New Zealander William Trubridge has pushed the limits of the human body after he broke his own diving record.
On April 30, 35-year-old Trubridge plunged 122 metres below the beautiful blue waters off the Bahamas, beating his old record of 121 metres in front of a crowd of supporters including his family.
He didn’t do it with a scuba tank, but instead he did something called free-diving, where trained professionals test the boundaries of their bodies by just taking a deep breath of air and diving. Trubridge held his breath for four minutes and 24 seconds.
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And it was no easy feat for Trubridge.
“The dive itself was pretty difficult,” he said. “I had a beautiful descent … But then at the bottom, I took my tag, tried to attach it to the Velcro on my leg, and for some reason, it wouldn’t attach.”
WATCH: William Trubridge sets new world free-diving record
Losing valuable seconds, he finally managed to attach the tag. But by then, he was “out of the head-space that I need to be in for a deep dive.”
“At one point, I didn’t even know if I’d make it to my safety divers.”
He made his way up the rope, surfacing. And then once his record was confirmed, the crowd erupted in cheers.
Diving is more of a physical challenge than most people may realize. Our bodies are made to breathe air and at a particular pressure. The deeper we go (even the higher we go), the bigger the difference in pressure around our bodies. If optimum pressurization isn’t maintained, it will kill you.
And the the sport has killed divers. In 2013, Nicholas Mevoli died after diving to a depth of 72 metres. In 2015, Russian diver Natalia Molchanova — who held more than 40 world free-diving records — plunged into the depths of the Mediterranean near the island of Ibiza, and never resurfaced.
According to Divewise, in a study from 2006 to 2011, there were a total of 417 free-diving accidents, with 308 of them being fatal.
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