I have just been watching Thirteen lives – the film about the cave rescue of the 13 young boys in Thailand who were totally sedated before being taken hours under water.
It got me thinking that when I go snorkelling i always get a bit of water leak into my mask and have to come up and clear it out so i don’t breath water in.
Is this something that happens to scuba divers, if so how do they deal with it, and in the case of the boys how would the divers accompanying them have cleared the boy’s masks ?
i would also like to say what an incredible job done by all those involved.
In: 7639
Usually you just blow air through your nose, then flick the mask up slightly to let the water out.
In the case of the cave rescue, I believe the boys were in full face integrated dive masks, so the chances of leakage would have been quite low. In normal usage those masks self-clear through the action of breathing, so if water is leaking in, the next exhalation pushes it out and the mask fills with air from your lungs. You then inhale a fresh lungful from your tank via the regulator in the mask.
Source: Am diver, have used standard and integrated full face masks before.
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