No Limit AIDA (NLT | Men)
Last updated: April 15, 2020 at 1:22 am
214 m (702 ft) | Herbert Nitsch (Austria), Spetses, Greece, June 14, 2007 — Nitsch dove to 253.2 m (830.8 ft) in 2012, the deepest any human has ever reached on a breath-hold dive, but he missed a planned one-minute decompression stop after passing out from nitrogen narcosis during ascent. He woke up before reaching the surface and thus completed the dive. After initiating a planned post-dive decompression, he nonetheless incurred severe DCS (type 2) which would eventually result in multiple brain-strokes. He arrived comatose at the hyperbaric chamber with a prognosis of remaining confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Two years later, Nitsch was training and freediving again.
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Although Nitsch intended to have the 2012 attempt sanctioned by AIDA, a sponsoring conflict prevented AIDA from officiating the dive.
AIDA International
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Jeffrey Gallant is the Editor-in-Chief and Records Keeper of the Diving Almanac. He is also a contributing editor of DIVER Magazine, and the scientific director of the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG). Jeffrey started diving in 1982.