Accidental saturation diver.

[captain]

Miracle at Sea: Sailor Survives After Spending 2 Days Inside Sunken Ship | gCaptain ? Maritime & Offshore News

 

[RamCumminsFF]

WOW! What a lucky guy he is to have survived that!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[Searcaigh]

Lucky there was a DSV close by to rescue him

 

[SnorkelLA]

Surely he did not drown and stay dead for 2 days, saturating his tissues, then received resuscitation and decompression.

There has to be more to this story I am missing...

Was he living off of an air space?

 

[knotical]

Surely he did not drown and stay dead for 2 days, saturating his tissues, then received resuscitation and decompression.

There has to be more to this story I am missing...

Was he living off of an air space?

Miracle Mariner ? Okene Harrison « Shipwreckology

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Atlantic-Ocean-tragedy.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

[miketsp]

Either this guy has a great SAC or he was in a pretty big airspace.

Wouldn't he need about 100000 liters of air to last 48h at 30m while resting before CO2 buildup would become unacceptable?

 

[knotical]

Either this guy has a great SAC or he was in a pretty big airspace.

Wouldn't he need about 100000 liters of air to last 48h at 30m while resting before CO2 buildup would become unacceptable?

Back of the envelope:
The average adult while resting will use about 6.5 liters per minute of air. ( source: Respiratory minute volume - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
There are ( 60 X 24 X 2 = ) 2880 minutes in 2 days.
So on open circuit someone should be able to get by with around 19,000 liters.
Since this would be closed circuit, the volume needed would be significantly less.
I don’t know how, or whether, the increased partial pressure of oxygen would affect this.

At least one of us has an error in our calculations.

 

[miketsp]

Back of the envelope:
The average adult while resting will use about 6.5 liters per minute of air. ( source: Respiratory minute volume - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
There are ( 60 X 24 X 2 = ) 2880 minutes in 2 days.
So on open circuit someone should be able to get by with around 19,000 liters.
Since this would be closed circuit, the volume needed would be significantly less.
I don’t know how, or whether, the increased partial pressure of oxygen would affect this.

At least one of us has an error in our calculations.

For starters you forgot that this is taking place at 30m so multiply your calculation by 4.
The compartment may start with a certain volume but then gets compressed as the ship sinks.
Unless of course it's sealed like a submarine - not likely and if it was he wouldn't have had the saturation problem.

While 6.5LPM may be reasonable for someone warm and calm, I don't believe that is a realistic SAC for someone stressed out and in an environment where he's probably losing body heat quickly and probably shivering. So try replacing 6.5 with at least 12LPM.

Finally this is not OC, the problem is CO2 buildup in a closed space. I ran my calculation off guidelines for sealed fallout shelters, I don't remember which site gave the figures.

 

[beanojones]

No it's the CO2 that's the problem. Subs and rebreathers need and have scrubbers to get rid of the CO2.

Yes the PPo2 makes a huge difference o2 wise, but the CO2 is the controlling factor probably. And it is a big enough deal that tourist subs which stay down for 30 minutes at a time use scrubbers.

 

[knotical]

For starters you forgot that this is taking place at 30m so multiply your calculation by 4...

Ah, you were talking pre-compressed volume. I was talking compressed volume, and assumed you were too, because that’s what he was breathing and the volume of the air pocket he’d need.

…While 6.5LPM may be reasonable for someone warm and calm, I don't believe that is a realistic SAC for someone stressed out and in an environment where he's probably losing body heat quickly and probably shivering. So try replacing 6.5 with at least 12LPM…

So, go with 12 lpm. 40,000 liters would allow him to do it open circuit. That’s a pretty big space, about 2m X 4m X 5m, but still conceivable in a ship’s compartment. But that’s an upper limit. Still need to factor in the key item which we already were aware of, (and beano also pointed out): CO2 buildup.

Finally this is not OC, the problem is CO2 buildup in a closed space. I ran my calculation off guidelines for sealed fallout shelters, I don't remember which site gave the figures.

I assume fallout shelters are intended to keep the occupants pretty healthy. This sailor could well accept sick.

This source: Carbon dioxide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
says:

Adaptation to increased levels of CO2 occurs in humans. Continuous inhalation of CO2 can be tolerated at three percent inspired concentrations for at least one month and four percent inspired concentrations for over a week.

Presumably he could handle more than four percent, but let’s start with that. Since that’s also about the amount of CO2 in our exhalations, he’d have to breathe through the entire air space once to bring it up to what could be tolerated for a week. So he should still be pretty happy with about half the volume, or 20,000 liters.

They didn’t say how sick he was when rescued, but surely he could have survived in an even smaller air space.