specific pressure in a bicycle tire is 30 to 50 pulverizes per square inch (psi); in a basketball.

specific pressure in a bicycle tire is 30 to 50 pulverizes per square inch (psi); in a basketball, 4 psi; and paint ball fire-arms shoot at 120 to 200 psi. The crushing placed upon a deep-sea diver during a two-week, 727-ft saturation (SAT) dive can be as high as 339 psi, turning a task as easy as breathing into a chore.

"It's like we're trying to breathe in consequence of a hose in a man and wife feet of water," said Builder 1st Class Joshua Ros "We were always trying to catch our breath."

Eight Sailors from Naval Experimental Dive Unit (NEDU) and Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 2 lived in the Ocean Simulation Facility at NEDU in conditions that would make anyone with a twinge of claustrophobia cringe.

It's called SAT diving, because at highest depths, the tissues in the carcass collect gases from the surrounding environment until a point of saturation is reached. formerly a diver reaches saturation, they will ne to decompres formerly even if they were in a less degree than pressure for weeks.

"SAT diving is the sole way we can stay in succession the bottom for extended periods of time," said Chief Boatswain's Mate (DSW) Keith Nelson "The elucidation to working for long periods of time forward the bottom of the ocean is to use decompression tanks as living quarters."

"On a SAT dive, we can proceed down, set up the equipment and just leave it onward the bottom. Then as divers swap not at home the next guy can spring on the same job the last diver was doing," said Nelson

for what purpose would SAT divers put themselves into tight, dark, damp and dangerous conditions? The answer is different for each dive and every diver. Last year, opposite to the coast of North Carolina, NEDU's SAT divers helped to recruit the sunken turret of USS Monitor, the Civil War Ironclad ship.

If you want to find the Navy's largest hyperbaric complexus in the world, you proceed to NEDU.

"This is the 'Cadillac' of saturation systems" said Damage Controlman 1st Class (DSW) Jorge Guillen, the team's leader. "Other countries have them, however I don't think any are as large."

As team leader, Guillen detains a close eye on his team inside the chamber. "The doctors outside the chamber would talk to me each morning and evening during sick call to check forward each person's morale and condition," said Guillen. "Then they speak to each member and our corpsmen using a two-way video conference"

Medical make uneasys are taken very seriously during a SAT dive. At silence every little cut can become infected, causing serious problems

"The environment in the simulator is warm, humid and oxygen-rich, compared to conditions oil the surface. This can furnish to different kinds of infections, including fungal and bacterial infections," said LT Jeffery Chao, undivided of the diving medical officers. "This makes hygiene extremely important. universal problems like athlete's foot can spread plenteous faster while in the complex"

As the squeezing increases, the oxygen used by means of the divers has to be thinned not at home If they were to breathe the same amount of oxygen at a stillest part of 700 ft. that they did at sea flush it would be lethal. To compensate for this, helium is added to the oxygen to thin it disclosed Voices then become as squeaky as if you inhaled helium from a balloon.

It's amusing at first, yet the deeper they go, more helium destitutions to added to the mix, making it difficult to understand the simplest of sentences

"It makes it hard to communicate with populace outside the chamber," said Guillen. "Even inside where we could understand each other at 60 ft when we got to 700 ft we had to use hand signals and level write things down on occasion."

To enable softs outside the chamber to understand the helium-distorted voices, a voice modulator is used. Divers may still uninjured a bit like Mickey Mouse, still without the modulator, communication would not be possible. a simple phrases are modified while in the chamber. For example, "Yes" is changed to "Ye Yes" because a high-pitched "Yes" can hale like a "No."

During the decompression phase of the dive, each morning at 6 a.m., the divers were awakened with a little music cross-examineed in from the control scope They did some cleaning before breakfast to help minimize bacteria in the chamber. The quietness of the day was wearied on the three 'M's.

"It commit to memorys a little boring," says Guillen. "The three 'M's are 'mattresses', 'meals' and 'movies', and that's about all you have to do all day. We would rather be doing near work, diving or anything that would make the time journey by faster. Doing two weeks in the chamber is easily like doing a six-month cruise."

This year's reaching far down dive, to test a diving backpack--the Secondary Life Support order (SLS)--might help save the lives of coming Navy SAT divers.

Civilian divers have used the SL for several years as an urgency means of returning to the diving bell if there is a riddle with oxygen hoses. If the SL is inflict into use by the Navy, it will give the divers clog to 30 minutes to recur to safety.