Mailing List Archive

Mailing List: techdiver

Message Display

I may be missing the boat here but what I interpreted  the original post 
to mean is that because you are diving at high altitude where O2 is 
limited, if you make your dive on an oxygen rich mixture, then upon 
returning to the surface and discarding your dive gear, you might become more 
hypoxic upon breathing ambient air. The rationale I suppose is that 
underwater with the enriched oxygen your body acclimates to it. When you 
surface and breath ambient air that has considerably less O2, increased 
hypoxia might occur.

On Fri, 29 Sep 1995, Carl Heinzl wrote:

> 
> >If using nitrox at high altitude, e.g., 12,000 feet above mean sea
> >level, I would think that the higher partial pressure of oxygen would
> >contribute toward a greater possibility of hypoxia when surfacing
> >relative to using compressed air.  
> 
> I've now seen this a few times...
> 
> Now what on earth would ever cause you to think that?  *IF* you can
> breath the air before the dive and not be hypoxic, why would you EVER
> think that you'll be hypoxic AFTER the dive - doesn't make any
> sense...  Same goes for air...  
> 
> The big difference between the two is the lower N2 in your system when
> using Nitrox so you have three choices -
> 
> 1) dive air tables and have a wide margin of safety 
> 
> 2) use Nitrox tables and extend your bottom time
> 
> 3) dive deeper than you would have due to the AED of Nitrox (provided
> you still limit yourself to appropriate PPO2's).
> 
> Of course anyone with half a brain can use anyone of these methods and
> stay safe while others will just do stupid things, no matter where
> they dive.
> 
> -Carl-
> 
> The problem with common sense is that it isn't too common!!!
> --
> Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'.
> Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'.
> 

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]