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Message board > General Discussion > SCUBA divers cannot pass wind... 
  

SCUBA divers cannot pass wind... by Simon - Tue 23rd Oct 2007, 3:18pm
SCUBA divers cannot pass wind at depths of 33 feet or below
Someone just told me this but I am struggling to believe it. Can anyone tell me whether it's a fact or fiction, and provide supporting evidence?

If it helps, at 33feet the water pressure is equal to 1 atmosphere.
by gf - Tue 23rd Oct 2007, 4:05pm
Simon said: SCUBA divers cannot pass wind at depths of 33 feet or below
Someone just told me this but I am struggling to believe it. Can anyone tell me whether it's a fact or fiction, and provide supporting evidence?

If it helps, at 33feet the water pressure is equal to 1 atmosphere.
these guys seem to think it's not a big problem...
by Jacques Cousteau - Tue 23rd Oct 2007, 10:29pm
I've burped at depths approaching 30 metres... But I don't think that it would cause the same problems...
by Scapa Flo - Fri 4th Jan 2008, 5:16pm
It's rubbish, this.

"Passing wind at depth" is eminently possible, as anyone who's ever unzipped the back of my drysuit will testify....

Here's why. As a diver descends, air spaces in the body are also compressed and the gases therein remain at the same pressure as the water outside. If they didn't, water would leak in or rupture of those spaces would occur! So, at, say, 20 metres, the pressure of intestinal gas is also the 2 bar of the surrounding water. If said intestines then produce a bit more gas via digestion, then that pressure rises slightly above ambient.... and "passing wind" is a likely outcome.

For this reason, I suspect that it is probably impossible not to "pass wind" as one is in the process of descending. It is probably impossible for the body to create an incremental increase in intestinal pressure as large as the rate of external pressure increase on descent.

It's a serious matter, in-dive flatulence, I'll have you know. In a drysuit, it knackers your buoyancy as gas is added inadvertently and suddenly to a sealed system at depth. In a wetsuit, one simply witnesses the comical leaking of emissions from neck, cuffs and ankles.....
by Scapa Flo - Fri 4th Jan 2008, 5:18pm
Edit: scratch the "not" from the first line of the third para

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