PACIFIC GROVE, California (6 June 2007) -- For Pacific Grove firefighters who treat scuba divers with the bends, the year had been quiet, with maybe a case or two in five months. Then last week, volunteer ocean rescuers found themselves pulling long shifts back-to-back as three serious cases of decompression sickness poured in days apart. Decompression sickness, commonly referred to as the bends, is a dangerous buildup of nitrogen bubbles in the body that can occur with a sudden reduction in atmospheric pressure, such as when a diver ascends too quickly from a deep or lengthy dive. The first case of the bends came on Memorial Day, said Mike Wallace, director of Pacific Grove Ocean Rescue, a volunteer unit of the city's fire department. A 52-year-old woman from Salinas had been scuba diving in Belize and got decompression sickness after an accident on May 25. "Her illness worsened on her flight home," Wallace said. "She was put into the chamber from just before midnight and stayed there until 6 a.m." The "chamber" is a long, 54-inch wide metal tube that the Pacific Grove Fire Department has used for more than two decades to treat sick divers and people exposed to too much carbon monoxide. It's big enough to hold not only the patient but caregivers, too. "We can pass things back and forth, like pizza," Wallace said, or let a doctor go in and out through a double-locked door. Last Saturday brought a second case: a 25-year-old marine researcher from Santa Cruz who had been collecting data during multiple Carmel Bay dives. She was in the chamber for 5½ hours, Wallace said. The next day, Sunday, a Scotts Valley man with 32 years diving experience was brought in. The man was on a charter to Point Sur, where he spent several days diving. Over time, too much nitrogen had built up in his body, Wallace said. "We were going to evacuate him with a helicopter, but it was too foggy," Wallace said. The man was put on a Coast Guard vessel, taken to Stillwater Cove and rushed to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. After an evaluation, Community Hospital sent him to the fire station, where he started compression treatment at 12:48 p.m. He was still in the chamber late Sunday afternoon as Wallace spoke. Thanks to improved technology and safer practices, rescuers say, divers don't come down with decompression sickness as often as they used to. Firefighters recall one year, they don't remember exactly when, that the Monterey Bay Area saw 25 cases of the bends. Emergency rescue workers say the annual number of cases has dropped from about 12 or more to a half dozen or fewer these days. "In the last few years, it's kind of slowed," said Pacific Grove Fire Capt. Jeff Field, who is a member of the department's Ocean Rescue team. "If you look at the statistical trends, there are fewer incidences of barotrauma, because there are safer diving practices now," he said. "We do still see diver accidents — tired diver, rough seas, things like that." | | Fire engineer Jon Selbicky walks past the outside of the hyperbaric chamber at the Pacific Grove Fire Station on Tuesday. In the last week, the station has used it for treating three divers for the bends; usually they only assist four divers a year. This view is looking out from the inside of the chamber. (DAVID ROYAL) Ocean Rescue is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the team's jurisdiction ranges from Pajaro south to Bixby Creek in Big Sur. They'll go farther if a special request is made, Field said. The department's hyperbaric chamber is the only one of its kind on the Central Coast, and patients might come from Santa Cruz or points farther. Other chambers operate in San Francisco and at Travis Air Force Base. The team was launched in 1965, and back then firefighters had to use a portable hyperbaric chamber on scene. Patients were then shipped off to San Diego, where Navy Seals ran a more heavy-duty chamber. Since December, Community Hospital has also been using hyperbaric equipment, but its chambers are one-person models that deliver less pressure than the Fire Department's, according to Dr. Edward Johnson, director of hyperbaric medicine and wound care at the hospital. "Theirs is more for emergencies," Johnson said. "Ours is for wounds ... infections, surgical grafts or tissues damaged by radiation treatments." Community Hospital's chamber pressure helps deliver more oxygen to the blood to speed healing. Chamber pressure is measured in "atmospheres." "You and I are living at one atmosphere right now," Johnson said. "In our chambers, you'll only go two additional atmospheres. Some of the divers here in the bay actually go very deep, and (Pacific Grove's chamber) goes to six atmospheres of pressure." According to Field, the Fire Department's chamber is used for other emergencies, too, such as treating "carbon monoxide poisoning, it could be victims of fire, attempted suicide ... a faulty furnace in a house during the wintertime." Those cases usually require urgent treatment. Still, Community Hospital's new chamber could help handle a case overload in such emergencies, and Johnson said he is hoping to formalize a regional plan to back up Ocean Rescue's operations. Monterey County is fortunate to have its hyperbaric chambers and a team of trained volunteers dedicated to marine rescues, Johnson said. "There are a lot of communities out there that don't have that resource at all. I think it's an important mission." © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORKSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
