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I saw the film `Abyss' on (UK) Channel 4 TV on Sunday 4 Dec 1994 evening. I
saw the liquid-breathing set on it. (The film ends unexpectedly: I won't say
any more, I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen the film.) But
it raised these points about liquid-breathing:-
(1) The set had a hard helmet but no mouth-nose mask inside it. That looks
like it would have an excessive dead-space taht would accumulate (not stale
air here but) stale liquid. And his eyes would preferably have to be protected
from liquid that had been in his mouth, to avoid conjunctivitis infections.
(2) The film writer correctly realized that he couldn't talk with his larynx
full of liquid.
(3) On the film he had a bout of nervous system effects caused by pressure.
(4) As he goes down, his middle ears would fill with the fluid via the
Eustachian tubes. That would cause two effects which aren't in the film:-
(a) Likely he would be hard of hearing due to the movements of the middle
ear ossicles being damped by being in liquid. (This happened with a diver who
I knew, who somehow with intact eardrums flooded his middle ears via his
Eustachian tubes. When his head was in some positions, he was hard of hearing
because the ossicles were submerged.) How much would this be compensated for
underwater by conduction through his skull?, since his head was submerged.
(When he was in air with his helmet sealed and flooded before the dive, people
had to shout close up so he could hear. That the film did get right.)
(b) As he goes down, the original 1-bar middle-earful of air would remain,
compressed into a small corner. As he came up, this would re-expand, and the
liquid (fluorocarbon) in the middle ear, far more viscous than air, would have
to be given time to exit via the Eustachian tube without air pressure getting
high enough to burst the eardrum. Ditto his sinuses, likely.
(5) When he got back into air afterwards, he took his helmet off while it
was flooded, and the liquid in his helmet, and the liquid which he expelled
from his lungs, went on the floor. I guess that (a) this liquid would be
expensive, and (b) where thus spilt it would make a dangerously slippery mess:
surely there would be a way for him to fill his helmet with air and get all
the liquid back into the set's storage tank while the helmet is still sealed?
(6) With his pharynx full of the liquid, he would find it hard to avoid
swallowing quantities of it, thus (a) expending it, and (b) on a long dive,
inconveniently lubricating his intestines, as his gut wouldn't absorb it. (I
was vaguely thinking here of a stomach tube running from a water tank in the
set; this would solve any thirsty temptations to swallow the breathing liquid,
also might mechanically prevent him from swallowing the breathing liquid.)
(7) What about CO2? What CO2 absorbent works in fluorocarbon?
---------------------------------
PS. Sorry to use bandwidth on a non-diving matter, but: I can't find info re
this in any of the proper places: how to get Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS, when
displaying text, to use my PC's 132*43 character text screen mode instead of
the usual 80*25 character text screen mode?
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