Forty one-year-old Ahmed Gabr, an Egyptian man who also serves as a special services officer in the Egyptian army set the ultimate record for the deepest scuba dive, News Discovery reported.
Diving than 1,000 feet (305 metres) below the surface of the Red Sea, Gabr has set a new record for the Guinness World Record for the deepest scuba dive – deeper than anyone other diver has dared to go.
He spent about four years training to achieve the record.
The approximate record the Egyptian daredevil – who has also taught as a diving instructor for 17 years – has set is diving to a depth of 1,090 feet 4 inches (332.35 metres) – beating previous record holder, South Africa’s Numo Gomes, who dove to the depth of 1,044 feet (318.21 metres) in 2005.
Both divers chose to dive off the coast of Dahab in Egypt.
Why did Gabr choose to dive deeper than anyone else ever had? Well, according to his quote in the Guinness World Records, he hoped to prove that human beings could survive the conditions of deep-sea immersion.
The Professional Association of Diving Instructors states that those who dive for leisure or recreation mostly only dive as deep as 130 feet (40 metres).
Gabr only took 12 minutes to reach the record depth. He used a specially tagged rope, which he pulled with him from the surface, according to a statement issued by the Guinness World Records.
However, it took him a 15 hours to reemerge on the surface. The trip back to the surface is one divers must take with caution as a number of health risks are associated with rising too quickly.
Divers could suffer from decompression sickness (commonly known as the bends) and nitrogen narcosis from excess nitrogen in the brain if they rise too quickly – all of which the Egyptian managed to escape.
Egyptian diver sets new record for deepest scuba dive
