Diver injured on the Oriskany

[Tom Smedley]

The chamber at Pcola Baptist is the same one as Springhill in Mobile. Bay County has a multiplace chamber. The monoplace tubes (3 ATA) have the capability to do a table 6 treatment (although a chamber with an attendant lockout is preferrable.) You would have to use a bib for air breaks. The diver who developed pain-only DCS on the O last July when I was there was treated at Pcola Baptist. Thanks to the USCG he was in the chamber less than an hour after onset of symptoms.

I am not sure if Jo Ellen Smith is back in business or not. There is a multiplace chamber at Carraway Hospital in Birmingham that is operated by Bobby Lewis. Although he teaches Hyperbaric Medicine with Dick Rutkowski I don't know if they would accept a diving accident.

I doubt that civilian medevac helicopters would have the resources or accept the risk in doing a basket recovery from a boat. There are no military helicopters on hot stand-by along the coast. The First SOW at Hurlburt may have a bird on a training mission with PJs but that's a big if. From my experience in the Air Force it takes about two hours to generate a cold aircraft if crew can be contacted immediately. Then there's flying time.

The Coasties generally have a boat on ready and that sucker is fast.

 

[diver 85]

Mobile has a Coast Guard Air unit.... I don't think there is another one along the gulf coast until you get to Clearwater.

Any unit that might be at one of the stations near there (Destin, P'cola, PCB) are most likely just a visiting helicopter from the Mobile unit.

Note: the Mobile unit is the USCG's Air Training unit, so you'll see them training going to the other close by units.

I'm going to guess there's one out of Galveston........

 

[mike_s]

Mobile has a Coast Guard Air unit.... I don't think there is another one along the gulf coast until you get to Clearwater.

Any unit that might be at one of the stations near there (Destin, P'cola, PCB) are most likely just a visiting helicopter from the Mobile unit.

Note: the Mobile unit is the USCG's Air Training unit, so you'll see them training going to the other close by units.

I'm going to guess there's one out of Galveston........

You're prob right.

I should have been more specific with my comment when I said "Gulf Coast. "


I meant the Florida Gulf Coast area. The Mobile (Alabama) USCG air unit covers part of the panhandle on the gulf coast (of Florida).

 

[chickdiver]

The chamber at Pcola Baptist is the same one as Springhill in Mobile. Bay County has a multiplace chamber. The monoplace tubes (3 ATA) have the capability to do a table 6 treatment (although a chamber with an attendant lockout is preferrable.) You would have to use a bib for air breaks. The diver who developed pain-only DCS on the O last July when I was there was treated at Pcola Baptist. Thanks to the USCG he was in the chamber less than an hour after onset of symptoms.

I wasn't aware that Sprinhill's chamber was monoplace as well- thanks.

 

[Tom Smedley]

I wasn't aware that Sprinhill's chamber was monoplace as well- thanks.

The Diving Doc's page
http://www.scuba-doc.com/divala.htm
lists Carraway in Birmingham as a DAN referral site and they have a life-flight on site. They also list Springhill as a multiplace. It has been several years since I was there but their chamber was a 3 ATA and had a lockout for an attendant. They may have upgraded since then. Will have to do more research.

Rick had a diver with possible DCS last june in Panama City and they carried him to Bay County.

 

[jviehe]

I had to a little when I read your part of the post "that far out(25 miles).... "....Our 1st snapper rigs here off SW La., leaving out of Cameron or Grand Chanier, are 28 miles out the Pass/es(whopping 45' of water!!!!----whoa).....But , we survive....lol........40 miles out, we get to 75' of water.......travel it every weekend (weather permitting) in my 25' Wellcraft......Oh well, to sit & dream.......Now saying that, when I pull her to Venice, La.(7 hr pull from my house), 7 miles off shore we're in 700' of water, 19 miles out it's around 2000'.....(that's where the big boys hang out)....Have hit USCG out of Galveston(one day broke a hydrolic steering hose & both engines we frozen- no steering- @ about a 15 degree angle....btw, came in with starboard engine in forward, port in reverse from 29 miles offshore---a slow boat to China!!!), figured that was close to 110 miles on my VHF.......lol...Ya'll have it made @ 25 to 40 miles.......


Hope this diver is doing well & makes a good recovery............

Ive just got to gripe, this is the least coherent post Ive ever seen, and I travel the forums a lot. How about using proper sentence and paragraph structure?

 

[tedtim]

Hey, if y'all could get someone to buy an old Huey and put pontoons on it, Uncle Ricky and I would be glad to provide medivac ! ! !

By golly, we'd just tie off to the wreck and wait. Course we'd have to do a bit of diving from time to time.

the K

IIRC putting pontoons on a Huey reduces the Vne considerably, unless you are referring to the pop out kind. We used to put the big ones on one of ours and take it fishing, errrr.... on important training missions to maintain proficiency in all configurations . The hoist was not an option with the big pontoons.

 

[diver 85]

Ive just got to gripe, this is the least coherent post Ive ever seen, and I travel the forums a lot. How about using proper sentence and paragraph structure?

Get a life, man...I was posting in a hurry...Sorry if it was offensive to you, btw, I'm never trying to write the Great American Novel on internet message boards..Evidently, you have too much time on your hands if you spend it critiqueing(?sp) sentence structure of posts on the internet...

Of course, this is my opinion & my opinion only.....Remember, there is a button to cure all this.........Joe......diver 85..........

 

[Mike Edmonston]

Get a life, man...I was posting in a hurry...Sorry if it was offensive to you, btw, I'm never trying to write the Great American Novel on internet message boards..Evidently, you have too much time on your hands if you spend it critiqueing(?sp) sentence structure of posts on the internet...

Of course, this is my opinion & my opinion only.....Remember, there is a button to cure all this.........Joe......diver 85..........

I dn't git wut Ur sayn @ all. cn u plz uz prop sntns's so we cn undrstnd u?

Peace

Mike

 

[paulwall]

Get a life, man...I was posting in a hurry...Sorry if it was offensive to you, btw, I'm never trying to write the Great American Novel on internet message boards..Evidently, you have too much time on your hands if you spend it critiqueing(?sp) sentence structure of posts on the internet...

Of course, this is my opinion & my opinion only.....Remember, there is a button to cure all this.........Joe......diver 85..........

Is that what the "report badly formed post" button is for?