On Tuesday morning, one unlucky person living on the International Space Station was a victim of every astronauts greatest fear. While Luca Parmitano and Chris Cassidy were on a spacewalk conducting a routine repair of the outskirts of the Station, Parmitano began to panic.

It was reported that the Italian astronaut’s helmet began to fill with moisture. First thinking it was sweat, the astronaut then became alarmed at its mass. Parmitano said, “It’s a lot of water.”

….there was so much water inside Parmitano’s ears and around his face that he couldn’t hear or speak to communicate with the other astronauts.

As a result of the liquid gravitating in the helmet, Cassidy could not tell if his counterpart was alright or not. Instead Cassidy told the victim to squeeze his hand if he was ok – there was no response.

The crew pulled the astronaut back into the Station and freed him from his suit. They told Mission Control, “He looks miserable, but is OK.”

According to The Atlantic, the cause of the liquid in the helmet is still unknown, though Cassidy suspects that the half liter could have come from Parmitano’s drink bag. The still alive Parmitano on the other hand is convinced it was something else that gave his life a scare.

Chris Cassidy told Mission Control:

To him, the water clearly did not taste like our normal drinking water.

[Source: Altlantic]