This belongs more in the Accident board and the Thailand section where I will post as well but since I usually hang out at Monterey and go out on boats there I thought I might drop a short message about a recent experience (a week ago) on a boat out of Phuket in Thailand. We did 2 dives on the first day and had to return to port to pick up new customers. While we were there, a woman visiting from Holland, aged about 45, started complaining of pains in her hips and a bad headache. I and some others thought she should go straight onto O2 but the DM in charge said that he would monitor it and see how she felt in the morning, especially since her dives were normal to 80ft and slow ascents etc. Shortly after that she got rashes on her legs so then there was no doubt. But they did not seem able to locate O2 very quickly. Given the confusion over language it was not clear if they had none, or there some other problem. When they eventually found it, some 2 hours after her first complaint, her symptoms improved quickly. She spent 7 hours in the chamber in Phuket and made a full recovery. I learned later that the DM in charge was demoted.
The moral of the story is not to assume boats in foreign places have everything that they should have. It is worth checking - not an issue for us in Monterey I believe.
The moral of the story is not to assume boats in foreign places have everything that they should have. It is worth checking - not an issue for us in Monterey I believe.
