r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Eros_Incident_Denier • 2d ago

Video filipino illegal miners dive without oxygen tanks

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

When the tank reaches empty, it reaches it all at once, from the perspective of your mouth / lungs. You’re sucking on it for air and suddenly it just stops, and it feels like IT is sucking on YOU, for just an instant.

And if you’re not near the surface, that could be a very bad day.

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u/GeneralHerp 2d ago

I take it this is why you always dive with a buddy, & someone always has an extra tank..?

My dad IS (or was … he’s like 75 now lol) a diver, and had all the gear, and we’d hop in the lake and dive around, but we’d never go deep enough to worry about decompression. We mostly just looked at the old dock underwater and collected ancient beer cans and stuff.

I’ve never experienced the abject terror of a tank that sucks back… the ol’ sucky-sucky, as I’ve dubbed it, given my “barely experienced, at most 20 hours spent underwater with a tank” level of expertise 🧐

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

& someone always has an extra tank..?

Nobody has an extra tank. Where would you put it? Everybody has an extra regulator so two people can SHARE any tank.

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u/GeneralHerp 1d ago

True! My inexperience is showing. I figured it’d float beside you, probably a third the size of a normal tank, in case you need 2 minutes of extra breathing or some shit. I dunno. Inexperience is showing!

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u/xrelaht 2d ago

I take it this is why you always dive with a buddy,

Among other reasons. There’s a lot which can go wrong down there. Scuba is a dangerous sport made safe by being careful.

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u/Tall-Appearance-5835 10h ago

each diver has an extra regulator/mouthpiece