Disturbing simulation shows how a body implodes at 3,800m below sea level
Warning: this article contains content that some readers may find distressing
Social media users have been divided after watching a simulation of how the human body could visually react to being deep under the ocean.
According to the National Ocean Service, the average depth of the sea is around 12,080 feet (3,682 metres).
While it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how deep a human can dive until they’re crushed, the deepest free dive we have on record is 831 feet.
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During his dive, Austrian-born Herbert Nitsch experienced pressure 26 times greater than on the surface of the Earth - a colossal weight which would crush most human lungs.
After returning from his record-breaking dive in June 2012, Nitsch developed severe decompression syndrome which led him to experience multiple brain strokes.
Initially, it was thought that the ‘world’s deepest man’ would not be able to walk without assistance but an intense period of rehabilitation has allowed him to continue deep free-diving.
But with the 54-year-old only scratching the depths of the ocean, what would happen if you went further?
Well, a YouTuber named SciScape has done the hard work for you and has created a visual simulation of the human body diving into the deepest depths of the water.
In a two-minute video, uploaded to their 118 subscribers on June 6, the creator placed a human body inside of a submarine.
The simulation was supposed to mimic the OceanGate Titanic submarine, which was believed to have been 3,500m below sea level when contact was lost on June 18, 2023.
At the time of the incident, it was thought that all five passengers on board died after the sub suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’ caused by enormous water pressure.
Due to the vessel being so deep, the BBC states that the amount of water on it would have been equivalent to the weight of the Eiffel Tower, tens of thousands of tonnes.
Following the YouTuber posting the potential impact ocean depth can have on the human body, viewers have taken to Reddit to have their say.
One wrote: “Not the worst way to die tbh. You’d have no time to react or feel fear, and it would be completely painless. Just gone in an instant.”
A second said: “IDK, I just feel like I'm built different.”
“This is a cool visualiser but in no way scientific,” complained another viewer. “Unless our feet really are several hundred red balls?”
A fourth typed: “How anyone can love the deep ocean is beyond me.”
Last month, researchers from the University of Houston claimed that Stockton Rush and his paying crew’s fatal trip in his Titan submersible may have been caused by ‘micro-buckling’.
Writing in a journal, published in the National Academy of Sciences, Roberto Ballarini suggested that imperfections in materials used to build the hull could be to blame for the implosion.
“Buckling in the simplest explanation: you take a long spaghetti and you push on it with two fingers. What's going to happen? It's going to buckle essentially, it's going to snap,' he stated.
“That's what buckling is. It's when you compress something and it deforms by a significant amount because it's an instability.”