I was recently transfered to a different fire station, which just happens to be the heavy rescue and dive team station 
The local hyperbaric facility happens to be in our first-in response area, so yesterday we went over there for a tour, since I had never been there.
The main NASA guy who runs it was there and I got to ask about a gazillion questions..... mostly about how the chamber works and various treatments ("tables")
I asked questions about O2 toxicity, prevention and treatment as well. Some of the answers were definitely not what I expected. He also threw in interesting information like someone who takes aspirin or 1000mg of vitamin C daily for 3 or 4 weeks is much more likely to have a CNS seizure than someone who doesn't. They have no idea why, just found that these patients will almost always seize at a set point in the treatment (i.e. right at the end of a table 6).
He also said that although they treat a lot of medical (non DCI) patients and military pilots who have rapid decompression injuries when their planes depressurize at 20,000', the vast majority of the people they treat are recreational scuba divers. He also said these are the least likely to have 100% recoveries due to extended transport times and no early O2 .... Hmmmm.... definitely something to think about :11:
The longest treatments are table 6 extentions for 2-3 weeks straight! Typical for diving DCI is Table 6a, which is an initial dive to 186' on air, then slowly back to 60' on O2 with 5 minute air breaks after every 20 minutes of O2. They don't have a TV in there yet, but have a DVD player on order so folks can at least watch movies.
The main chamber was built in 1957 and apparently used to be a Navy chamber down in Long Beach. He said it is the only chamber in the NW that can be pressurized to 10 atm! It's also the biggest one they have (has beds for 2 patients, but can hold 12 sitting up). It's also the only one with a chiller (gets pretty stuffy in one of those tubes after a few hours with a couple bodies in it)
Anyhow, I'm sure I've bored you enough, but thought I'd share a bit of the interesting (to me) stuff I got to see, learn about and will hopefully never have to experience!
The local hyperbaric facility happens to be in our first-in response area, so yesterday we went over there for a tour, since I had never been there. The main NASA guy who runs it was there and I got to ask about a gazillion questions..... mostly about how the chamber works and various treatments ("tables")
I asked questions about O2 toxicity, prevention and treatment as well. Some of the answers were definitely not what I expected. He also threw in interesting information like someone who takes aspirin or 1000mg of vitamin C daily for 3 or 4 weeks is much more likely to have a CNS seizure than someone who doesn't. They have no idea why, just found that these patients will almost always seize at a set point in the treatment (i.e. right at the end of a table 6).
He also said that although they treat a lot of medical (non DCI) patients and military pilots who have rapid decompression injuries when their planes depressurize at 20,000', the vast majority of the people they treat are recreational scuba divers. He also said these are the least likely to have 100% recoveries due to extended transport times and no early O2 .... Hmmmm.... definitely something to think about :11:
The longest treatments are table 6 extentions for 2-3 weeks straight! Typical for diving DCI is Table 6a, which is an initial dive to 186' on air, then slowly back to 60' on O2 with 5 minute air breaks after every 20 minutes of O2. They don't have a TV in there yet, but have a DVD player on order so folks can at least watch movies.
The main chamber was built in 1957 and apparently used to be a Navy chamber down in Long Beach. He said it is the only chamber in the NW that can be pressurized to 10 atm! It's also the biggest one they have (has beds for 2 patients, but can hold 12 sitting up). It's also the only one with a chiller (gets pretty stuffy in one of those tubes after a few hours with a couple bodies in it)
Anyhow, I'm sure I've bored you enough, but thought I'd share a bit of the interesting (to me) stuff I got to see, learn about and will hopefully never have to experience!
