Okay, let me be more specific. Here's a definition of oxygen debt (not hypoxia, which is different).
Note that this is happening on the cellular level because of exercise. It is using oxygen on a cellular level faster than the body can replenish it, causing the diver to need to stop, take deep breaths, and let his/her body "catch up" with the exercise that has just happened. This can happen with higher pO2 at depth, and is simply using the body's oxygen faster than the body can replenish it on a cellular basis. Here is an example:
SeaRat
debt [det]something owed.
oxygen debt the extra oxygen that must be used in the oxidative energy processes after a period of strenuous exercise toreconvert lactic acid to glucose and decomposed ATP and creatine phosphate to their original states.
Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.
oxygen debt - definition of oxygen debt by Medical dictionary
Note that this is happening on the cellular level because of exercise. It is using oxygen on a cellular level faster than the body can replenish it, causing the diver to need to stop, take deep breaths, and let his/her body "catch up" with the exercise that has just happened. This can happen with higher pO2 at depth, and is simply using the body's oxygen faster than the body can replenish it on a cellular basis. Here is an example:
But he was on decompression prior to the Sealab saturation dives on a 200 foot plus bounce dive to recover a camera, presumable at fairly shallow depths (within 50 feet of the surface). Could this be both a buildup of CO2 and an oxygen debt playing out? That is my question. Nitrogen narcosis usually clears quickly upon ascent. Note also that these two divers were almost certainly using double hose DA Aquamaster regulators, which due to regulator positioning may have higher inhalation resistance than today's current single hose regulators. This dive happened in August of 1965....Once Bunton and Mazzone made it back to the surface, Bob Barth and Scott Carpenter went down to retrieve the camera, a valuable piece of equipment that Bunton, a former Army paratrooper turned civilian specialist in underwater photography, would need while living on Sealab II. Carpenter spotted it and swam at top speed for the botom, leaving a great trail of bubbles in his wake. Barth tried t slow him down, knowing he dangers of breathing hard when in the realm of the narcotic haze, but coulhdn't stop Carpenter before he got to the camera. As the two paused for a decompression stop, holding on to the line they followed between the surface and the bottom, a dizying array of synaptic bells and whistles went off in Carpenter's head. Disoriented, he hung upside down on the line like a drunken trapeze artist, eager for his disconcerting first bout with nitrogen narcosis to pass...
Hellwarth, Ben, Sealab, America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2012, page 129-130.
SeaRat
Last edited: