"It covered my eyes, it covered my ears, it went inside my nose," he said. Then, his radio stopped working.
"I was on my own, isolated," he continued. "I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear, I couldn't talk."
Major, potentially dangerous, malfunctions during a spacewalk were not pioneered by Parmitano though. Astronauts have been overcoming similar dangers for years.
"Of the nine EVAs that took place during project Gemini, three of them actually ended early due to concerns over health and safety," Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum curator Emily Margolis said, speaking on the space walks (EVAs) of the 1960s.
Gene Cernan found himself nearly unable to move during a venture into the void during Gemini 9. The metallic coating on his suit restricted his movement more than anticipated, and the suit's interior was quickly heating up.
"He started to sweat profusely and the moisture in the suit started to fog his visor," Margolis said. The heat and strenuous battle against the movement-resistant suit cost Cernan 13 pounds.
"It's believed that most of that was water weight from the amount that he was sweating during this EVA," Margolis added.
But that was decades ago. How dangerous are spacewalks today? According to Baylor College of Medicine's Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA and SpaceX consultant, roughly 20% of spacewalks encounter problems.
But will laypeople, those with no experience or proper training in space walking, be able to correct major malfunctions as well as tried-and-tested astronauts like Parmitano?
To safely return to his shuttle after his helmet began filling with water, blinding him, he had to retrace his steps back to his airlock from memory.
"I don't take any specific credit for keeping my cool because I'd been trained my whole adult life to perform in relatively risky situations," the Italian Air Force colonel and test pilot said.
Could you die during a space walk? It's not likely, according to NASA, because adventures outside the craft are often canceled on a moment's notice over technical malfunctions and health scares.
2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.