has anyone felt advance warning of lung squeeze before?

[GrimSleeper]

I m still here, doc cleared me, didnt find anything in the imaging.

i almost regret reading up so much about pneumothorax, there is a minute chance of it happening to anyone & there is not much you can do about it underwater apart from not ascending. very scary stuff

does the padi rescue course cover the in water (at depth) self first aid for this?

thx

It's natural, I think, for people new to an activity to ascribe everything they're feeling to that activity, and forget that normal life is still going on. I once had a student who scared the hell out of me by saying one afternoon that she had a strange feeling in her chest, slightly painful, almost as if there was a bubble of gas there. Then she said it felt exactly the same as when she drank milk, and I pointed out that the milkshake on the table in front of her did, in fact, contain milk…
The point being, the student was so consumed with the fact she was learning to do something quite alien - breathe underwater - that she forgot that some things just happen anyway in everyday life. In the same way, you felt something unusual while you were diving, so you ascribed that sensation to the diving rather than, say, indigestion.

Don't sweat it. Just remember what you were taught and keep an open airway while ascending, and you'll almost certainly be fine. As for pneumothorax, I've seen a couple, and trust me - you'd know all about it if you'd done it! And the first aid is to get out of the water and get emergency medical attention - once you've popped your lung, it's done. You certainly wouldn't want to stay at depth.

 

[espadin]

And the first aid is to get out of the water and get emergency medical attention - once you've popped your lung, it's done. You certainly wouldn't want to stay at depth.

i can understand the logic behind this policy, that it would be highly unlikely that recreational groups would be prepared/equipped to keep the afflicted person at depth while they released the pressure.


But with commercial or military diving do they have procedures to pop a lung to prevent it growing to beachball size (&crushing everything else) on the way up to the surface?

 

[g1138]

Getting a person up in a face up flared position or in a vertical position should be enough to keep their airway open to equalize the lung spaces.
If not then there's bigger problems in your victim that can't be solved underwater; so in either case you're taking them up.

Popping a lung leads to an air embolism and that often means your victim is unconsious within a matter of minutes. Rescuing an unconscious diver from underwater basically equates to rescuing a dead person. You're not going to revive them unless you get them to the surface and to a hospital.

Military and commercial divers are pretty much the same. Only caveat is their extraction may be to a hyperbaric chamber stationed underwater near their work station. Person goes in the chamber, chamber is evacuated to the surface under pressure, and a doctor is put in.
Most work chambers like that are multi-doored. Meaning you have an airlock stage and a main room. Someone could come from surface pressure, pressurize in the airlock, then enter the main room. So you wouldn't have to depressurize the whole chamber to bring someone in or out. That situation would be something at a deep water work site.

 

[GrimSleeper]

i can understand the logic behind this policy, that it would be highly unlikely that recreational groups would be prepared/equipped to keep the afflicted person at depth while they released the pressure.


But with commercial or military diving do they have procedures to pop a lung to prevent it growing to beachball size (&crushing everything else) on the way up to the surface?

The point is that the lung will 'deal with' the pressure by popping itself - it takes very little excess pressure to cause rupture of the lung itself or to force the excess gas into the arterial system. There's no procedure for staying at depth and preventing the lung from growing huge, simply because the lung can't grow huge: it gives way, instead. At which point, the victim really needs to receive expert medical care ASAP, which isn't going to happen underwater.


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[espadin]

There's no procedure for staying at depth and preventing the lung from growing huge, simply because the lung can't grow huge: it gives way, instead.

i used the term pop a lung incorrectly, i meant pop the intrapleural space/sac. lung rupture leaks compressed air into the sac, the leak has a tendency to behave like a one way flap, which cannot be equalized without a needle to pop it with.

i found this old thread actually describes this procedure Collapsed Lung Underwater [Archive] - ScubaBoard - Scuba Diving Forum - Diving Social Network
and mentions a training course (DMT) which covers the procedure.

just out of interest , have you ever heard of a case where this was actually used? possibly by commercial saturation divers, they would have no choice really as they cant surface anyways.
thx

 

[LarryHinDC]

When I had only a few dives under my belt, I would sometimes get a feeling like I couldn't completely inhale (as if I was wrapped in something contricting). I think the cause was simply nervousness and a bit of shallow breathing.