The inflated vest supports the diver face up, out of the water. LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION TO BLACKOUT
Two California freedivers, Jason Bush and Chip Bissell, have teamed up to form Applied Ocean Specialties, Inc., a company dedicated to the research and manufacture of a freediver protective vest. In its simplest form, the freediver, using his wrist display, sets themaximumdepth andmaximumduration for his dive, which will then communicate these parameters to the back-mounted inflation unit. Normally, these settings will be outside of the diver.s normal dive profile so that if the freediver finds himself too deep or has overstayed his time, the vest will automatically inflate and he will be immediately transported to the surface, face-up. To protect the diver in these most adverse scenarios, a computer chip is programmed to use a timer and input from depth sensors. The most common function of the programmed timer will be to fire the vest if the diver stays down too long. Say you are a 2-minute freediver, and you know that if you are still under the water at 2-and-a-half minutes, you are in serious trouble. If you set the timer to inflate at 2-and-a-half minutes, when that time is reached, the vest will fire. Sometimes freedivers hunt in deep water over wrecks or for blue water fish. It is possible for the diver to find himself very deep, sinking fast and in trouble well before the maximum time limit fires the vest. In order to guard against this
scenario, and as an additional safety feature, the diver programs the unit to inflate when he exceeds his maximum selected depth. The vest is designed to function to a maximum depth of 120 feet.
To disarm the vest, the freediver swipes his wrist unit over a sensory pad.To prevent early de-activation of the vest, the timer will not accept the de-activation signal until the diver has successfully reached the surface.We anticipate many divers, who have not passed out, will nonetheless reach the surface confused and in a near black out state.the so called .samba. condition.Whenthey .forget. to deactivate the vest, it will fire. While this might provoke an initial reaction of irritation to some because of the inconvenience of having to refill the vest, it should be obvious how close to total blackout they came. If a freediver experiences many .nuisance. firings, it is hoped that the realization of how close they came to a blackout causes them to change their unsafe diving behavior. We also anticipate that some divers will reach the surface, deactivate the vest and then pass out while exhaling. If this occurs, the improperly weighted diver will sink like a rock.To protect the diver from this situation, we have programmed the vest to fire should the diver descend again to a depth greater than 10 feet during the first 15 seconds after reaching the surface and deactivating the vest. The vest allows a diver to descent to 10 feet in case he needs to dodge an oncoming boat. In the special case where the diver wishes to dive within the first 15 seconds of surfacing, we will make available a 3-button sequence code that will disarm the vest.something a severely oxygen-deprived diver will not be able to do. The gas powering of the vest will come from a small compressed air bottle, smaller than a soda can. It will be capable of filling the vest in depths up to 120 feet. The cylinder is refillable with a yoke attached to a standard scuba tank or at any dive shop. In the case of an inadequately filled air bottle, the display will warn the diver that the depth he has set is outside the capacity of the bottle to fill the vest. Should the diver attempt to dive, the vest will immediately fire, preventing him from using the vest with an inadequately filled air source. The wrist unit, actuator and vest will be made from high quality materials with aircraft-type redundancy built into critical elements such as the solenoids that open the air source. The user can easily change the batteries.Atest mode will allow the user to check out the equipment before he enters the water. The actuator components will be built in a streamlined fashion to fit just above the weightbelt in the small of the back.To decrease water friction, the device will be covered
with a special low-profile over-garment made from a super-slippery seal skin like material. The vest should never be used as a replacement for good freediving practices, which include the use of a buddy, proper
surface intervals, proper weighting, adequate preparation before each dive, rest, fitness and simple common sense. The vest is not be used in any overhead environments or in areas with heavy boat traffic, nor can it be used in shallow depths The inflated vest supports the diver face up, out of the water. such as the surf zone or a swimming pool. Too many freedivers have lost their lives needlessly. It.s time to use technology to our advantage. Used correctly, this device may help many of our freediving brothers across the world survive our biggest enemy..SWB.
Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank the original Internet collaboration team that developed the basic theories for the vest.s operation. I would also like to thank to the safety vest development team of Jason Bush and Chip Bissell, Sheri Daye and David Sipperly. Special thanks to co-inventors Sheri Daye and David Sipperly for their invaluable ideas, for their enthusiasm for this project, and for their critical editing of this piece.
For the latest information on the
vest visit: freedivesafety.com
About the author: Four-time national champion and world record holder,Dr. Terry Maas is also an oral surgeon. Trained in anesthesiology at the University of Southern California, Maas studied respiratory and cardio-pulmonary physiology and administered over 20,000 general anesthetics.
Disclaimer.no financial interest: While the author is an enthusiastic supporter of freediver.s safety vest, he has no
economic connection to Applied Ocean Specialties, Inc., nor does he receive any form of compensation from the
company.
[/img]
Normal
