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>From: Jason Rogers <gasdive@sy*.DI*.oz*.au*>
>
>
>I buy "Medical Grade" He, There is also available "Diving Grade" which
>contains 2% O2. (Because of safety, In a commercial heliox diving situation
>having "pure" gas onsite is dangerous. If it is switched to the diver by
>mistake then he would die before you had time to correct the situation.
>2% means that the O2 level will support life at most of the depths that
>heliox is used). There is also "Laser Grade" which is fantasticly pure.
>(and fantasticly expensive) 99.999% He or better.
Last Friday, I went on a one day intro course on the Prism rebreather given
by Peter Redey (He's touring Australia with it at present). During the
course he mentioned the problems with pure He.
According to him, the reason that diving He contains a small quantity of
O2 is not so much to keep someone alive on, but to ensure that if they do
breathe pure He by accident, then thay can be resucitated. Apparently pure
He does something to the brain which prevents resucitation even if you get
to them quickly with pure O2. However, with as little as 2% O2 in the
mixture, the chances of resucitation are much better.
Jason, does this tally with your knowledge of the commercial industry ?
P.S: The Prism was a lot of fun to "fly". Peter is an excellent instructor.
I think I need to start saving! Latest info is that the Prism is likely
to be manufactured by a large US dive equipment company and may be on the
market by the end of this year.
Cheers,
David.
______________________________________________________________________________
David Giddy, | Voice: (03) 253 6388
Telstra Research Laboratories, | Fax: (03) 253 6144
P.O. Box 249, Rosebank MDC, Victoria 3169. | Internet: d.giddy@tr*.oz*.au*
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