If you are thrown in the ocean with concrete tied to your feet, will you die from drowning or from the pressure?

Your body is mostly made of water.

Water, for our intent and purpose, is not compressible.

However, in your body you also have air cavities. These need to be equalized or you can suffer a pressure-related injury (barotrauma).

So, you messed up with the mafia and you got yourself some brand new concrete footwear.

Your new friends will take you to the deep end of the pond and throw you overboard.

Let’s say that under normal circumstances, you can hold your breath for about 2 minutes, but under these stressful conditions you will burn oxygen like a stove, so let’s say, realistically, you can remain approximately 60 seconds without breathing.

The first 10 metres you will be busy equalizing your ears or your eardrums will burst at around 3–5 metres, letting water into your inner ear. This will cause a sense of dizziness and loss of balance due to the cold water coming in contact with your balance sensors located in your ear cavity.

Of course, at this point in your life, hearing is not something you need anyway, so on we go.

After 30 seconds of descent, you will be already at 50 metres.

Not much has changed inside your body except for the compression of air in your stomach, colon, lungs and sinuses.

Somewhere around 60, your diaphragm will start contracting to signal you to breath. Little does it know that you have bought a one-way ticket to the abyss.

At 70 metres, the blood will start doing some strange things, such as shifting into your lungs, to prevent them to be crushed by the surrounding pressure: this is a common phenomenon for free divers, called blood shift.

Now your diaphragm will spasm so violently that you will either open your mouth or tear your internal organs.

At around 90 metres, if you are lucky, you will have lost consciousness before the water will enter your lungs causing you to drown.

Moral of the story?

Never forget to pay for your pizza.