Diver's Extraordinary Ability Being Studied

[Mr T.]

05/05/05 - 9:55 pm
Diver's Extraordinary Ability Being Studied



Four years ago News 36 introduced you to free diver Tanya Streeter. The news back then pertained to her recent world records.

The news now is how researchers have gone from perceiving her accomplishments as something freakish to something which may be able to help modern science.

Streeter loves to spend the weekend out at Lake Travis. Only instead of being on the water, most of her time is spent under the water -- way underwater -- without an oxygen tank. Streeter's a free diver, which means the only oxygen she gets is what she stores in her lungs before she goes under.

Streeter holds nine world records, in various free diving disciplines. The most eye popping may be her no limits free dive of 525 feet.

To help put that 525 feet into perspective, you'd have to travel from the bottom, all the way to the very tip top of the Frost bank building, and still add 10 extra feet before you'd reach Streeter's record distance.

At such a depth, the water pressure causes Streeter's lungs to shrink to the size of her fists, and her heart rate will begin to slow to about 10-15 beats per minute.

"When we reach the bottom, there may well be eight to 10 seconds where there isn't a heartbeat," Streeter said.

So what is it about Streeter's body chemistry that interests medical science?

By studying people like Streeter, researchers think they may be able to help people with respiratory problems like asthma, sleep apnea or even find clues into the mysteries of sudden infant death syndrome.

"What free divers have learned to do is to control their respiratory physiology. To control the way that their heart and lungs operate together so that oxygen is only sent to vital organs during a breath hold dive," Streeter said.

Recent experiments at UT and the Harvard Medical School focused on static apnea, where divers float face down in a pool, holding their breath for as long as they can. Streeter can hold her breath for more than six minutes.

During the experiments, Streeter is hooked up to a standard, hospital device that measures the oxygen saturation in her blood. Her training partner, Joe Tufts, watches closely as Streeter's blood saturation level drops well below what most hospital operating rooms would consider the critical level.

"The amount of oxygen in her blood is related to the amount of oxygen that's getting to her brain," Tufts said.

When Streeter surfaces, it takes only seconds for her to saturation levels to return to normal.

"We were doing it between 10-15 seconds and the doctors were completely gob-smacked by that saying they just don't see that in the OR," Streeter said.

"Science and medicine seems to have come around from the idea that we're crazy and thought, maybe they're on to something here," Streeter said.

[keith_henson]

Mr T - do you have the url of the above post ? - my thesis tutor would be well interested in reading the article


cheers

keith

[Gavin Smith]

Originally Posted by Mr T.

So what is it about Streeter's body that interests medical science?

I wonder!

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by keith_henson

Mr T - do you have the url of the above post ? - my thesis tutor would be well interested in reading the article


cheers

keith

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp...8&nav=0s3dZWlr

[scubadog]

Thank christ, our lass is a normal sexy mother fuckin red head.....