring weighed about 70kg in air and I decided I would pick it up an= d walk over to where I wanted it. This all went to plan and as I put the= mooring down I could feel myself becoming a little more spaced out from = the effort but I had expected as much and wasn*t too worried as I thought= the rest of the dive would not be strenuous.=0D=0A= =0D=0A= Unfortunately the next thing I had to do was to unbolt a large shackle th= at I suspect had been tightened by an 800 lb gorilla. While I was strain= ing to undo the shackle pin (this is the adjustable wrench bit) I noticed= my peripheral vision was beginning to close in but I was almost there so= continued on. It wasn*t until I accidentally dropped the wrench and was= feeling around on the sand for it, that I realised my vision had complet= ely greyed out. =0D=0A= =0D=0A= I was strangely unperturbed by this (perhaps also due to the narcosis) an= d simply lay there and waited for things to clear (which they did after a= bout 30 seconds), then carried on with the job. I was still within no de= co time but decided to make a very slow accent, threw in 2 extra safety s= tops and bummed around at a 7 msw stage bottle for a while worrying about= what might have happened.=0D=0A= =0D=0A= I guess ONE of the things you can take home from this (apart from avoidin= g these sorts of workloads at depth) is that when you have specific tasks= to perform at depths where narcosis is an issue, it is easy to become VE= RY focused on the job at hand and I*ve found it can often become a real e= ffort to *break the spell* and become aware of what is going on around me= and with my gear.=0D=0A= =0D=0A= So...... anyone know where I can get a set of braille tables?=0D=0A= =0D=0A= Later=0D=0A= =0D=0A= .R=0D=0A= =0D=0A= Rod Budd=0D=0A= National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)=0D=0A= Gate 10 Silverdale Rd=0D=0A= Hillcrest=0D=0A= Hamilton=0D=0A= New Zealand=0D=0A= =0D=0A= +64-7-856-7026 bus=0D=0A= r.budd@ni*.cr*.nz*=0D=0A=
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