It was not the way that Christian Redl’s latest deep-diving record attempt was meant to end: being hauled to the surface of Austria’s frozen Weissensee after losing consciousness in the icy waters.
Redl — dubbed the “Iceman” — experienced a blackout, something he sees as par for the course in his quest to break the record for the deepest dive under ice.
“For me, it’s not risky or dangerous. It just happened,” the 43-year-old said matter-of-factly after his unsuccessful record attempt on Friday last week.
Photo: AFP
The Austrian, who has had similar blackouts before, is part of a small group of freedivers in the world specializing in diving under ice.
His aim was to dive 71m deep into the Weissensee — itself covered in 30cm of ice — braving the 2°C water in just a wetsuit and fins.
However, exerting himself excessively on the way up resulted in a lack of oxygen to the brain, which caused a blackout.
He was dragged up by one of his six safety divers and pulled onto the ice where a waiting medical team sprang into action with an oxygen mask.
It is the latest chapter in a life dominated by a passion for diving that began at the age of six when Redl’s uncle gave him fins and a mask as a present.
They were put to use snorkeling on a Vienna Lake, before he started scuba diving at the age of 10.
Seven years later, he saw The Big Blue — French director Luc Besson’s film about the friendship and rivalry between two freedivers.
“This movie changed my life completely because my biggest dream was to become like Jean Reno in this movie, a world record holder,” Redl said.
However, work commitments meant that he only had the winter months to attempt records, which led to him to specialize in ice diving, earning him his “Iceman” moniker.
At 30, he quit his job as an investment banker to become a professional freediver, supporting himself with teaching and occasional acting work.
His ability to hold his breath under water for up to six minutes has given him a somewhat macabre niche of drowned corpse roles.
His first record came in 2003, a 90m horizontal distance dive under ice.
In preparation for his latest attempt — perhaps surprisingly — Redl only did one practice dive on the Weissensee itself, otherwise sticking to an indoor pool on the outskirts of Vienna.
“I do everything with my mental strength, so I really don’t care about the cold,” he said before the attempt on Friday.
New Zealand freediver and rival Ant Williams, the holder of the record Redl wanted to clinch, understands the challenges only too well.
“The water is not only freezing cold, it is pitch black and foreboding,” he said by e-mail.
“It is far more intimidating and uncomfortable than normal diving,” Williams said, adding that he regards his Austrian rival as “talented” and “more than capable of pushing the record deeper.”
As for his hardest dive to date, Redl said that came on Nepal’s Gokyo Lake at an altitude of 5,160m, requiring him to undertake six months of training to deal with the lack of oxygen.
“The first 10 doctors said ‘it is impossible, you will die,’” Redl said. “The 11th one said: ‘Yes, you will die, but it’s a cool project.’ So I concentrated on the second part of this sentence.”
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS