PDR 3.0: POD DIVER RADIO

PD155: SCUBAPRO 2015 Gear Update.Audio Interview at BTS 2015 with Brad Lally, Product Director at Scubapro. We discuss, Scubapro's new cold water piston regulator, Trufit dive masks, Sidemount BCs and biometrics for scuba diving.

PD154: Dr. Neal Pollock at DAN discusses the issues surrounding aging and technical diving. Dr. Pollock is the Research Director at Divers Alert Network. Also, a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Also, he is a Board member of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences Foundation.

The 2015 Dive Rite demo of its full line of Recreational and Technical gear at Dutch Springs Quarry (75 miles from New York City). Divers got to try out: high power dive lights, sidemount and the Opt2ma Rebreather. We talked the divers about there experiences.

In this deep‐dive episode of Pod Diver Radio, host Joe Cocozza sits down at BTS 2015 with Dr Simon Mitchell (University of Auckland anesthesiologist, technical diver, and DAN Rolex Diver of the Year) to dissect his landmark rebreather prebreathe study. Mitchell walks us through the experimental design used with CCR divers on Inspiration units: Three loop conditions — normal scrubber, no scrubber, and a partial scrubber bypass (missing spacer O-ring) Blinded subjects instructed to perform a standard 5-minute prebreathe exactly as on a dive boat Termination criteria based on self-recognized CO₂ toxicity symptoms He then breaks down the results and implications for real-world CCR operations: 25% of divers failed to detect complete scrubber absence during prebreathe 90% failed to detect a partial scrubber failure, despite measured inspired CO₂ ≈ 20 mmHg All divers showed objective hypercapnic responses (increased ventilation, visible distress), but many did not recognize or report symptoms—highlighting how CO₂ narcosis itself impairs judgment Mitchell explains why the traditional 5-minute prebreathe cannot be relied on as a CO₂ scrubber integrity test, why partial failures are especially insidious (tolerable at rest, dangerous under workload), and how this should change the way tech divers think about: Scrubber packing discipline and O-ring checks Checklist-driven CCR assembly The emerging role—and limitations—of CO₂ sensors in rebreather loops Risk management for deep, high-workload CCR dives If you dive a closed-circuit rebreather, teach CCR, or write SOPs for tech operations, this episode is a must-listen, grounded in peer-reviewed data from Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine (March 2015) and explained by one of the leading voices in diving science.

PD151: DIVE RITE Equipment Update 2015 Jared Hires reviews new equipment for 2015. Including The LX20, a compact, handheld primary light, And..The HunterPac BCD; which combines features of technical and recreational BCD for Spear fishermen and/or Underwater Photographers.

PD150: Interview with Brett Hemphill of Karst Underwater Explorers about setting the cave diving deep/penetration record at The Phantom Cave System in West Texas. http://www.admfoundation.org/projects/phantom/phantomcave.html

PD149: Intrw w/ Dr Neal Pollock: Research Director at Divers Alert Network about Thermal Physiology & effects on Decompression Stress in Diving

PD 148: Sound Scene Tour of the Beneath the 2015 Sea Consumer Scuba Expo. Talk with Susan Long at DUI, Joel at Light Monkey and Mike Fowler at SDS.

Tour of The History of Diving Museum and Research Library with Angela Albanese. The Museum is dedicated to collecting, preserving, displaying and interpreting artifacts, antiques, books, documents, photographs and oral history relative to the History of Diving.