Word: scuba
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...sport's aristocrats are the ''free divers." Spurning any line to the surface, they go down with tanks of compressed air strapped to their backs, a rubber mouthpiece between their teeth, and froglike fins on their feet. Experienced free divers-some prefer the term "scuba,"' for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus'"-can cruise as deep as 130 ft. for up to 15 min. or at 40 ft. for two hours...
Esther Williams, who is myopic, wears them out of the water but does not bother with them when immersed. Swimmers who need correction for reasons other than myopia usually wear the bigger scleral lens because it is harder to dislodge under water. Skindivers who use scuba favor contacts because spectacles, however ingeniously installed, are cumbersome inside a watertight face mask...
...Penguin maneuvered from a special mooring until she was directly over the sub, double-checking her position by UQC (underwater sound communication). Then Penguin lowered a diving bell. Of the four men who rode it down to 300 ft., only one was inside; three were skindivers with backpacks of Scuba gear, and they hitched a ride on the bell, for speed and safety, by clinging to its exterior...
...daily confronted with unfamiliar problems. In the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the Navy's top underwater medicinemen, Lieut. Edward H. Lanphier, offers a primer. Dr. Lanphier, of the Navy's Experimental Diving Unit in Washington, D.C., is principally concerned about amateurs who use "scuba"-the skindiver's abbreviation for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus...
...bubbles through the pulmonary veins and into the heart. The bubbles usually travel to the brain, causing convulsions and unconsciousness, and unless the victim is treated promptly by recompression, he is almost certain to die. The greatest danger of air embolism is in emergency ascents-perhaps after the scuba has gone out of kilter at great depth. Dr. Lanphier notes: "Only a well-instructed and coolheaded diver can be expected to repress the powerful instinct to hold his breath on making his way to the surface. Air embolism is believed to be second only to drowning as a cause...