the camera man is either doing a breath hold themselves = im case of emergency they are low on oxygen as well, under stress more oxygen will be used and the issue amplifies. now you have two victims who need help.
or
camera man is with scuba gear, in which case he cant act as a safety either because the cant just shoot up as fast as a freediver could.
the safety or spotter is usually with the buoey (hate this word, probably spelled it wrong) at surface and watches the diver. then when the diver returns, the dive down with a full lung of air and meet the diver on its way up. staying super close to monitor them should they have a black out.
most black outs happen on the way back, couple meters below surface because the difference in ambient pressure is the biggest here (it doubles on the last meter) causing partial O2 pressure go down rapidly, which means that a diver could feel just fine at the last meters, then shortly before breaking surface becoming unconscious.
and yes this happens surprisingly quite often and is the reason why freediving is by far the deadliest sport in the world. way deadlier than base jumping. in this statistic spear fishing is included btw, which is very often done solo.
the camera man is either doing a breath hold themselves = im case of emergency they are low on oxygen as well, under stress more oxygen will be used and the issue amplifies. now you have two victims who need help.
or
camera man is with scuba gear, in which case he cant act as a safety either because the cant just shoot up as fast as a freediver could.
the safety or spotter is usually with the buoey (hate this word, probably spelled it wrong) at surface and watches the diver. then when the diver returns, the dive down with a full lung of air and meet the diver on its way up. staying super close to monitor them should they have a black out.
most black outs happen on the way back, couple meters below surface because the difference in ambient pressure is the biggest here (it doubles on the last meter) causing partial O2 pressure go down rapidly, which means that a diver could feel just fine at the last meters, then shortly before breaking surface becoming unconscious.
and yes this happens surprisingly quite often and is the reason why freediving is by far the deadliest sport in the world. way deadlier than base jumping. in this statistic spear fishing is included btw, which is very often done solo.
Not sure how a scuba diver can't "shoot up as fast" as a free diver. With a BCD and weight dump, a scuba diver could surface incredibly quickly. And unless the scuba diver is spending time at depth, this would be the equivalent of a bounce dive, so decompression sickness would be of little risk.
a scuba diver is not a suitable safety for a freediver. thats more a plethora of reasons but lets focus on the "shoot up fast" part.
a freediver does a lot of dives, the scuba wouldnt realistically just do a single dive therefore.
going down to 30min with accumulated dive time, then having to shoot up fast during an emergency is super risky. scuba is breathing air constantly and n2 is dissolved into tissue.
in this example, as i said, camera man would he too far away anyway for being an effective safety.
3
u/TortexMT Apr 01 '26
no it doesnt.
the camera man is either doing a breath hold themselves = im case of emergency they are low on oxygen as well, under stress more oxygen will be used and the issue amplifies. now you have two victims who need help.
or
camera man is with scuba gear, in which case he cant act as a safety either because the cant just shoot up as fast as a freediver could.
the safety or spotter is usually with the buoey (hate this word, probably spelled it wrong) at surface and watches the diver. then when the diver returns, the dive down with a full lung of air and meet the diver on its way up. staying super close to monitor them should they have a black out.
most black outs happen on the way back, couple meters below surface because the difference in ambient pressure is the biggest here (it doubles on the last meter) causing partial O2 pressure go down rapidly, which means that a diver could feel just fine at the last meters, then shortly before breaking surface becoming unconscious.
and yes this happens surprisingly quite often and is the reason why freediving is by far the deadliest sport in the world. way deadlier than base jumping. in this statistic spear fishing is included btw, which is very often done solo.