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This is an exact reprint of what I put on my Facebook page, detailing a Dive Incident I had in November. My husband, Dan Volker posted this on my page because we think this should be known by divers - it is very counterintuitive to much diver discussion on DCS.... (I have about 5000 FB friends that follow my exploits and antics pretty closely as you can see if you visit www.facebook.com/sandra.sfdj.edwards )
This story began on a Sunday in November. We were diving on Splashdown Divers in Boynton Beach, Florida, on a day with 3 to 4 foot seas, and we had just finished a 60 foot dive that lasted about 60 minutes. We were diving 33% Nitrox, and after countless thousands of dives that were radically more extreme in depth and duration, Sandra began feeling pains between her shoulder blades about 10 minutes after getting back on the boat.
Sandra told me she was perhaps getting a cramp I could massage out, so we went down into the cabin where we would have room for me to try massaging it out. A few minutes of some trigger point type work did nothing to alleviate the pain, which was growing more intense and now was spreading to her stomach, which was starting to feel both hot and numb.
Now about 15 minutes after surfacing, Sandra said her legs were tingling also along with her stomach. Bells went off in my head, and while I was certain she could not possibly have DCS from such a baby profile, tingling and spreading pain etc. suggested I would need to get her on Oxygen immediately.
I popped up to the top of the boat in an instant, and told the captain what I was doing, then went back to pulling out the Oxygen kit. At about 17 minutes or so Sandra was sitting on the berth in the lower cabin, and now feeling numbness in her legs. By 19 minutes we had her on Oxygen, and I helped lie her down on the floor, breathing it, and believe me, Sandra was scared.
And now she said her legs were paralyzed, she could not feel them. And we relayed to the coast guard that the diver was paralyzed.
Our friend and dive buddy Robert Starling was right there also, and he attended to getting her comfortable, while I headed up to tell the captain what we were doing, and that she would need to be calling the coast guard and heading in. I still did not believe this could be DCS, no way, no how, but we know when these symptoms present, this is what you are supposed to do.
I went over the dive and the events the day before with the captain, and how unlikely this event was, though maybe made possible due to a very intense 3 hour bike ride the day before. There is a “Particle Theory” concept in DCS, where enough inflammation from muscle traumas or lymphatic flow from micro tears, might form bubble nuclei that could turn what should have been an impossibly easy dive into an episode with DCS. This is just theory, it is hard to tie it to the cycling, but we were struggling to make sense of the impossible.
About 20 minutes later we were at the dock, the Ambulance was waiting for us, and the EMT’s came running up to help the diver they heard was paralyzed.
To most, this meant a spinal hit. A huge big deal. But stranger things began to unfold. Sandra Sat up, and told us about 15 minutes after I put her on Oxygen, she suddenly felt blood gushing in her legs, and the feeling came back to them. And now with the EMT’s here, she stood up and walked easily, and said she actually felt great. No pain, no weakness.
Some of the divers were saying how amazing Oxygen is, when you put a diver with DCS on it quickly enough.
The EMT’s took Sandra in the Ambulance, and put her back on their Oxygen. She rode to St Mary’s where she stayed on Oxygen for another hour and a half, until the Hyperbaric Doctor that runs the chamber there arrived, and ran her through a battery of tests. She had no pains, no strength deficits, no reflex issues, and none of the NORMAL symptoms of DCS. Maybe the rapid deployment of O2 resolved the bubbles in her spinal area in 15 minutes. Hard to imagine, but this was the immediate conclusion.
The Hyperbaric Doc then decided since she was presenting no symptoms any longer, she had no reason to go into the chamber…and Sandra did not really want to go in their anyway…she is not the best patient It was hard enough to get her to agree to ride in the ambulance
When we got home we called Divers Alert Network. We were devastated with the news that Sandra had had an episode of DCS, and specifically a spinal hit. We needed to see the best Diving Medicine Specialist we could reach in the State of Florida, and DAN was very helpful in going over the top ten doctors, and in finding the best one for Sandra. We ended up choosing Dr Daniel Grobman in Westin, at Cleveland Clinic. He was both a top Diving Medicine Dr and a diver, AND, he is a top Sports Medicine Doc as well, which we felt was crucially important with Sandra’s cycling issues and potential for micro particle theory discussion. He was on Vacation, but was so committed to divers that his office said he called back right away and would be returning early from his vacation, so Sandra could see him in about 3 days.
We now know an amazing Diving Medicine Doctor we would recommend to all of our friends should they ever need one, and had this not happened, Sandra would not have known she had neck issues that needed to be dealt immediately. Without this episode, they could have gotten to be so bad that she may have needed surgery. If you ever get a dive medicine scare, you can reach Dr. Grobman at 954-659-5930...it is a number to keep with your DAN card and other emergency material.
We now have a program where she should be able to get her cervical spine health to be equivalent to an average 40 year old or better. Who would have ever thought figuring out how you got DCS could go like this?
< continued in following post>
This story began on a Sunday in November. We were diving on Splashdown Divers in Boynton Beach, Florida, on a day with 3 to 4 foot seas, and we had just finished a 60 foot dive that lasted about 60 minutes. We were diving 33% Nitrox, and after countless thousands of dives that were radically more extreme in depth and duration, Sandra began feeling pains between her shoulder blades about 10 minutes after getting back on the boat.
Sandra told me she was perhaps getting a cramp I could massage out, so we went down into the cabin where we would have room for me to try massaging it out. A few minutes of some trigger point type work did nothing to alleviate the pain, which was growing more intense and now was spreading to her stomach, which was starting to feel both hot and numb.
Now about 15 minutes after surfacing, Sandra said her legs were tingling also along with her stomach. Bells went off in my head, and while I was certain she could not possibly have DCS from such a baby profile, tingling and spreading pain etc. suggested I would need to get her on Oxygen immediately.
I popped up to the top of the boat in an instant, and told the captain what I was doing, then went back to pulling out the Oxygen kit. At about 17 minutes or so Sandra was sitting on the berth in the lower cabin, and now feeling numbness in her legs. By 19 minutes we had her on Oxygen, and I helped lie her down on the floor, breathing it, and believe me, Sandra was scared.
And now she said her legs were paralyzed, she could not feel them. And we relayed to the coast guard that the diver was paralyzed.
Our friend and dive buddy Robert Starling was right there also, and he attended to getting her comfortable, while I headed up to tell the captain what we were doing, and that she would need to be calling the coast guard and heading in. I still did not believe this could be DCS, no way, no how, but we know when these symptoms present, this is what you are supposed to do.
I went over the dive and the events the day before with the captain, and how unlikely this event was, though maybe made possible due to a very intense 3 hour bike ride the day before. There is a “Particle Theory” concept in DCS, where enough inflammation from muscle traumas or lymphatic flow from micro tears, might form bubble nuclei that could turn what should have been an impossibly easy dive into an episode with DCS. This is just theory, it is hard to tie it to the cycling, but we were struggling to make sense of the impossible.
About 20 minutes later we were at the dock, the Ambulance was waiting for us, and the EMT’s came running up to help the diver they heard was paralyzed.
To most, this meant a spinal hit. A huge big deal. But stranger things began to unfold. Sandra Sat up, and told us about 15 minutes after I put her on Oxygen, she suddenly felt blood gushing in her legs, and the feeling came back to them. And now with the EMT’s here, she stood up and walked easily, and said she actually felt great. No pain, no weakness.
Some of the divers were saying how amazing Oxygen is, when you put a diver with DCS on it quickly enough.
The EMT’s took Sandra in the Ambulance, and put her back on their Oxygen. She rode to St Mary’s where she stayed on Oxygen for another hour and a half, until the Hyperbaric Doctor that runs the chamber there arrived, and ran her through a battery of tests. She had no pains, no strength deficits, no reflex issues, and none of the NORMAL symptoms of DCS. Maybe the rapid deployment of O2 resolved the bubbles in her spinal area in 15 minutes. Hard to imagine, but this was the immediate conclusion.
The Hyperbaric Doc then decided since she was presenting no symptoms any longer, she had no reason to go into the chamber…and Sandra did not really want to go in their anyway…she is not the best patient It was hard enough to get her to agree to ride in the ambulance
When we got home we called Divers Alert Network. We were devastated with the news that Sandra had had an episode of DCS, and specifically a spinal hit. We needed to see the best Diving Medicine Specialist we could reach in the State of Florida, and DAN was very helpful in going over the top ten doctors, and in finding the best one for Sandra. We ended up choosing Dr Daniel Grobman in Westin, at Cleveland Clinic. He was both a top Diving Medicine Dr and a diver, AND, he is a top Sports Medicine Doc as well, which we felt was crucially important with Sandra’s cycling issues and potential for micro particle theory discussion. He was on Vacation, but was so committed to divers that his office said he called back right away and would be returning early from his vacation, so Sandra could see him in about 3 days.
We now know an amazing Diving Medicine Doctor we would recommend to all of our friends should they ever need one, and had this not happened, Sandra would not have known she had neck issues that needed to be dealt immediately. Without this episode, they could have gotten to be so bad that she may have needed surgery. If you ever get a dive medicine scare, you can reach Dr. Grobman at 954-659-5930...it is a number to keep with your DAN card and other emergency material.
We now have a program where she should be able to get her cervical spine health to be equivalent to an average 40 year old or better. Who would have ever thought figuring out how you got DCS could go like this?
< continued in following post>