[efkiel]

If I recall correctly, similar experiment have been tried lately, where the subject survive. (maybe because they were shorter than the navy's one)

However, the subjects stated afterward that they felt adequately oxygenated, but also were on the verge of panic due to the constant feeling of drowning induce by having your lungs filled with liquid.

None of them felt like they would be able to do any kind of productive task in this state.

[elliekelly]

Whenever I have a tiny bit of water “go down the wrong pipe” I think about how truly awful it must feel to drown. Just inhaling a teeny tiny amount of water is so uncomfortable and sometimes even scary even though you can still breath and you know everything will be perfectly fine. I can’t even imagine how awful that sensation must have been for the people involved in this experiment.

[jahnu]

Indeed this response is what makes simulated drowning (waterboarding) a torture.

[walleeee]

Peter Watts' Rifters series is premised on the development of this sort of technology for human use and goes into uncomfortable detail about the (false) feeling of drowning