Titanic sub: How oxygen could be conserved on board - BBC News

let's turn now to that massive hunt for the missing submersible in the North Atlantic was now in a critical phase fears are growing for the five people on board the missing vessel which lost contact during a descent to the wreck of the Titanic it's thought the oxygen supply on board may run out by today but the U.S Coast Guard insists it remains focused on rescuing the crew alive the search area has been doubled in size and a friendship with a robot that can reach the seabed is now on site well let's head to Boston let's head to our reporter Dan Johnson who is there for us and Dan as I was saying there it's got to a really critical phase on the time frame what updates are you getting from the coast guards the word from the U.S Coast Guard this morning the Coast Guard which is coordinating the rescue operation is that this is still an active search and rescue mission that hope has not been lost that every effort is still being made to locate that submersible and if possible to enact some sort of rescue there are more and more assets Vehicles deep sea diving equipment that is arriving on the scene and this morning we know that two remotely operated submersibles have gone into the water one from a Canadian ship and then one in the last hour or so from a friendship that is a remotely operated submersible which is capable of operating down at depths of 6 000 meters so actually way way lower than the wreck of the Titanic those two submersibles are going down to the Sea bed to try to find any trace of what happened to the Titan submersible and the five men who went down in that submarine on Sunday but everyone is aware here that the estimates of how much oxygen was left for those five men have varied it's not specific we can't be definitive about when that air that oxygen supply would run out but the estimates were in the last hour or so and if those men survived whatever initially went wrong on that submersible whether they are at the bottom of the ocean or floating on the top they weren't able to release themselves they weren't able to get their own oxygen supply they were still Reliant even if they were on the surface on the oxygen of The Craft and it does now seem to be Dawning on people here that time and that oxygen is running out and that may mean that people are having to accept hope being lost here and the reality that even if those men did survive the initial problem on board that craft that they may now have lost their lives and that this operation may actually be moving into more of a recovery phase but the U.S Coast Guard is not letting up there are even more assets and diving equipment that is being flown to the search area from around the world it is a huge area it is a challenging search but the Coast Guard says it goes on down there in Boston will return to you in the coming minutes thanks very much Dan mentioning you're still the international help that is being sent I want to show you some of the latest pictures from RAF lossy mouth because uh these pictures just coming into us from the RAF following an overnight request but uh those uh pictures which hopefully we'll show in the next few minutes more equipment more Personnel heading to Canada apologies we can't quite get those pictures at the moment but we will show them in the next little while but let's speak now to Dr Sarah spelsberg she serves as faculty for World extreme medicine she's also the medical lead of project Neptune 100 which looks at how the human body handles long-term exposure to pressure thank you so much for being here on the program tell me a little more about what is happening to the body at these sorts of depths at this sort of length concerned about pressure because the cabin is supposed to be pressurized and if they have lost pressure that's that will have been a catastrophic event but the biggest concerns down there are going to be hypothermia and how long their oxygen supply will last and in terms of oxygen tell me a little more because we know that three of the people are very experienced down there how much can you actually slow the consumption of oxygen and what is happening with the body as as the buildup of CO2 happens so you can slow it quite a bit so if you're if you're staying still and breathing in and out through your nose and taking slow breaths and keeping yourself calm you can slow it quite a bit furthermore hypothermia while it initially increases the metabolic rate over time it decreases the metabolic rate so if if they survive the hypothermia it could actually help them by slowing their metabolic rate down um and then with the carbon dioxide it's kind of like if you've ever been to the dentist and and had laughing gas or or too much laughing gas over time you may have find your heart rate going faster there may be a period of anxiety and headache but eventually you'll you'll drift off to sleep and an experienced Explorer and an experienced Adventure um would be able to keep themselves calm through that a final thought because they still obviously have to find this vessel but if they do in the coming hours and if it's brought to the surface quickly what are the dangers there because I know they've got things like hyperbolic Chambers there on the site already I am less concerned about decompression from being in a from them being in a submarine than I am about um hypothermia hypoxia dehydration and also when you're laying still for a long period of time you're at risk of blood clots so that's those are the things that concern me the most so do I think they need to go directly into a hospital for tests absolutely um but I I don't necessarily think they would need um Hyperbaric well Sarah we have to leave it there a really busy afternoon here but thanks so much for joining us here on BBC News

Channel: BBC News

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Keywords: bbc, bbc news, news, world news, breaking news, us news, world

Id: di-BNY3R32I

Length: 6min 13sec (373 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023