Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Hi Oliver, I just wanted to thank you for posting your account of DCI. I strongly believe that this is *EXACTLY* the sort of information that needs to be accurately and perhaps more important, *honestly* reported. I hope your posting inspires others with similar experiences to share them publicly. I thought I'd add a few comments about my own experiences which parallel yours. Years ago, a friend and I used to do a *lot* of deep air diving. Our favorite spots were along a ledge system that surrounds the island (Oahu) at a depth of about 160-200fsw. If you think YOU had a bad attitude: we use to MINIMALLY do two 160+fsw dives a day (1.5-2 hrs surface interval), sometimes up to four dives as deep as 200fsw in a single day (all bounce dives). In all cases, we'd follow a conservative extrapolation of our dive computers (ORCA EDGE, which, by the way, I *still* think is the best dive computer ever built). The reason I bring this up is that we noticed several things over the course of many hundreds of dive-days: First of all, we only had DCI problems ONCE during multiple 160+fsw dives - my buddy experienced Type II symptoms while still on the decompression line after his second 195fsw dive of the day (It's one of the Cases I described in our IWR article). This was on one of the rare days that the weather was perfect, the water was warm and crystal clear, there was no current, my buddy WASN'T drinking the night before, he ascended relatively slowly (even deep) from both dives, had a longer-than-usual surface interval between dives, had shorter-than usual bottom times, and all-in-all, obeyed all the rules (except for the one about not exceeding 130fsw...twice....in a single day). He was asymptomatic after air-only IWR (but did a follow-up treatment in the chamber anyway). Thing is, we'd done thousands of MUCH more insane profiles without incident. ALSO, after my first dive, I had obvious TYPE I sysmptoms in one of my shoulders, but I did the second dive anyway (talk about bad attitude...). Even though I cut 10 minutes off the decompression time on my second dive (to get more tanks for my friend), I never had any problems. In the context of the above, I want to add that on a few occassions, for a variety of reasons, our second dive was in the depth range of 60-130fsw. In such cases, although the bottom time of the second dive was longer than it would have been if we went deeper, we would follow an even *more* conservative decompression profile after the second dive (typically adding an additional 5-10 minutes at 20 fsw, and an additional 10-20 minutes at 10 feet...we would generally stay at 20fsw until our computers cleared us to surface, then do a relatively long 10-foot "safety" stop). But the thing is, even though the exposure was more conservative, we'd almost ALWAYS get moderate to serious Type-I symptoms about 1-2 hours after the second dive. This happend about 5 or 6 times to me, and twice to my buddy. Some of these profiles were nearly identical to the one you describe. The reason I bring this up in the context of your account is that all of it follows a somewhat unexpected pattern: two 200fsw dives in a day led to less DCI incidence than one 200fsw dive followed by one 60-130fsw dive (with similar levels of conservatism for decompression). Our hypothesis is that the first dive would cause asymptomatic (or pre-symptomatic) bubbles. During the interval, the bubbles would grow, but not enough to cause symptoms. If the second dive was to 200fsw, then the bubbles would crush back down and resolve, and would not cause subsequent problems (for obvious reasons, our decompression from the second deep dive was always *very* conservative). If, however, the second dive was to moderate depth, the bubbles would not crush enough to resolve, and would instead continue to grow during the course of the second dive, expanding to symptomatic bubbles a couple hours later. > After four chamber rides many but not all of my symptoms were gone. Two > weeks later virtually all of my symptoms were gone. After a months time out > of the water, I was able to resume regular diving. Now, four months after > the accident, I feel fully recovered except for occasional short lived pain > in various parts of my body. As you now know, the recovery process does not end with the last chamber treatment. In my "seroious" bends case, I was not able to walk normally until about a year after my 30th and final chamber ride. > There were a few aspects of the medical treatment that I disagreed with. > First of all was the delay between when I arrived at the hospital and I was > placed in the chamber. When I entered the hospital through the emergency > entrance, the emergency room would not let me walk to the pulmonary lab for > treatment. About 1 to1.5 hours were wasted waiting for the emergency room > to sort out (their) confusion, before I could go down to the chamber and be > treated. During that time I got much worse. Second, I was not given any > oxygen while waiting for chamber treatment. When I asked about it, I was > told that "it didn't really help". I agree with your disagreements. If it ever happens again (and I sincerely hope it doesn't) then lie and tell the admitting personnel that you happen to be a hyperbaric specialist, and that your Ph.D. research revealed that: 1) IMMEDIATE recompression is VITAL, and 2) O2 is ALWAYS a good thing. I've heard similar (sometimes worse) horror stories about medical folks who refuse to believe that the patient might actually know better (no offence to medical people on this list....I *know* all of you know better...) > CONCLUSIONS: > I feel the primary cause was a poor attitude I had about undertaking a > risky activity. Basically I didn't believe that I would (could?) get bent, > so didn't take proper precautions. Some contributing factors were: I'm very impressed by your honesty. I find it difficult to be honest with myself about my own flaws, let alone be honest about them publicly. > 4. Pushing my limits. I had done the 160 foot deco dive several times > before. I sometimes felt "not quite right" afterwards. This was the first > time that I did a second dive. The conditions were excellent that day, the > computer said "OK", so I went in again. I suspect the "not quite right" feeling was what we have come to call "residual narcosis", or more colloquially, "post-deep-dive scoobies", rather than DCI symptoms...just a guess. Thanks again for your honesty, it is much appreciated. I hope I didn't waste to much bandwidth with my excessively long reply... Aloha, Rich deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or*
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]