To get a bit more specific, assume your buddy has a problem that
requires you to accompany him to the surface to hand off to medical
attention, but then you are asymptomatic and can return to depth
immediately (say, one minute or less surfaced).  This actually happened
to me once.  What I did, after notifying the surface of my intent, was
return to 5/4ths of the violation depth, and then resume the deco
profile from that point with no extension of stop durations, other than
the oxygen stop (6m) which I extended by 50%, still including breaks to
back gas.  A safety diver came down to monitor me, and brought extra
oxygen, although I only used what I was already carrying.  Got out
feeling fine, apart from a bit of fatigue, as if I had done the dive on
air  (sub-clinical DCS?).  Does this approach sound reasonable, or do
you have a well defined reason to extend the non O2 stops as you
suggested?

If surfaced time approaches 5 minutes or so or if there are any
symptoms, I would go with the FFM and IWR protocol.

-Sean


On Wed, 16 Feb 2000 13:15:46 -1000, Richard Pyle wrote:

>Hi "Doc", ;-)
>
>
>>I
>> am curious as to what your thoughts are on resuming an interrupted or
>> ommitted
>> decompression, where the diver in question is entirely asymptomatic?
>
>Given that we understand so little about the relationship between
>decompression and bends symptoms, I'd say that any response to this
>situation (unanticipated truncation of planned deco profile) is necessarily
>"seat of the pants".  My particular "seat of the pants" approach would be be
>get back underwater ASAP, return to depth at which ceiling was violated plus
>20 feet or so, then I would do something on the order of 120%-150% of the
>time at each stop depth that I had omitted.  If return to the water is
>delayed for any length of time (5-ish minutes or more), I would lie
>horizontally and relax while others did whatever is necessary to allow me to
>return underwater.  If possible, I would be guzzling fresh water during this
>period and, if available, would be breathing O2. Of course, if O2 was
>available, I'd probably opt to get back U/W with it.  Even if I felt the
>need to return to a depth greater than about 20-25 feet, I would be
>breathing the O2 at 20-25 feet while waiting for the support folks got me a
>mix that I would breathe deeper.  All of this, of course, is contingent upon
>specifics...
>
>Aloha,
>Rich


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