Anything called the crown-of-freaking-thorns has earned some serious cred.
At least it has the decency to warn you about its crazy immorality by looking like a wicked video game boss ...
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That thing on your back isn't an oxygen tank; if you were really breathing out of an oxygen tank, you'd be dead. Scuba tanks aren't filled with oxygen. They have common air, which is a little oxygen and a whole lot of nitrogen, just taken out of the atmosphere then jammed so tightly that stabbing a hole into the tank can blow out the hull of a ship or KO Jaws.
With a tank filled with pure oxygen, you'd find yourself overdosing at a measly 6 meters of water depth. One of my mentors in the industry, with over 10,000 deep and technical dives to his name, died when he accidentally switched over to the wrong cylinder at 43 meters. Yes, friendly neighborhood oxygen will jack you up if you mess with it. But before it turns murderous, it will cause oxygen toxicity. When diving beyond 40 meters, the first effects are the ear disturbances. I get a squeaky sound like someone is rubbing a finger on a balloon, and when it's more pronounced my aural senses start to slow down and stagger, then my vision starts to get shaggy.
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"Dude, do you have any Scooby snacks? ... Oh, crap."
If you don't ascend at that point, you could suffer collapsed lungs and detached retinas, but don't worry, because you'll likely get a seizure, spit out your regulator, and drown first. If that doesn't happen, then your dive buddy can take you to the surface before you have any serious effects. Oh, but don't ascend too quickly, or else gas will form bubbles in your blood and kill you. Yes, managing oxygen is a delicate dance, like a waltz ... on a thin, slippery beam, over a pit of lava.
Ryan Menezes is an editor and interviewer here at Cracked. Follow him on Twitter for stuff cut from articles and other things no one should see.
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