DATELINE: 22nd December 2000

FREEDIVERS ANALYSED
Two leading competitive free-divers have taken part in hyperbaric tests to help doctors analyse the physiological effects of the sport.
Fred Buyle and Tanya Streeter spent several days hopping in and out of a chamber at Murrayfield's North-west Emergency Recompression Unit in the Wirral, undertaking a series of tests to establish, among other things, changes in heartbeat, muscle lactates and in blood movement, pressure and acid levels.
Headed by Medical Director Dr John Harrison and Director of Operations Dave Alcock, the study team hoped to check out theories that might explain why rapid descent and ascent can leave free-divers feeling immensely tired, whether or not they have expended energy through finning.
With a male and female test diver, the team also planned to compare notes on any differences in function that could suggest which physiologies most suited free-diving. Tanya Streeter is reportedly keen to prove that it is women's!
The divers made a series of breath-holding dry dives to depths from 10m to 40m, before the chamber was flooded with water at about 28°C. Entering through a top hatch, they made dives from 10-80m, some static, others finning against the chamber's wall

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