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From jr@sa*.bo*.ma*.us* Mon Mar 15 01:56:35 1993
Subject: Re: In-water Decompression Completion
...
The article, "In-Water Oxygen Recompression: A Potential Field Treatment
Option For Technical Divers", by Dr. Carl Edmonds, discusses the pros
and cons of reimmersion recompression.
...
These articles make one point: that in-water treatment can and does save
lives...
It might be interesting to discuss a recent incident off Sydney.
I can only relate the story second hand, after discussing it with
the skipper involved, so some of the details may be inaccurate.
A few weeks ago one of the Sydney charter boats which specialises
in the deeper wrecks off Sydney (50+m) had divers down on the
Woniora, a wreck in about 65m.
One buddy pair was about 16 minutes into their dive when the valve in the
power inflate hose of one of the divers unseated itself and proceeded to drain
her tank. At first she thought it was just her Air II which had started
to free flow, so disconnected the inflator hose to find the problem was
with the valve. She was diving with twin independent tanks, so switched
across to her other reg. Of course, the tank which drained was the one
which was most full. They were diving on air. Mixed gas is not yet
available outside of commercial diving operations in Australia.
She and her buddy reeled back in to the anchor line, and there was a slight
delay on their return when she caught her fin in the line and had to
disentangle. As they reached the anchor line another pair had just
hit bottom. After communicating the problem the four ascended. A
fresh diver ahead and in the rear, and the other pair in between.
During the ascent she ran out of air. She took a reg from the fresh
diver ahead and they continued their ascent. She had neglected to
dump air from her disconnected BC (she was wearing a Scubapro BC
and a set of Dive-Rite wings) during the ascent, and at 16-18m began
to rise quickly and lost her hold on the anchor line. The air donor
took hold of her, losing the line, and went with her to the surface.
It was a rapid ascent, slowed only by the second diver who managed to
prevent a Polaris event.
She hit the surface and was taken straight on board the boat. The
boat skipper described her later as being very stressed out, having
"tunnel vision", but was extremely concerned about neurological DCI
effects. He put her on O2 on the boat immediately, and then as she
seemed in a state to handle it, had her return to 6m on O2 for 30 minutes
with two tender divers in the water with her. After 30 minutes he
put her up to 3m for a further 30 minutes. Basically he chose to
follow a broken stops routine, using O2.
She was on the boat for 3 to 4 minutes before re-entering the water.
The skipper contacted the recompression facility at Prince Henry
hospital (about an hour away by boat and car - 40 minutes away had
a rescue helicopter been called). The skipper explained his rationale
for putting her back in the water to the chamber doctor, and after
some consultations back at the facility, they agreed that his move
was OK.
Once back on the boat, she was put on O2, and at the chamber within
an hour. The chamber report had her presenting with mild neurological
symptoms. She was put in for a treatment, and later given an all-clear.
The chamber doctor in charge later said that although the chamber did
not approve of in-water recompression, in this case it may have prevented
a worse outcome.
Greg
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