Croatian freediver Vitomir Maričić should be unconscious at best and dead at worst. Instead, on June 14, he submerged himself in a pool, inhaled nothing for 29 minutes and 3 seconds, and came out not only alive but holding a brand-new Guinness World Record.
That’s nearly five minutes longer than the previous record and about double what your average bottlenose dolphin can manage. Maričić has bested dolphins at their own game.
FreeDiver Holds Breath For 29 Minutes, Breaks World Record
Maričić didn’t just stroll into a pool and start counting. He supercharged his body first by breathing pure oxygen for ten straight minutes before the dive. That’s like giving your blood an extra internal boost of oxygen to help you survive several minutes without it coming into your nose. It massively increases the amount of oxygen dissolved in his plasma, the backup fuel tank our organs tap into when our lungs empty.
According to a Reel on Maričić’s Instagram, he started the dive with roughly five times more oxygen circulating in his body than the average person has. Probably shouldn’t have said that. Now that makes me think I can do it if I had an oxygen tank. But what I can’t do is something that Maričić can: even without the pure oxygen pre-game, the man can still hold his breath for over 10 minutes. That’s already superhuman compared to the rest of us, who start panicking as soon as our heads dip under the surface.
While Maričić’s feat has the flair of an extreme sport stunt – and to be clear, that’s precisely what it was—it’s not all about incredible feats of human strength. He attempted to raise awareness for ocean conservation. If anyone has earned the right to speak on ocean issues, it’s the guy who has spent enough time underwater to have likely struck up several conversations with many a wise and charming sea creature.
Maričić already holds multiple breath-holding records, and while this oxygen-assisted milestone is impressive, the unaided crown still belongs to Serbian freediver Branko Petrovic, who hit 11 minutes and 35 seconds in 2014.
The post Freediver Shatters World Record by Holding Breath for 29 Minutes appeared first on VICE.
