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March 11, 2006

BehindTheMedspeak: The woman who has altered my thinking about hypoxic brain damage

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Her name is Tanya Streeter (above) but it wasn't anything she published in any learned and scholarly journals or texts that did it.

No, what did it was reading about her ability to stay underwater for more than six minutes without supplemental oxygen.

I was taught, and it is commonly held in both anesthesiology and general medical circles, that five minutes or more without oxygen results in permanent brain damage.

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It would appear that dogma is dead.

Streeter, 33, is the world's greatest free diver and currently holds the records for:

• Time — over six minutes without oxygen

• Depth — she went down 525 feet (for reference, the Washington Monument is 555 feet tall)

• Underwater distance swimming — she went 114 meters last year before coming up for air (think nearly five laps of a 25–meter pool)

Tomorrow night, (Sunday, March 12) at 8 p.m. ET on Animal Planet, she'll be starring in a special two–hour episode which will, among other things, feature her swimming with turtles, seals and whales.

As I said,

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it's time to take a fresh look.

[via Margaret Webb Pressler and the Washington Post]

March 11, 2006 at 02:01 PM | Permalink


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