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Originally Posted by QRQ 30
Pete got me on this subject. In Thailand we got the only recompression chamber between Korea and Okinawa.I'm not sure why except they had the $$$ and it was ultimately turned over to the Thai SF.
In my time we actually got to fire it up for something other than pre-testing students once. The Flight surgeon at U-Tapao sent over a B-52 crew. Our Team Sergeant, Ed Foshee was a school trained diving medic. A diving medic is the boss in diving accidents, over and above doctors. He performed another neurological exam and determined that the men were suffering from decompression sickness, aka the bends.
We recompressed the crew and Foshee was put into direct telephone contact with a flight surgeon in Texas. The surgeon concurred with and approved of each step Ed took.
The only people we ever treated for real weren't even divers. Theiy were a B-52 crew. Apparently their pressurization system had gone haywire and took them upto high altitude and back to below sea leval several times in a short period of time.
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Wow Terry. Thanks for that story.
I've never seen people being treated but I have seen people that have needed to be treated.
I was leading an open water class at the Blue Hole in Beautiful Downtown Santa Rosa NM. About 2 hours East of Alb. NM
We were there on a weekend, which is usually full of classess doing their open water dives. Today was no different. Amongest the classess there was a couple (husband/wife) that were there just to dive the hole. I noticed them gearing up as me and my class entered the water for our first dive. We did our skills and as we were exiting the water, that couple passed us and went in.
We changed tanks and did our S.I. for about 20 minutes, then reentered the water were we did our 2nd dive, which lasted about 25 minutes. We exited the water and went back to our spot, to do our log books, when I looked over by the stairs/ramp and saw that couple come out of the water.
I noticed the woman hand her fins to her husband and told him to help her out of her BCD right there. She said rather loudly, that her back was hurting. He helped her out of her BCD, where she promply collapsed. I wasn't the only one watching this. There were several other Instructors watching this. Before her husband had time to ask her what the problem was, there were several Instructors there with O2 bottles and we got her on O2 right away.
We activaed EMS and someone else got on the phone to DAN (Divers Alert Network) to see which chamber in Alb was up and running and then to inform them that they may soon have company. We stabalized the woman and started questioning the man about how he was feeling. He kept reassuring us that he "Felt Fine", but we kept an eye on him anyway.
While the ambulance showed up, we found out that this couple was just up from Texas, and was diving the Blue Hole on their way out West for a nice dive trip. We looked at this couples computers and noticed that they hadn't set the altitude feature on them. The Blue Hole sits at 4600 feet. They were still diving sea level profiles.
We insisted to the husband that he too should be put on O2 and go with his wife into Alb. But he kept saying that he "Felt Fine" and would just follow her in with their car. After some heming and hawing we finally got him on board the ambulance.
We later found out, as they were driving into Alb. he started not "Feeling Fine" and joined his wife for a "chamber ride".
One day I'd like to get to a chamber and see how people are treated.
Not only were quarters extremely tight and reminiscent of a coffin but they left the light off and blacked out the window -- total blackness.
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