My Husband was in a spearfishing diving accident and I need advice

[lesliekayramsey]

My husband was in a recent diving accident. He was spearfishing and he hooked on a big fish and his speargun was attached to him and couldn't get it off and the fish pulled him down over 220 feet. He was not able to depresserize like he was supposed to and go the bends. He has been in ths hospital for 5 days now been in the decompression chamber 4 times 5 to 6 hour sessions each time and he has slowly been getting better but he is having issues with his knees. He has a bad red rash on each one of his knees looks like a sun burn and it feels like pins and needles he says and now he says it is starting to go numb. The doc is not doing much but putting him in the decompression chamber time after time. Is there anything that we can do more? Any tests that they can run. I am scared that something bad is going to happen to him. He is full time active military and he needs full access to his leggs. Please any suggestions will be greatly apprectiated!

 

[mdax]

Contact Divers Alert Network now

Diving Emergencies (Remember: Call local EMS first, then DAN!)
+1-919-684-9111

They have medical professionals on staff that will know how to guide efforts. They will answer and provide advice regardless of whether your husband is a DAN member or not.
Call them immediately, also have your doctor call them if possible.

 

[boulderjohn]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

I am moving this to the diving medicine forum where the physicians who are part of ScubaBoard are more likely to view it, since the question is more about the treatment than the accident.

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---------- Post Merged at 11:46 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:10 AM ----------

The doc is not doing much but putting him in the decompression chamber time after time. Is there anything that we can do more? Any tests that they can run. I am scared that something bad is going to happen to him.

Although I am not a physician, I am quite sure that the doctor treating him is quite aware of the latest procedures for dealing with decompression sickness--they don't have just anyone running those chambers.A friend of mine had a pretty bad case of DCS, and the treatment he received did not entail a lot more than successive chamber treatments before he was finally completely cured.

I fully understand your fear, and I wish I could assure you that everything is going to be fine. Many people have had even worse situations than you describe for your husband, and many (probably most) of them come through it perfectly fine. There are exceptions, though. If I were you, I would be anxiously hopeful, as you seem to be, but I would also have as positive an outloook as possible.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

My husband was in a recent diving accident. He was spearfishing and he hooked on a big fish and his speargun was attached to him and couldn't get it off and the fish pulled him down over 220 feet. He was not able to depresserize like he was supposed to and go the bends. He has been in ths hospital for 5 days now been in the decompression chamber 4 times 5 to 6 hour sessions each time and he has slowly been getting better but he is having issues with his knees. He has a bad red rash on each one of his knees looks like a sun burn and it feels like pins and needles he says and now he says it is starting to go numb. The doc is not doing much but putting him in the decompression chamber time after time. Is there anything that we can do more? Any tests that they can run. I am scared that something bad is going to happen to him. He is full time active military and he needs full access to his leggs. Please any suggestions will be greatly apprectiated!

Lesley,

I'm sorry to hear about your husband's accident. I know it's frightening for you, but I'm sure he's getting excellent care.

Recurrence of symptoms between treatments is not common but it does happen, and the best thing to do is exactly what's being done for him. The standard of care for decompression sickness is to continue chamber treatments until the symptoms either resolve or plateau, i.e. don't get any better with treatment. Hyperbaric treatment is the best (and typically the only) therapy. Your husband may have residual neurological symptoms on discharge but there is an excellent chance that those symptoms will resolve, or at least improve, with time.

The treating physician is the best source of information, but if you have any other questions or need a point clarified, please feel free to post here.

Best regards,
DDM