A rather unusual incident occurred during a commercial diving project: eleven professional divers completed a total of 91 dives at depths between 23.5 and 36.2 meters with dive times of 23 to 67 minutes while breathing compressed air. For operational reasons, the decompression took place in a hyperbaric chamber on the surface, where hyperbaric oxygen was inhaled - or should have been. Due to a technical error that was not noticed for a time, the divers continued to receive air instead of oxygen. The result? Two divers suffered decompression sickness. Both underwent a new pressure chamber treatment directly on site - during which the same mistake happened again: the divers were again given air as decompression gas. One of the two then suffered severe cardiovascular problems. In the end, he was given adequate hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
What is remarkable is that despite this error, only 2 decompression incidents occurred during 91 dives - allegedly. According to the Bühlmann ZHL-16C algorithm, the average missed decompression time was about 17 minutes (between 0 and 26 minutes). According to the authors of the case study, this could indicate that a moderate reduction in decompression may not be so dramatic after all. But is that really true? - The other nine divers had no complaints in the following weeks - at least not officially. In retrospect, however, five of them admitted in a telephone interview that they had experienced “insignificant” symptoms during the project, which sounded like mild decompression sickness. So out of 11 divers, 7 did have symptoms. Quod erat demonstrandum...
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