Nitrox: An Endangered Technology

Deeper. Longer. Safer.

Throughout the early nineties I was fortunate to be a small part of a community of dedicated Technical Instructors who introduced Nitrox, Trimix, and technical diving to Canada. This was at a time when these advanced diving techniques were not widely available or accepted. Our efforts focused on promoting the benefits of using enriched air like Nitrox and Trimix for deeper, longer, and safer dives, particularly in challenging Canadian waters. Despite our challenges we were motivated by the trailblazing efforts of many pioneers like Dick Rutkowski, Bill Hamilton and Michael Menduno (M2) who championed the scientific campaign (read more here). Recently however, there seems to be a notable decline in Nitrox and Rebreather applications in Canada. Has the Canadian diving community lost faith in the merits of oxygen enriched mediums and if so, what has caused this paradigm shift?

At the height of IANTD’s inauguration into Canada (I along with Reg Creighton and Hall of Famer Erika Haley, owned the national franchise licensee for a number of years), we proudly supported dive facilities and Instructors across the country. At the same time another agency, Technical Diving International (TDI) led by Chester and Sandy Morrison was having equal success introducing their own brand of extended range diving programs - same message, just different branding. We were based on the west coast while TDI was influencing the country from the east and together we changed how Canadian divers looked at diving. The science allayed the skeptics and Nitrox had finally emerged from the dark ages. By 2000 we saw all of the bigger recreational training agencies finally adopting the technology (read more about the history of Nitrox). As a result, we shaped the technical diving landscape in the country, providing divers with access to new technologies and training.

So much came of those efforts including continuous flow gas blending systems, helium analyzers, mixed gas diving computers and specialized caving equipment, all-Canadian led innovations. Yet somewhere along that journey, the Canadian diving community’s appreciation and understanding of Nitrox faded. Once upon a time fields of rental tanks, branded with Nitrox labels, stood ready for filling with EAN32 and EAN36 flowing endlessly from fill whips supplied by pre-mixed banks of Nitrox. Now only a few dusty cylinders emblazoned with the gold and green marking remain, abandoned in the corner of the shop, obscured by the pile of scrap neoprene. Admittedly I am being a bit dramatic but it begs the question; is Nitrox an endangered technology?

While travelling around British Columbia and other parts of the country I get a chance to meet with speak to a lot of dive shops and their customers. Throughout those journeys I commonly hear misinformed comments like, 'Nitrox is just too expensive to produce and it is labour intensive to fill tanks' or 'I don't want to label my tank with a Nitrox sticker because then I can't put air in it' or 'Nitrox is too expensive and its mainly for deep diving'. Where did you hear those rules and how did these taps dry up?

In 2000, after feeling I had accomplished the goals I had set out with the training agency, I sold the IANTD Licensee back to the head office. I took a sabbatical from the recreational diving industry to pursue other endeavours in diving only to return a decade later to see the sport diving community had lost faith in the merits of oxygen enriched mediums. It was a massive paradigm shift back into compromised diving practices.

But why? And how do we bring it back? Well to begin, whatever we did the first time around worked and therefore my first thought is, 'go back to the beginning'.

The Nitrox Challenge

How might we rekindle the value of enriched air Nitrox and help divers understand and embrace the advantages of modern gas mixes?

 Insights come from research and so I did some. I reached out across the country and inquired as to why Nitrox has lost significant popularity nationally and in drastic comparison to other regions, and after talking to hundreds of industry members, Instructors and divers, a pattern began to emerge. The data suggested that the barriers hindering the growth of Nitrox, and consequently technical diving are predominantly a result of misinformation, or in many cases simply just a lack of information. It was eerily familiar, like we had gone back in time.

Barriers to Nitrox

My findings can be summarized in 7 key areas:

• Lack of Information and Poor Education - Perhaps the number one reason, one which has always served as a barrier to advancing mixed gas technology, is the lack of information or a poor understanding about the science behind Nitrox and mixed gasses. When it was first introduced the scientific diving community overcame huge challenges to address misinformation campaigns about the risks of oxygen and/or helium enriched gasses. The technical training agencies developed solid training curriculum to better inform divers but over time the recreational diver training industry added Nitrox courses to their own syllabus recognizing it was a profitable market, be it a market outside of their field of expertise. Unfortunately, with that came a generation of Instructors and industry professionals who really could not properly or authentically represent the value of the gasses as well as deliver informed training. Ultimately the effort to promote Nitrox became diluted and misdirected.

• Division Between Technical and Recreational Diving - When extended range diving (cave, deep wreck, Trimix) became a more main-stream activity, it gave birth to a field of  advanced or extreme diver training agencies. Initially these agencies had not intended to preclude the ‘recreational diving’ market, in fact IANTD initially began as IAND only adding the ‘T’ or ‘Technical’ part of their corporate name a few years after it started doing business. The term 'Technical Diving’, as coined by Menduno, had infused a label generalizing the persona of extended rage exploration inadvertently characterizing a genre  of divers who were perceived as the ‘shadowy’ arm of recreational diving. The division between the recreational and technical diving community grew and many agencies like PADI were initially reluctant to promote Nitrox. Today, a division still exists and a significant population of recreational divers are very much hesitant to explore options like Nitrox because of its undeserved association to high risk diving activity.

• Colder Water Diving - Many dive sites in Canada, particularly along the coasts and in lakes, feature cold water. Before the advent of warmer drysuits, heated vests and better thermals, divers tended to do shorter dives in colder environments, and one the benefits of Nitrox— extended bottom time — may not have been as appealing when dives were often limited by cold water exposure rather than gas consumption. Unfortunately many still maintain this attitude today.

• Cost and Accessibility - The general perception across the country is that Nitrox fills are more expensive and less widely available in Canada, especially in more remote or smaller diving communities. The extra cost and effort required to access Nitrox is a significant deterrent form many recreational divers who see air as sufficient for their needs.

• Perception of Complexity - Many divers view Nitrox as more complicated due to the need for additional training, special equipment, and considerations around oxygen toxicity. Some feel they need to stick to regular air because they feel it’s simpler and adequate for the types of diving they do.

• Diving Profiles - Canadian diving often includes more wreck diving, cold-water dives, or altitude dives, where divers feel their shorter bottom times and depth limitations do not require Nitrox. Recreational divers doing single-tank, shallow dives do not feel the need for enriched air when air suffices for their typical dive profiles.

• Limited Demand - Because Nitrox is especially beneficial for repetitive dives or longer bottom times, its popularity is higher in warm-water, high-frequency dive destinations like the Caribbean or live-aboard diving trips. In Canada, where recreational diving may be less frequent or more seasonally restricted, the demand for Nitrox has not risen as significantly.

In short, the unique conditions of Canadian diving - cold water, dive profiles, cost, and accessibility - have perpetuated an ideology that Nitrox is specific to an environment, activity and/or less accessible than air. These perceptions play a significant role in limiting the widespread adoption of Nitrox here in Canada.

The Nitrox Solution

Nitrox should be the only gas every diver dives with and I would go as far as to say that it should be taught as part of the open water class. Instructors and shops need to stop promoting it as an elective or ‘specialty’ course and treat it as an essential part of safe diver training. Much like the planet's initiative to eliminate leaded gasoline from gas stations around the world, we recognize that there are no reasons we should not be breathing oxygen enriched gas mediums. It is hard to believe that the evidence and data put forth by Dr. Wells' proving that Nitrox was the best breathing medium for divers was made more than half a century ago.  Our initial pioneering efforts to educate divers and facilitate efficient gas blending systems overcame the barriers hindering the advancement of Nitrox and mixed gas technology. That same evidence applies today.

• Better Information and Better Education - Remove the stigma and fear by better preparing industry professionals and diving instructors to teach Nitrox. The basic Nitrox course has been diluted and condensed for marketing reasons. The theory behind how Nitrox works is not complex; however, the quality of content by many of today’s diving Instructors delivering these programs does not facilitate a true appreciation of the technology. The dive training community needs to create a level of Quality Assurance ensuring that anyone serving as an ambassador of the technology has a better understanding of the history and value of Nitrox and mixed gasses.

• Unite Technical and Recreational Diving - All sport diving is recreational and all recreational diving is technical to a certain degree. As we advance our interests in the sport we ‘extend’ our ranges of inquiry including more sophisticated equipment, more complex environments and of course more involved activities. In simple terms we increase the technical nature of our approach to recreational diving. Rather than using labels like technical diving (sorry M2), we need to encourage the sport diving community to embrace technical advancements which facilitate safer and more effective ways to ensure we are competent. All divers should accept that the sport of scuba diving has some degree of technical application and by ‘extending our ranges’, we extend our abilities. We do so as a collective, not a community dived by labels. Nitrox can serve as that connector.

• Colder Water Diving is Well Suited for Nitrox - Yes, cold water diving can often shorten peoples dive times, but the colder environment also predisposes our physiology to reduced off-gassing rates therefore making Nitrox an ideal solution for cold water diving. Additionally, new technology in drysuits and heated vests are helping divers stay down much longer and with extended bottom times comes additional considerations for thermal regulation and off-gassing.

• Industry Needs to Produce Inexpensive Nitrox - Really there is no excuse for dive shops to not produce and bank inexpensive Nitrox. Keep it simple and appealing for the user. With the advent of Continuous Flow Blenders, Oxygen Generators and De-Nitrogenized Air (DNA) Systems all that is required is a commitment to establishing a set-up to blend and bank Nitrox. Build a community that offers better gas blending training programs for dive shops and show how Nitrox can be made readily available to every Canadian diver. 

  

• Support the Industry - Dive Nitrox! - As divers we need to make a commitment to dive Nitrox regularly if not all the time. In doing so dive shops and air (gas) filling stations will be more inclined to set up systems that support less expensive Nitrox fills that can be easily dispensed.  

Any dive industry member or diving professional who does not promote or encourage the use of Nitrox on every dive is simply being irresponsible. There, I have said it, and I am prepared to answer to anyone who feels differently or perhaps may even be taken back by my remark. Scuba diving is generally considered moderately risky compared to other sports. According to Divers Alert Network (DAN) the annual fatality rate in the US for diving is about 16.4 deaths per 100,000 with approximately 200 deaths reported globally each year. Would prohibiting the use of non-enriched mediums have prevented all of those deaths? Arguably no however, the evidence corroborates the assertion that it would prevent some as well as significantly lowering the number of incidents involving DCS. That alone is reason enough.

It's science - not witchcraft. My final thoughts - re-build the community and revive Nitrox, do not let it become an endangered technology. And oh by the way - I have an idea how that might work, meet me at Club Voodoo and we'll chat about it.