Dr. Dale Mol?, a retired emergency medicine and preventive medicine physician and former director of submarine medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, said the passengers will battle with a “hostile internal submarine environment”
A US Navy veteran warned of the chilling health effects of being trapped in a submarine just two weeks before the tourist submarine Titanic disappeared, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Dr. Dale Mol?, the former director of submarine medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, described how passengers aboard a commercial submarine face depleting oxygen supplies, toxic carbon dioxide levels and plummeting temperatures.
The Titan ship will have a carbon dioxide scrubber on board to remove excess toxic gas that builds up when passengers exhale in the confined space, but in most vessels this will be of limited capacity. There is also a risk of hypothermia from the low temperatures of the ocean depths, as well as hyperventilation caused by panic attacks, which can consume more valuable oxygen.
Dr. Mol?’s paper was published May 29 in a scientific journal, just 20 days before the Titan ship lost contact with its mother ship, trapping five people. The submarine now has only 40 hours of oxygen left.
Dr. Mol? told DailyMail.com today that it is a race against time to save the passengers, if they are not already dead from a “catastrophic rupture of the pressure vessel.”
The Titan ship will have a carbon dioxide scrubber on board to remove excess toxic gas that builds up when passengers exhale in the confined space, but in most vessels this will be of limited capacity. There is also a risk of hypothermia from the low temperatures of the ocean depths, as well as hyperventilation caused by panic attacks, which can consume more valuable oxygen
The Titan ship, visiting the wreckage of the Titanic, sank underwater about 400 miles southeast of St John’s, Newfoundland, on Sunday at 8 a.m. EST. It lost contact with its mother ship at 09:45 – one hour and 45 minutes into the dive.
The five Titanic tourists, including a British billionaire, a French maritime expert, a British businessman, one of Pakistan’s richest men and his son, have yet to see any sign of the vessel. the surface.
There’s a chance Titan might be on the ocean’s surface – but because the passengers in the main capsule were sealed with 17 bolts that can only be opened from the outside, they’re trapped and could suffocate unless found quickly.
In his article, published in the news “Crews trapped in a sunken ship or submarine face many physiological challenges, including toxic gases, exposure to elevated ambient pressure and hypothermia.”
Dr. Mol? told DailyMail.com: ‘Anytime people are confined in an airtight space, most people might think of oxygen, but carbon dioxide is actually a bigger concern.
‘In a submarine they have a system to remove carbon dioxide. If they lost the battery, that system wouldn’t work.?
A scrubbing system removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the air safe to breathe.
Dr. Mol? said: ‘When people breathe oxygen indoors, they breathe oxygen out, and it goes from 21 percent to 17 percent [oxygen]. But they exhale carbon dioxide, and that carbon dioxide must be removed or it will become toxic.
Shahzada Dawood, 48, (pictured with his wife Christine), a UK-based board member of the Prince’s Trust charity, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, are among the five missing in the submarine that left to recover the wreckage of the Titanic
One of the participants in the expedition is billionaire Hamish Harding (pictured), CEO of Action Aviation in Dubai. He excitedly posted on social media that he was there on Sunday
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) is believed to be taking part in the expedition, along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate expedition
The company’s Titan submarine sank about 400 miles southeast of St John’s, Newfoundland, on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. EST, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. It lost contact at 9:45 a.m. but was not reported to the Coast Guard until 5:40 p.m.
?The people inside will find it difficult to breathe, their breathing will increase. They get headaches and gradually become unconscious.
“The rising level of carbon dioxide is what kills people first when they’re in an airtight environment, not the oxygen level.”
If the submarine is not found before life support runs out in 48 hours, Dr Mol? said: ‘Once they lose the ability to remove carbon dioxide from that internal atmosphere, that will lead to the deadly event.’
He explained, ?It’s like putting a bag over your head. They feel stuffy or hungry for air, followed by unconsciousness.’
Hypothermia is another major risk for those on board.
Dr. Mol? said: ‘In such a small submarine, the electronic equipment on board will generate some internal heat, and the occupants will generate heat because it’s not a very large space.
?But with the center sphere in contact with the ocean, it quickly gets quite cold in there. The average ocean temperature is 41 degrees Fahrenheit.?
‘Initial, [the passengers] will begin shivering to try and generate heat, which consumes more oxygen, and often some of the first things affected are judgment.?
They then lose the ability to use their hands and “will gradually become unconscious,” said Dr Mol?.
He added, “You want to try to stay as calm as possible and turn off as much electrical equipment as possible to save battery life and make sure you have enough energy for your scrubbers.”
Another possibility is “some sort of accident that looked more like a catastrophic rupture of the pressure vessel,” Dr Mol? said.
He said, “It goes so fast, you wouldn’t know what happened.”
If that were the case, those on board would have died instantly, he added.
If the submarine is still intact, Dr. Mol? said the passengers should not yet have any adverse health effects.
“According to the advertised 96 hours of oxygen or life support, you would assume everything would be operating fairly normally.”
Getting stuck in an increasingly stressful situation is likely to cause the submarine’s passengers to panic as well.
Symptoms of a panic attack include increased heart rate, shortness of breath, trembling, and muscle tension.
People may feel light-headed, nauseous, dizzy, and tremble and sweat.
Passengers can take rapid, deep breaths, which can lead to too much carbon dioxide exhalation with too little oxygen inhalation.
This can all lead to hyperventilation, which can make you feel like you’re going to pass out.
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