Hi Barrie,
There are divers that have survived the feet first ascent. They have been left in wheelchair. Do you know where to get some numbers that will say how many didn't survive such ascent and how many were crippled? I was just wondering if such statistic exists.
I believe that any situation under water when dealing with an emergency is a real time and life threatening situation. We would need to specify when exactly a happy diver will turn into unconscious diver. When diving as a team where communication is working and situational awareness is presented at high level then most of the emergencies could be handled without effort in case team members were appropriately trained.
If divers were not co-operating while diving then it could easily happen that by CO2 or high PPO2 affected diver will be left unnoticed in the first and most important seconds. Those two basic issues that most of the tekies are prepared for should normally be resolved if adequate response was presented. Divers could terminate and finish the dive as normal.
If CO2 or high PPO2 was not handled due to the panic and stress that had developed than it could easily happen that divers will be watching their drowning and dying friend. If it goes that far let say they could send him up. That would require somebody from the boat keeping an eye for such event. I believe this is not an issue on any charter boat. Experienced teams and group of divers usually have some sort of emergency scenarios prepared and are ready to deal with them. I was just thinking of divers where boat was left alone as everybody was diving. Unfortunately this is also happening and sending a body up would not make sense.
Happy diver shouldn?t ever become an unconscious diver if poor planning, non existing team work, very bad diving, and solo diving were not presented. Well unless there was a heard attack or stroke strike or another medical predisposition for instance PFO involved.
I still believe the feet first ascent is just the last option where the victim is dead or almost dead.
Will most probably not survive the fast ascent no matter what the position is. If drysuit presented the feet first is possible. If wetsuit was involved would you attach a lift bug to his legs in order to send him feet first?
All the Best,
Frank
Hi Frank,
The situation that Stewart is talking about relates to an incident in real time rather than a body recovery situation and by sending the diver inverted to the surface (even if drowned) there is a real possibility that the surface support may be able to resuscitate the diver and depending on the depth of the incident he may get bent but he could survive.
It may help to save the diver when you consider the following factors, an inverted ascent will allow any gas that is present in the lungs to expand during the ascent and may in effect to some degree kick start the resuscitation or at least clear some of the water from the lungs.
It is a last ditch effort to recover a diver following an Oxygen Toxicity, Hypercapnia or a drowning incident but sending him up inverted will certainly get him to help on the surface quite quickly and should avoid lung expansion injury (Head up ascent) that would almost certainly result in death.
We are talking about best options here in a situation that has occurred despite the best efforts of all concerned and we are ignoring all the planning & training that goes into preparing for these trips and that is already happening now for dives that will not take place until August so just to be clear this really is drastic action when all else has failed.
