The Iceni
Medical Moderator
A difficult one,
We had a disussion of the BSAC forum about a year ago and the general consensus of opinion was that bog-standard open water divers should never attack an apparently dead diver with such things as a needle or a rusty diver's knife, even if they thought a tension pneumo was a certaintly.
If a diver has a tension pneumothorax he is likely to be very ill indeed as he is also likely to have a large cerebral artery gas embolus because the high pressure gas within the thorax has only one way out - via the pulmonary veins accessible through the tear in lung tissue.
I would forget about looking for tracheal dviation, a difficult sign to detect even by experienced chest physicians. and a stethoscope - well? I think the diagnosis will be obvious from the history of rapid ascent and signs of bloody froth in the airway with the quivalent of an "inflated chest" - hence my reference to car tyres.
Military paramedics are taught needle thoracostomy for sucking wounds of the chest.
Oops, A car tyre is indeed inlated to about 1.7 bar or 17 metres of sea water (not feet!) This would be 56 fsw. :bonk:
