Do you own an emergency oxygen unit?

[tbone1004]

I wouldn’t relay on an ambulance to give you 100% O2. Most carry a Nitrox oxide / oxygen mix which would make DCI worse By adding a new gas to your body.

every ambulance I have ever seen in the US carries pure O2, and while @Duke Dive Medicine is obviously the ultimate authority I BELIEVE that the pure O2 is to drive out other inert gases by having a pure pressure gradient and that the specific gas mix doesn't particularly matter. I.e. if you're bend on nitrox and you start breathing heliox the helium will still drive out the nitrogen. Pure O2 is used because it is incredibly convenient to produce by both PSA and distillation vs any other gas mixture that requires blending

Thanks for the detailed response. I'll be looking around at the different options after I actually get the training, and this is a good spread of information. As for the sizes, if I did pick one of these up, it'd be for local diving, and there is a hyperbaric chamber in Pacific Grove, which is within a few miles of the popular shore diving sites. It's my understanding that people suffering suspected DCI must always go first to a hospital, and only afterward to the chamber. So yeah, 40min won't get you all the way to the chamber, but I bet it'd get you to the ambulance truck or the hospital in a lot of cases. In your view, does the chamber being that close bring the ~40min of gas into the "useful" range, or still too small?

I do have an AL40 that I picked up awhile back, intended to be used as a pony bottle. But it's been gathering dust, hasn't been in the water since before covid, maybe longer. It's been hydrocarbon cleaned for partial pressure nitrox fills. If I were to take it down to a local dive shop with my nitrox card and my O2 provider card (but no deco card or deco training) and ask for a fill of 100%, would they have any reason to say no?

Since it's clean for partial pressure, I imagine that they would not be taking on any additional fire risk. Maybe they'd be worried about divers going out doing untrained accelerated deco dives -- I know I wouldn't do that, but I guess they can't be certain.

Ask the dive shop. "Hey, I have an AL40 that I'm going to use as my emergency O2 kit. Will you fill it with my emergency O2 card?"
Unfortunately asking the question of whether they will or not is impossible to answer on here because each shop is different and sometimes their relationship with each diver will vary the answer.
40min is still too small. Even if the hospital is only 10 minutes away it will take you at least 20 to get to the point where you can get them in the car, 10 mins to get there, and almost guaranteed they will not put you on their O2 until a doctor sees you but I don't believe they can take your O2 away. @Trace Malinowski has had a lot of problems over the last few years because the hospital refused to put him on O2 in the ER.....

 

[broncobowsher]

every ambulance I have ever seen in the US carries pure O2, and while @Duke Dive Medicine is obviously the ultimate authority I BELIEVE that the pure O2 is to drive out other inert gases by having a pure pressure gradient and that the specific gas mix doesn't particularly matter. I.e. if you're bend on nitrox and you start breathing heliox the helium will still drive out the nitrogen. Pure O2 is used because it is incredibly convenient to produce by both PSA and distillation vs any other gas mixture that requires blending


Ask the dive shop. "Hey, I have an AL40 that I'm going to use as my emergency O2 kit. Will you fill it with my emergency O2 card?"
Unfortunately asking the question of whether they will or not is impossible to answer on here because each shop is different and sometimes their relationship with each diver will vary the answer.
40min is still too small. Even if the hospital is only 10 minutes away it will take you at least 20 to get to the point where you can get them in the car, 10 mins to get there, and almost guaranteed they will not put you on their O2 until a doctor sees you but I don't believe they can take your O2 away. @Trace Malinowski has had a lot of problems over the last few years because the hospital refused to put him on O2 in the ER.....

If they are so bad that the NEED 100% O2 just to survive, you driving them to the hospital isn't the right choice. Call in the professionals.

 

[-JD-]

@tbone1004 What do you reasonably expect for O2 fills on an AL40 (pressure)? At comparable pressure it seems like my "E" bottle is 80%+ capacity of an AL40
Also, I see a bunch about 80% vs 100% O2 for deco, so should we be considering the limitation of that?

Given that I have the 02 kit already, I think something like the DGX Din-to-Pin adapter probably makes more sense on cost/size/weight for me compared to the RescueEAN (if I get to the point of having O2 or rich Nitrox bottles around)

DGX Gears Adapter: DIN to CGA-870 Pin Index POST

The DGX DIN to Pin index Oxygen adapter lets you connect an emergency medical oxygen PIN Index Regulator to a common 200 BAR DIN cylinder valve.

www.divegearexpress.com

 

[sandiegoaes]

In both you get a Jumbo D cylinder with pin index valve which I personally believe is utterly useless in most applications. They are rated at ~40 minutes at 15lpm which is about 0.5cfm and what a diver is going to be breathing just hanging out at the surface. This is NOT enough to get you to a hyperbaric chamber from a shore dive area, it is not enough to keep you on O2 until you get hooked up when at the hyperbaric chamber, and is nowhere near enough to get you to a chamber from a boat. These bottles are enough to sort you out while giving rescue breaths to a non-breathing patient, but are just enough to give you a false sense of security IMO.

I have come to view the DAN kit as a "tween" kit. Don't get me wrong, it is a nicely put together package. However, the $600-700 price tag is way to much for most to buy it.

As you point out, the tank is the limiting factor. It is really meant for someone who shore dives or only goes 10 minutes offshore. An example would be San Diego. The DAN kit would be great for an instructor to slap a student on O2 at La Jolla Shores or the Marine Room until the Lifeguard truck showed up with better equipment. The same could be said for a boat diving Wreck Alley. You could put the injured diver on O2 while the Harbor Patrol came out to you or you could motor back to the dock.

When I was actively open circuit tech diving, we would bring two K cylinders of welding O2 on the boat. One would be used for in water recompression, the other was used as backup and we had a OMS semi full face O2 regulator on a QT connector and 50 foot hose. If someone got bent, you could snake the hose around the deck to provide for them. We also carried a transfill whip that could be used to decant O2 into our deco bottles and someone could breath off their deco reg in a pinch in there was multiple injured divers.

I paid for both these setups and still had about $300 left over compared to buying a DAN kit.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

I'm an "other." I don't personally own a kit, but the vast majority of my diving is in one of the following situations:

1. Research diving, where I have a University-owned kit with me every time.
2. Teaching SCUBA for the University or for an LDS: Again, the kit goes with me every dive.
3. Diving in the tropics on a charter dive boat. There's a kit on the boat.

I suppose I shouldn't be doing this, but since a lot of my personal dive gear is co-mingled with the University oxygen kit in our dive locker, and I'm the only one supervising dives under University auspices (i.e., nobody else will need it if I'm not there), I routinely grab it any time I'm diving.

If I ever left the University setting, I think I'd probably buy a kit. It costs less than a dry suit, couple of mondo cylinders, high-end computer, etc., and is more likely to save a life in the settings I dive in than most of those things.

For what it's worth, I've used it in an emergency exactly once. A first-time open water student got immersion pulmonary edema. In the end, EMS didn't transport her (she was deemed stable and safe to transport with a friend driving) so she kept breathing from my little DAN kit to the hospital. I won't bore you with Seattle's traffic woes, but what should have been a 15 minute ride was more like 25 minutes. The oxygen lasted with the patient using a demand regulator. I think it made a difference: Firefighters measured her oxygen saturation at 80% on the beach after having breathed pure oxygen for the 5 minutes or so it took to them to get there and to warm her hand enough to get a reading. She was 85% at the hospital after staying on oxygen. I suspect she was even lower when we hit the surface and she was spewing yellowish brown foam....

(And for local Seattle folks: SDOT is utterly incompetent.)

 

[Gareth J]

I'm an other.

Our Club has two sets, + a spare cylinder for each. At least one kit will go with us on any trip (+ a spare cylinder). We occasionally take two. If there are two trips running simultaneously, one with each of the trips.

All of the boats we use have O2 on board. We still take a kit it always goes onto the boat. Normally the kit goes back to the dig's with us, if any one develops symptoms later, we have a kit on hand.

All the kits are equipped with adapters to allow the kits to be used with -
- J Cylinders of O2
- DIN adapters allowing Diving cylinders of O2, decompression gas, or the next richest Nitrox to be used

In the years I've been diving we have used them a number of times to treat casualties !


Earlier in the thread there was a discussion about O2 in ambulances. All UK ambulances carry Entonox, which a 50% nitrous oxide 50% oxygen mix. This is the standard gas administered to casualties. All (UK) O2 courses clearly state you need to advise the paramedics its a diving related injury and NOT to administer Entonox. (In fairness, these days, most ambulance crews are very aware of this).

Gareth

 

[tbone1004]

@tbone1004 What do you reasonably expect for O2 fills on an AL40 (pressure)? At comparable pressure it seems like my "E" bottle is 80%+ capacity of an AL40
Also, I see a bunch about 80% vs 100% O2 for deco, so should we be considering the limitation of that?

Given that I have the 02 kit already, I think something like the DGX Din-to-Pin adapter probably makes more sense on cost/size/weight for me compared to the RescueEAN (if I get to the point of having O2 or rich Nitrox bottles around)

DGX Gears Adapter: DIN to CGA-870 Pin Index POST

The DGX DIN to Pin index Oxygen adapter lets you connect an emergency medical oxygen PIN Index Regulator to a common 200 BAR DIN cylinder valve.

www.divegearexpress.com

I own several boosters not including the PSA machine/Oxygen compressor in my garage. The Homefill is good for 2200psi and if I need more I can always boost it higher. If you are in cave country, then you can rely on 2800psi fills all day every day, but not in most areas. Personally I use a LP72 for emergency surface oxygen, but that's just me. AL40 is a deco bottle and is usually intended to be used.

If you have an O2 kit already the DIN adapter can be a decent option though at a similar price to the RescuEAN, probably similar weight, albeit smaller size I would still argue that the pod is the right answer because it doesn't rely on you moving regulators around. I.e. if you get an AL40 that has a deco regulator on it, then to use emergency O2 you have to remove the regulator that is on that bottle and replace it with the din adapter, then remove the pin index from the medical bottle and transfer. Alternatively you plug the pod into the inflator hose and move the O2 line if you go from medical to scuba. If you go from scuba to scuba then it's just an inflator hose.

@sandiegoaes I don't think you could piece that kit together today for $400, but I definitely think the DAN kit is meant to give people warm fuzzies and look good more than it is to actually treat a serious DCS incident. The question becomes what level of risk you are taking as divers, what are the odds of having to breathe surface O2 for extended time etc. I said above that I leave the O2 kit in my truck 24/7 because I personally believe the odds of having to use it in a non-diving application are infinitely higher than in a diving emergency. For big boy stuff, we have a full IWR kit that is going to be used long before we try to head to a chamber because the chamber reliability these days is atrocious and you have to bank on something idiotic like 6+ hours until treatment in most parts of the country, even if you get medivac'd. I'll personally be proactive with something like this. If there were more reliable chambers it would be different, but sadly they are few and far between.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

O2 is a formality. It is better to have refined your CPR skills.

 

[formernuke]

O2 is a formality. It is better to have refined your CPR skills.

I never learned to do CPR on myself.

 

[sourdough]

O2 is a formality. It is better to have refined your CPR skills.

I've seen enough cinema to know you just slam your fists on their chest while shouting some variation of "Dude stay with us dude!" until they cough up a polite gulp of water which is your cue to turn them onto their side, or squeeze their cheeks in elation before cuddling/hugging rigorously on the sand.