Hey Adam! I'm dealing with alot of ptsd and trauma, my question is, "has your career or any of your colleagues helped you out in a dark period in your life?" thanks for being an awesome person!
You guys have often reminded me of a story I read when I was a kid called, "Poof, No eyebrows!" By Patrick E. McManus. Have you ever lost your eybrows?
Oh it wasn't when you nearly slapped a lighting tech (my friend) for putting things in the wrong cubby? Or when you screamed at crew because someone misplaced a pen of yours?
The underwater car episode has an interesting legacy because a woman wrote to the show that she was involved in a car accident where she drove into a water and her car flipped over and _the insights and information from that episode of Mythbusters_ helped her to escape and she survived. Tl;Dr Mythbusters has saved someone’s life
@@katyungodly I agree! A TL;DR should be at the start! If the TL;DR is enticing enough, then I'll read it the story properly. This wasn't even long enough for a TL;DR
Nah.... You may take every precaution needed and in the end it might be =the cause of your death/injurie. Everything in life needs a balance, you can't just shovel safety measures, otherwise we would be living in bubbles.
You missed the important words of this "when an experiment." Sure, during actual life we don't put absolute safety on things to allow people to live their lives, but in an experiment where you can see the outcomes you have to do just that, and in this case they didn't consider enough outcomes to protect Adam. Scientific experiments shouldn't end in people losing (or almost losing) their life.
The funny thing is I remember that episode and he said something about that and insurance not being ok with it. I laughed at the time, but now I know he was actually a bit bummed about it lol
Well, technically they could still do it then no? they just wouldnt have any insurance, so it was a choice on their part to not do something that dangerous without it. Still could have done it if they wanted to :D
"Calm people live. Tense people die." In that moment he had that thought was moment he saved himself. Very impressive that he was able to just concentrate and stay at ease. If you can't think your way out. You ain't getting out.
A friend's brother was going to pull a prank that needed him to swim under a white-water raft sitting in a calm area. He got half way under it and, forgetting he had his life vest on, got buoyed up and pinned to the bottom of the raft underwater. Panicking and flailing, he said he started to black-out when he says a thought came to him: "I don't want to die like an idiot stuck to the bottom of a boat!". That thought cleared his mind. He calmed down, unbuckled his vest, swam from under the raft, and stood up in the shallow water. o_O! :-)
Yup. I was working on a 100-acre prescribed fire a few years back (my first big one), and got sent into the interior to light a few patches that hadn't burned earlier. I got turned around in the smoke. After about 5 seconds of panic, I managed to calm the hell down, and thought really hard for a moment before figuring out which way I had to walk, relative to the direction the smoke was blowing in. The fire had gotten ahead of me, and I had to run through a small area that was already burning, but that was the easy part. And I never panicked on the fireline again.
+Smile4thekillcam456 That is the most true statement I have ever heard, if you're tense you can't think straight, make rash decisions and it can get you killed.
+Smile4thekillcam456 I very nearly drowned when I was a kid. It was actually really peaceful and pleasant after I stopped struggling - I was going to let go and not fight the experience until something in my brain told me I had to live. I somehow fought my way back to the surface of the water and made a vow that after that I was going to be a better person and dedicate my life to helping other people. Actually that's a lie. I really did nearly drown, but the only vow I made afterwards was to never go near water I couldn't stand up in ever again. If the good lord ( or the deity of your choice ) had wanted me to swim he'd have given me a pair of fucking gills. Fuck water.
+Smile4thekillcam456 "Calm people live. Tense people die." -- This one single lesson is absolutely epic. You need to allow your brain to compute the way to save yourself.
***** Yeah, no kidding. You felt like you were in that car with him, and I don't know about you, but I would have started panicking the second that first breath of water/air hit me.
I agree with each of you... Adam is always calm, eloquent in his words, humorous .....and, like a good teacher, whatever he says (unless it's too "sciency" or technical for me) seems to STICK!! I feel I like I'll remember and know just was to do if such a thing were ever to happen to me........ Thinking about it ....in my experience .......it was ALWAYS the science teachers who were the best at explaining and giving you their time.....
I'd go so far as to say ....a damn Fetus😆👍🏼 It's true ...a good teacher will have the patience of a Saint and the words of a poet ....drawing you in, holding you right on that edge interest and intrigue!! ....all the while, you're not even realising it's being chiseled and etched into your brain for ever more!! I just wish my Math teacher gave a damn ...their BEST trait, was making you like a total DUNCE!!
"Calm people live, tense people die" was a phrase I used in Subnautica once when I got lost in some wreckage and was running out of air. It wasn't actually life threatening, but man that game has tense moments.
"Streamed 6 years ago" thanks youtube for the strange recommendation. Just coming back to this, after 3 years it seems a lot of you understand why this was so weird for me. Thanks for the likes, all 2.5k of you.
One little hint when under water and you want to determine which way is up if your disorientated or can't see, Exhale a very little bit allowing the air bubbles to escape, if they roll up your forehead then your right side up if they go across your chin towards your chest your upside down. This is something they taught us in SAR (Search And Rescue) training while I was in the US Navy.
Well first and foremost you have to stay calm. I know it's a situation that most would freak out in but being calm can help you get thru it and conserve the oxygen that you have left in your lungs, panicking will cause you to breathe faster. With that said if you can't open your eyes you will feel the bubbles roll across your face, this wil help determine which way is up. Up your forward means your upright or close to it. It you feel them run down your chi the most likely your inverted. You don't have to expel very much to do it. Also you can feel around and you might find an air pocket in the car, this will 99% of the time be up as air rises untill trapped.
***** Ok so you know everything because you read it somewhere. Maybe you'll forget it about it when your car goes in the water. Always has to be some smart ass. Begone troll!
By making a comment like that it still shows your still a child. When you grown up (the last part of your comment really showed it) you can start talking with the adults. Now go back to the kids table and learn a little respect towards others. Have a great day!
What he didn't explain is how incredibly difficult it is to calm yourself in a situation like that. It's immense. If you can't compose yourself, you're boned.
+CraigNW i don't even think it is possible to explain this, unless you experienced something like this. I once got caught when diving without air in only around 20 feet deep by a fucking net (god knows where this shit even came from). Yes i had a divers knife on me, which saved my life. But it was so unbelievable hard to get it out without having compressed air telling me "It's ok, you got a few minutes bro" And we can see that even the diver in the backseat seems to have panicked. otherwise i got no explanation why it would have been so hard for him to find that knife. I mean every diver has it in a place he can easily reach. And he probably also had water rushing in through his regulator. Which is something a diver should be able to deal with, but combined with almost zero sight, and the knowledge that there is a person that might DIE in a few Moments just because are not able to get your shit right. I would so love to hear the divers part of the story. I can't imagine that he was calm either. But at least when he saw Adams hand, he reacted the only correct way, giving him a regulator. Knowing that if he took just a few seconds too long, Adam could panic in a dangerous way.
+cerg I am usually very good at calming myself down when I panic or get over excited. However, one of the main ways I calm myself is by taking a deep breath. When your coping mechanism can kill you, you're screwed. At the point where the regulator gave him water also, I would have been beyond myself in panic.
+cerg I'd say that the moral of the story is "Never put yourself in a situation where you have to rely on another person." IF there is someone who can help you, GREAT! But I don't count on it. Ever.
+Docktor Jim It's difficult to compose yourself because your natural instinct is to panic, the fight or flight response, supercharges your muscles so you may escape danger, but unfortunately this is one case where that will work against you. Now your body is demanding more and more oxygen, and when you really freak out, your cells energy conversion efficiency goes down by a whopping 85%. Now what could have been 120 seconds of air is now effectively 16 seconds. This is the very same reason you can run much, MUCH longer distances at a steady pace, than if you went an all out sprint. Adam and Jamie were in a controlled environment, so it's a little bit easier to get calm, knowing he has backup divers and extra air if he absolutely needs it. He's supposed to avoid it, but he knows that if he fails, he's not going to die. People in a real accident don't have that luxury, I don't know anyone who packs emergency air in their car. Add to the above the sheer shock and confusion of the impact and realization that you could very well die, and you're guaranteed to panic. However use that time before you're completely submerged water to compose yourself, and prepare yourself. Take in as much air as possible, because you need it to remove yourself from your vehicle, and the second obstacle is getting to the surface. Calm people live, tense people die is so very, very true in this regard.
He explained how they went over every possible contingency and tried to plan for everything and yet things still went wrong. Why do I even leave the house again?
+Michael Moen Aye, can't even take a dump in your own home without the possibility of oh I dont know, opening a wormhole to some distant lava world and having you and your house be consumed.
+Michael Moen well look at it this way, out of all the panning and back up plans the military uses in strategy, absolutely NONE of those plans ever go perfectly. you hope for the best, plan for the worst. if it gets worse, as adam said, calm people live, tense people die
I thought about what he said in this video a few years ago when I got caught in a storm on my motorcycle and was forced off the road by a semi. I was soaring through the wet grass on an incline, and instantly started yelling, preparing to inevitably get tossed from the bike . In that moment I thought of Adam saying this, and I let off the throttle and brakes, and relaxed my body until I coasted to a stop. It was terrifying, and I wondered if things would have been different if I hadn’t made a true effort to not tense up.
My closest "almost drowned" experience was when I was some 15-16 years old; at that time I was doing a lot of free diving, but I usually didn't go deep, but I was able to stay under quite long. And my usual method was to stay at bottom as long as I can, and then emerge. And that is not a problem when you dive to 5 - 10 m depth... But, once I decided to see how deep I can go... so I strapped piece of rope to a rock, marked each meter and trow it from my boat; it stopped at some 30m. That looked like nice challenge to me and I went for it; hyperventilated for a bit, took a deep breath and went down by that rope. I got down without problem and stayed down for a while, and when I got to point that I was no longer capable of staying under, as I usually did, I decided to go back up... but this time, I was not 5m deep... I was 30 m deep... and I realized I was in deep shit when I looked up and saw my boat as just tiny yellow fleck way above me... And not panicking also probably saved my life, because I was to deep for fast dive out, because I might suffer decompression issues, so I relaxed and slowly let my body float out to top... I can't remember how long it took me to get out, but it felt like ages. And as I was neering top, I already started to black out, and I just managed to get up in last second. But worst thing was fighting urge to open my mouth and breed in, while still underwater... I never did same thing again :D
Speedman28 That's one of things that almost got me drowned; I was a kid at that time (14y), but I was aware of danger of decompression. So, anytime I went a bit deeper, I make sure to ascend slowly as possible; i often used my flippers to slow down (extend them so that they have large resistance). But this time, going slow extended time needed for me to get up; and I was running "out of air" fast. And as I got up, I already started to black out. My biggest mistake was staying to long at bottom; without it, I would have no problem in returning back up, but entire experience scared me enough to not try that again :)
Glad your OK from that experience. Hyperventilation before a deep dive actually shortens the time you can dive (counter intuitive I know, but it messes with O2/CO2 transfers in the body even if there is technically more O2 in the blood) and delays the bodies warning systems for low O2 (due to the higher O2 content in the blood when the O2 content of tissues is dangerously low). In 10 years of lifeguarding, a failed freedive (ie. underwater blackout) due to inexperience (and hyperventilation) had been the only time I've had to do a retrieval followed by CPR (as a lifeguard team). Gods be good we had him breathing and beating 2 minutes after getting him out of the water (with full recovery).
"I just told myself: calm people life, tense people die. And i was ok." That was the definition of bdass. You're the man! I'm impressed by your calm and rational thinking in extreme situations!!!
Almost a decade later and I'd still like to hear the diver's recollection of this happening. It would be interesting to hear his side of things, discovering how bad the water is contaminated but it being too late to call off the experiment and knowing that if you don't get your seatbelt cut fast enough & hand that regulator over in time, someone might die if the rescue divers outside can't get in fast enough.
"Calm people live. Tense people die." I learned this lesson myself when I was younger. I woke up and had some weird arrhythmia attack where my heart was just all over the place, and then it slowly come to a stop, and my body stopped functioning. Throughout this entire thing I wasn't panicking, I was just thinking to myself "How do I fix this?" When my heart stopped beating, for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a second or two, I forced all my remaining energy into breathing in this tiny little gasp of air and forced my body to "work". I have no idea how to describe the sensation but it was like yelling at your body, but in a physical way with no words and hardly any movement. With that first tiny breath, my heart beat started back up, very faintly. I continued to slowly breathe and increase the amount I breathed in and out in increments so small that I normally wouldn't be able to detect, but my body with it's oxygen fatigued body was very well aware was significant. After about what I think was 1 -> 2 minutes, I was able to move my arms and push myself up into a sitting position. About a few seconds later feeling returned to my legs and I was able to continue life like normal. I was completely calm the entire time because in that moment I realized that if I panicked, I would have probably died. So I just told myself not to panic, keep a cool head, and figure out what happened. There were a couple other times where stupid things happened, but this is the one where I learned this lesson in possibly the worst way possible: the hard way. Take it to heart people, it works...
Dan Harvell yeah, when you're in situations like that, time really does slow down, every second feels longer, and you start thinking at a crazy rate because you're scared, so thats probably a lot of what went through his head in like 45 seconds, which to him probably felt like forever.
Yeah I just watched the episode and thought the exact same thing cause I'd already seen this video beforehand and had to revisit the explanation here afterwards. But yeah, in the episode it does show slightly that Adam is panicky somewhat, but the end as he comes up for air finally is literally just the narrator saying "After a few silent minutes Adam finally makes his escape" or something and when you couple that with Adam here filling in what happened in those few silent minutes it sounds like a very scary experience.
Adam describes an experiment to recreate real life escapes from cars underwater - because it's one of peoples number one fears! Warning to the people who fear getting stuck in a sinking car, Adam is a great story teller and this is a vivid description of exactly that. Left me panicked and shocked just listening to his story, but completely captivating.
I am sitting here, calmly listening to a well told story, then he starts describing the inhalation of water, while being submerged, locked in a car, upside down and (again) underwater. Which made me panic slightly, in a well ventilated room. Just the thought of being on canned air and having to cough/breath/survive in the scenario he describes makes me shutter. I don't have a huge fear of drowning either. So, I can't imagine what it must feel like to someone who does. EDIT: I had to fix a couple things that bug me every time someone is nice enough to +1 this comment. I'm sure it's still not perfect as my grammar is not ever perfect.
@@Quadsie That seems to happen with intense stories. In 7th and 8th grade, we had our teacher turn the thermostat _up_ before reading a short story of someone freezing to death in Alaska, and afterwards everybody complained about how cold it was.
"Calm people live; tense people die." I first saw this video almost a decade ago. I have carried that tool in my mental tool kit ever since. It very much came into play one freezing cold night when there was a fire at my apartment building around 2:00am. Thank you, Adam.
Wow, you are really really lucky you were able to claim control over yourself, you just described a very similar situation to how most cave-divers don't make it.
@@MrRavellon you just defined luck. 😀 The convergence of preparation and opportunity. At least that's how I've best heard luck described. Those that are lucky, are those that are prepared to take whatever opportunity is presented at any time.
James Murray luck is falling on the high end of normal distribution. Convergence of preparation and opportunity is falling on the high end of Pareto distribution. Big difference.
I almost drowned once.. I was in a lazy river and tried to jump into the water through the top of the inflated "life saver" thingy you sit in.. well, I was too fat and got stuck in the middle with my feet up in the air while drowning on the other side of the life saver. I somehow managed to upright myself before noticing the life guard was just yapping away with some girl and totally didn't see me... Maybe not as exciting story as Adam's.. but still scary for me at the time!
Ho. Ly. Shit. I know your post is old but I can't believe someone else did that too. Except I was trying to dive through the inner tube and got stuck. I was only 11 or so. One of the most terrifying moments in my entire life lol.
That is and has been my biggest phobia. Either being suffocated or drowning. Drowning is basically the same as being suffocated in that you cannot breath. Just listening to this story the hair on my arms stood up. It was terrifying to hear Adam went through that. So glad it turned out okay.
As a PADI Rescue Diver it's interesting that the paramedic diver that was with you gave you the regulator upside down, specially knowing the stress you were feeling. I'm glad it all went well, great episode!
I think he acknowledged they were seconds from utilizing their more involved safety precautions but he was okay. They weren’t only relying on the rescue diver but because he was there it was under control.
I had something like this happen to me when I was a kid. I wasn't trapped in a car or anything like that though. I was at a friend's house and they had a swimming pool. The deep end was 12 ft deep. We were doing a bunch of different dives off of the diving board trying to be cool and we were even inventing our own. My favorite dive though was what I was calling the "Pencil Dive" (not sure if that's a real dive or not) and all it took to do this dive was to jump straight up, stiffen up, and go straight into the water feet first. I liked this dive so much because it allowed me to get to the bottom of the 12 foot deep end. I was unable to swim down that deep from the surface. Well, about the 100th time I did this dive, I opened my mouth to take a huge gulp of air before I went down. The problem was I didn't really asses just how far the water was and when I took in that huge breath, the water was level with my mouth. Meaning I literally had a mouthful of water when I took in the breath. My momentum was now carrying me 12 feet straight down to the bottom of this pool and my lungs were filled with water. As I'm going down I had this thought "If I cough, I'm going to drown." So I held it. It felt like it took year to hit the bottom and twice that to get back to the surface. Once I broke the surface and started coughing and gasping for air, I thought I was still going to die. No matter how hard I coughed or breathed I just couldn't get any air. I really started to panic when the water I was coughing up turned to a thick foamy substance. I survived though, obviously.
For whatever reason, "Calm people live, tense people die." has really implanted itself into my mind and whenever I'm experiencing a stressful situation, usually much less severe than Adam's in this case, that thought comes into view and I'm immediately refocused and have better control of myself. So thanks again, Adam!
Even being a scuba diver I had no idea that a regulator wouldn't work upside down, never thought about it I guess. Next dive I'm gunna have to try it just barely under the surface.
That video is so informative and intense, actually so much better than the episode back in the series. Sadly so many people are not aware of the difference between sinking into water (like in that scene in the office when mike drives into a lake) and crashing into body of water with high speed. Would love a second episode if such was made, not sure that the producers would agree though.
+TheFishCostume Diamond is the hardest material we know of, but not the toughest. It's pretty much impossible to carve diamond, but it can shatter. On the other hand, jade is fairly easy to carve, but extremely tough, and thus nearly impossible to shatter. For a cutting tool, you want diamond; for an anvil, you want jade.
Nillie I know, but compared to tungsten carbide's properties diamond is still better in a lot of ways. Not like it matters anyways, since this is basically a hypothetical argument on what material would be the most beneficial to be testicles based on nothing.
Pikapetey Animations I actually used "Calm people live, tense people die." in an underwater upside-down moment in a canoe in moat water. My shoe got stuck and I couldn't wiggle out.. It was... Exciting. Managed to get out though.
It seemed scary in the episode but man, with the extra context here it is terrifying. I'm almost disappointed that this extra context wasn't talked about in the episode itself because it's a wild story with lots of important safety lessons.
I was at a pool party one and accidently inhaled some water. I didn't want anybody to know so I waded to a corner and suffered silently until I could breath again.
Like you described, I had one of those sudden moments of "Calm down and think" in an intense panic situation.....and i was around 6 or 8 years old when it happened. Its fascinating how the brain has developed all these little survival subroutines that most of us will never experience or even know about.
I had a near-death experience in a swimming pool when I was four (I ended up fainting and having to be resuscitated) and this story made me feel sick and completely out of breath. Poor Adam. I know how it feels to panic under the water.
Thanks, because due to reading these two comments ....I'm going to take a CPR course. Made me realise...if I ever pulled kid from the water ....apart from what we see in movies and on TV ....I don't think I would be too efficient in saving them. Thank😊👍🏼
Firth Laist Most important thing to remember imho is that you have to plug their nose when you breathe into them, otherwise the air won't make it to their lungs.
Ghostly MacKnight: And tip the head back slightly, right😁 Cheers for that tip buddy.......😊👍🏼 I've got a course set for July - I think it should be taught in ALL schools, under Life Skills. Be lucky mate....
The upside down car one is interesting as someone who crews military helicopters. I have been through training to simulate getting out of a sinking helicopter that has crashed or landed in water. The simulator I was at is pretty impressive, you sit in a simulated helicopter shell complete with correct seats/seat belts and even fake guns in the windows to get in the way. They can turn the lights off to make it pitch black, strobe lights for lightning, speakers for thunder, sprinklers for rain and giant fans for wind. Lastly a giant ball that bobbed in the water to make waves that could be 3+ feet, pretty crazy stuff all considered. Now being the military we never just jumped to the hardest setting and yolo'd it, we always started the easiest and added stuff up and it is CRAZY how many people who seem perfectly calm as they go under water panic the instant they're upside down. It is a physical reality that swimming up to the surface it FAR easier than trying to swim to the bottom, but people would go out that window and STRUGGLE to swim to the bottom of the pool thinking they were going up and would fight the safety divers trying to help them. People would get flight vests caught on the gun squeezing past it and instead of calmly taking giving it some slack and working it off they'd start to thrash like an alligator trying to death-roll their way to freedom. Meanwhile you could watch the people who were calm and collected slip right out and pop right to the surface, it's impressive how much your demeanor can affect your survival.
Six years late but I love that you mentioned “calm people live tent people die“ I was in a similar situation hyperventilating in 75 foot deep 50° water 100 yards from shore and wall hyperventilating specifically remember thinking “you need to calm down and take deep breath‘s because if you panic you will die“ and I’m writing this So it worked
One thing i wonder about is, if the car goes turtle and the bottom is very soft and muddy, how far does the car sink into the mud before it settles and would that stop the doors from opening or could it sink far enough to cover the windows, or does the roof have enough surface area to just rest on top of the soft bottom?
+Arctic Gator If you're worried, buy an old lightweight wagon with pillarless doors? Like a 90s Subaru impreza wagon or something... wagons have more roof area. sites.google.com/site/redstagegf8sti/sti/aug2011/DSC_0216.JPG If it has pillarless doors and you break the window, the door will open even if the roof is a few inches deep in mud. Gives you a bigger hole to escape from, at least. But really, try to get the window down or broken as soon as possible, before there is a lot of water pressure on it. Also something with better weight distribution (most cars are very front-heavy) would probably be less likely to turn over, but that has a lot to do with the shape of the car too not just it's weight distribution.
I felt fear just listening to that. This man has balls of steel. I honestly think I would've panicked in that situation and I dread to think what would happen if I was in that situation for real without a safety team.
Keeping calm really is the most important thing and emergency Situations! You can do so much more if you're able to think clearly about your situation!
As the scuba diver I completely understand and there are areas where you're so far out and so deep with no visibility that you don't have any sort of direction and the only way to tell which way up is is to let some bubbles go and see which direction they float. It's incredibly disorienting when you have absolutely nothing to give you any sort of bearing or direction.
Very well described. The problem is disorientation, little time you have to do everything in the right order, rush of adrenaline due to possible panicking what often impairs thinking process necessary to actually perform meaningful operations in order to get out of the water. So many details that people even don't think about.
As a fav of the show, the episode that sticks out to me as most scary (but for a much different reason) was the one where they basically made a cannon that shot thru a person's house.
I went to art school and am a handyman. I have lots of the practical skills that you guys had on myth busters. I had lots of experience with materials commonly used like mold making and mock ups and armatures etc. and I found myself often thinking, I could make this show. but the truth is, not even close. i didn't have the science background, the bigger working knowledge of math, the wide exposure to safety devices or explosives or five other areas where you both had not only experience, but expertise. with cut to the quick thinking, black and white directives and honest adherence with the results, I know that you both were perfect for the show and it was a pleasure to watch you guys regularly crank the wheels.
What a thought: Tense people die, calm people live. I've unfortunately been in 2 situations where that exact same thought went through my mind and it saved my life both times. Like millions, I could listen to Adam tell stories for days and never loose interest.
It was scary to watch when it aired, and it's still scary to think about it now. That was the one episode where I thought Jaime and Adam went so far out of their way to create the perfect real world scenario that it almost ended in a real world result.
@@Shadow77999 maybe because: _he have a dad/dad figure that he likes and love but he doesn't have an uncle. or maybe _he does have an uncle but his uncle doesn't have the qualities or personality traits that @TheDroidBay admir that Adam possess. and finally, in relation to my first point. and assuming that it's true and completely ignoring my second point... _you can always have various (or more correctly, multiple) uncles, but you can only have one dad. finally I know that your comment wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and it's just something that you have noticed and thought it was something funny (and it is) so I'm not trying to sounds like as if I'm angry at you for noticing something that's funny (because I have a feeling that's exactly what my comment sounds like). I'm not it's just that.... it felt fun going full on detective mode and analyze comments in a couple of comments in two different RU-vid videos in two different RU-vid channels... in other words.. I'm a nerd sometimes
It’s incredible how vivid Adam Savage weaved that story into mind. Honestly I almost started to panic when he swallowed water. Man. “Streamed 7 years ago” thanks for this blast from the past RU-vid
In naval aviation you have to endure emergency procedures training/demonstrations. One of the, at that time, newer torture devices was the “Helo Dunker”(different from “Dilbert”). You are strapped onto a bench in a huge cylinder blindfolded! The dunker is raised up and dropped into the pool to simulate a helo crash. The cylinder is free to rotate depending on the weight distribution. The scarcest part was sitting there feeling the water come up and over your face while you waited for the device to fill before you could exit. BTW, we had NO air tanks. I saw this Myth Busters episode and I can relate to Adam’s distress as to disorientation.
Hyperventilating doesn't bring extra oxygen into the blood (not significantly more anyway). What it does do is lower the amount of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, which suppresses your feeling of breathlessness (meaning you won't start involuntarily gulping as quickly). If you do it too much before holding your breath then you can feel fine right up to the point where you lose consciousness from a lack of oxygen.
This same sort of thing happened to me during my diving exam. I had to stow my regulator on my back and swim to my diving buddy about 25 feet away. When I got to them I could use their emergency regulator. We were at about 40-50 feet depth. When I got to him his emergency regulator was broken and I got a lungful of seawater. It is indeed a scary and painful moment. But I was also able to find clarity in that moment as I calmed down and remembered I had my own regulator still. I reached behind myself and counted off the different hoses on the octopus and was able to reclaim my own regulator from its without too much trouble. I've never been more thankful for a breath of air than in that moment.
Similar thing happened to me on a black water dive. I hooked my regulator hose on something and pulled the regulator free of its mouthpiece which was still clenched in my teeth. I inhaled normally, not realizing that there was no longer a regulator in front of my mouth, and got a lungful of water. I then felt for my regulator, only to realize it was missing from the mouthpiece and floating around somewhere behind me. I was running out of breath before I could find it and started to panic a bit, but thankfully I had a spare regulator and remembered to use it. First thing I did when I got back the surface was put a zip tie on that mouthpiece to keep it from coming off again...
