Budimir Šobat had been lying face down in a swimming pool for around a quarter of an hour on March 27, 2021, when something strange happened: he fell asleep.
Šobat, a 56-year-old professional freediver from Zagreb, Croatia, was aiming to break the world record for the longest breath ever held. He guessed he was approaching 17 minutes—roughly the point at which the body’s third, final, and most painful stage of oxygen deprivation began, when carbon dioxide would fill the body and the diaphragm would spasm violently, like a thunder sheet.
This approaching wall of agony might understandably have stressed out Šobat. But he had spent six years training his mind for this exact moment, developing the ability to enter a quasi-sleep state to conserve as much energy-sapping thought as possible.
Šobat wasn’t supposed to relax enough to actually drift off, though. Moments later, a bubble floated from his now-open mouth and brushed his eye, jogging him awake.
This isn’t good, he thought. For 30 minutes before the attempt, Šobat had filled his lungs with bottled pure oxygen. That meant he could go 20 or more minutes on a single breath, a near-magical feat. But it also raised the danger of blacking out, which could set off a deadly chemical chain reaction, toxifying the oxygen and destroying blood vessels, his lungs, or even his brain.
Šobat slammed his mouth shut. He assumed the worst. He saw his life flash by in a heartbeat.
Then he opened his eyes. He wasn’t dead. But he hadn’t dreamed the experience, either. He’d slept, and now he was stressed. Stress meant an increased heart rate, and a high heart rate meant certain failure.
Šobat repeated a silent mantra: don’t panic, don’t panic, it’s OK, it’s OK. His heart rate fell, and he felt the pre-agreed-upon tap of his coach’s finger on his back: 17 minutes. Fuck, he thought. I’m still here. It’s not a blackout.
The post The Man Who Held His Breath for 24 Minutes appeared first on Outside Online.
